Large and lofty timber covered from base to summit these hills, increasing their grandeur by lifting to their height the immense vines found in great abundance all over them.  The dense wild cane, clothing as a garment the surface of every acre, went to the very tops of the highest hills, adding a strange feature to hill scenery.  The river only approaches these hills in a few places and always at right angles, and is by them deflected, leaving them always on the outer curve of the semicircle or bend in the stream.  From these points and from the summit of these cliffs the view is very fine, stretching often in many places far up and down the river and away over the plain west of the river, which seems to repose upon its lap as far as the eye can view.  The scene is sombre, but grand, especially when lighted by the evening’s declining sun.  The plain is unbroken by any elevation:  the immense trees rise to a great height, and all apparently to the same level—­the green foliage in summer strangely commingling with the long gray moss which festoons from the upper to the lower limbs, waving as a garland in the fitful wind; and the dead gray of the entire scene in winter is sad and melancholy as a vast cemetery.  There is a gloomy grandeur in this, which is only rivalled by that of the sea, when viewed from a towering height, lazily lolling in the quiet of a summer evening’s calm.

To encounter the perils of a pioneer to such a country required men of iron nerve.  Such, with women who dared to follow them, to meet and to share every danger and fearlessly to overcome every obstacle to their enterprise, coming from every section of the United States, formed communities and introduced the arts and industry of civilization, to subdue these forests and compel the soil to yield its riches for the use of man.  From these had grown a population, fifty years ago, combining the daring and noble traits of human character which lie at the base of a grand and chivalrous civilization.  Such men were the leaders and controllers of the society at that time, assuming a uniform and homogeneous character throughout the western portion of the State.  The invasion of New Orleans had endangered this section, and to a man they rallied to meet the foe.  More than half the male population of that portion of the State were at New Orleans and in the trenches on the memorable 8th of January, 1815.  Their conduct upon that occasion was distinguished, and won from General Jackson high commendation.  The charge of the Mississippi cavalry, commanded by General Thomas Hinds, the General, in his report of the battle, said, excited the admiration of one army and the astonishment of the other.

This campaign brought together the younger portion of the male population of the State, and under such circumstances as to make them thoroughly to know each other.  These men were the prominent personages of the State forty years ago, and they formed the character of the population and inspired the gallantry and chivalry of spirit which so distinguished the troops of Mississippi in the late unfortunate civil war—­in all, but in none so conspicuously, in this spirit and nobleness of soul and sentiment, as in the characters of Jefferson Davis and John A. Quitman—­foremost to take up arms in the war with Mexico, resigning high positions for the duties of the soldier, to follow the flag, and avenge the insults of a presumptuous foe.