be done, and then a man must stand up to it like a man.  But let me tell you, Alick, there are not half the men who want to fight that pretend to; you can tell this by their blustering.  Now, when you find one of these, and they are mighty common, just stand right up to him, and always appear to get madder than he does—­look him right in the eye all the time; but remember to keep cool, for sometimes a blusterer will fight; so keep cool, and be ready for anything.  But, Alick, the best way of all is to fight the first man that offers, and do it in such a way as to let everybody know you will fight, and you will not be much bothered after that.  Now, Alick, you will hear a great deal of preaching against fighting—­well, that is all right; but I tell you the best preacher among them all loves a man who will fight, a thousand times more than he does a coward who won’t.  All the world respects a brave man, because all the better qualities of human nature accompany courage.  A brave man is an honest man; he is a good husband, a good neighbor, and a true friend.  You never saw a true woman who did not love a brave man.  And now do you be off at once, look for a good place, and when you stop, stop to stay; and let all you say and all you do look to your advantage in the future.”

Long years after this parting scene, and when Porter had become a national man, he used to love to recount this conversation to his friends, and the impression it created upon his mind of the wonderful man who had so freely advised him.

When Porter came, he explored the entire country, and selected for his home Opelousas, the seat of justice for the parish of St. Landry.  To reach this point from New Orleans, at that time, required no ordinary exertion.  He came first to Donaldsonville, where he hired a man to bring him in a small skiff to the courthouse of the parish of Assumption.  There he employed another to transport him through the Verret Canal to the lakes, and on through these to Marie Jose’s landing, in Attakapas; then another was engaged to take him up the Teche to St. Martinsville, and from there he went by land to Opelousas.  This route is nearly three hundred miles.

The banks of the Teche he found densely populated with a people altogether different in appearance, and speaking a language scarcely one word of which he understood, and in everything different from anything he had ever before seen:  added to this, he found them distrustful, inhospitable, and hating the Americans, to whose dominion they had been so recently transferred.

He used to relate an anecdote of this trip, in his most humorous manner.  “I had,” he said, “been all day cramped up in the stern of a small skiff, in the broiling sun, with nothing to drink but the tepid water of the Teche.  I was weary and half sick, when I came to the front of a residence, which wore more the appearance of comfort and respectability than any I had passed during the day.  It was on Sunday, and there were a number