The society of Western Mississippi, forty years ago, was distinguished above any other in the Union, for a bold, generous, and frank character, which lent a peculiar charm.  It was polished, yet it was free and unreserved, full of the courtesies of life, with the rough familiarity of a coarser people.  The sports of the turf were pursued with enthusiastic ardor.  The chase for the fox and the red deer pervaded almost universally the higher walks of life.  The topography of the country was such as to make these, in the fearless rides they compelled, extremely hazardous, familiarizing their votaries with danger and inspiring fearlessness and daring.  Almost every gentleman had his hunting steed and kennel of hounds; and at the convivial dinner which always followed the hunt, he could talk horse and hound with the zest of a groom or whipper-in, and at the evening soiree emulate D’Orsay or Chesterfield in the polish of his manners and the elegance of his conversation.  This peculiarity was not alone confined to the gentlemen.  The ladies were familiar with every household duty, and attended to them:  they caught from their husbands and brothers the open frankness of their bearing and conversation, a confident, yet not a bold or offensive bearing in their homes and in society, with a polished refinement and an elevation of sentiment in all they said or did, which made them to me the most charming and lovely of their sex—­and which made Mississippi forty years ago the most desirable place of rural residence in the Union.

The conduct of these people was universally lofty and honorable.  A fawning sycophancy or little meannesses were unknown; social intercourse was unrestrained because all were honorable, and that reserve which so plainly speaks suspicion of your company was never seen.  There was no habit of canvassing the demerits of a neighbor or his affairs.  The little backbitings and petty slanders which so frequently mar the harmony of communities, was never indulged or tolerated.  Homogeneous in its character, the population was harmonious.  United in the same pursuits, the emulation was kind and honorable.  The tone and purity was superior to low and debasing vices, and these and their concomitants were unknown.  There were few dram-shops or places of low resort, and these only for the lower and more debased of the community.  Fortunately, fifty years ago, there were but few such characters, no meetings for gaming or debauchery, and the social communion of the people was chaste and cordial at their hospitable and elegant homes.

A peculiar feature of the society of the river counties was the perfect freedom of manners, and yet the high polish, the absence of neighborhood discord, and the strict regard for personal and pecuniary rights:  a sort of universal confidence pervaded every community, and in every transaction personal honor supplied the place of litigation.  Strangers of respectable appearance were not met with apparent suspicion, but