This social intercourse is highly promotive of a general amity, as it cultivates an intimacy which at once familiarizes every one with the feelings, situation, and intentions of the other.  Sometimes the contiguity of plantations enables the families of planters to exchange formal morning and evening calls, but most generally the distance to be overgone is too great for this.  Then the visiting is done by families, and extends to days, and sometimes weeks.  Provisions are so abundant that the extra consumption is never missed, and the residences are always of such dimensions that the visitors seem scarcely to increase the family—­never to be in the way; and the suits of apartments occupied by them were built and furnished for the purpose to which they are then devoted.  The visitor is at home.  The character of the hospitality he is enjoying permits him to breakfast from seven till ten, alone, or in company with the family if he chooses.  Horses, dogs, and guns for the gentlemen—­billiards, the carriage, music, or promenading, with cards, chess, backgammon, or dominos for the ladies, to pass away the day until dinner.  At this meal the household and guests unite, and the rich viands, wines, and coffee make a feast for the body and sharpen the wit to a feast of the soul.  This society is the freest and most refined to be found in the country.

Upon the coast of the Mississippi, from Baton Rouge to many miles below the city, the proximity of the large plantations presents an opportunity of close and constant intercourse.  A very large majority of these are the property and habitations of the cultivated and intelligent Creoles of the State.  And here let me explain the term Creole, which has led to so many ludicrous, and sometimes to painful mistakes.  It is an arbitrary term, and imported from the West Indies into Louisiana.  Its original meaning was a native born of foreign parents; but universal use has made it to mean, in Louisiana, nothing more than simply “native;” and it is applied indiscriminately to everything native to the State—­as Creole cane, Creole horse, Creole negro, or creole cow.  Many confound its meaning with that of quadroon, and suppose it implies one of mixed blood, or one with whose blood mingles that of the African—­than which no meaning is more foreign to the word.

The Creole planters, or what are termed French Creoles, are descended from a very different race from the Acadian Creole, or Iberian.  The first colonists who came to Louisiana were men of the first blood and rank in France.  The Ibervilles, the Bienvilles, St. Denises, and many others, were of noble descent; and the proud prestige of their names and glorious deeds still clings around their descendants now peopling the lands they conquered from the desert, the savage, and the flood.  These daring men brought with them the chivalrous spirit which descended to their sons—­the open, gallant bearing; the generous hospitality; the noble humanity; the honor which prefers