Geographical Features of the State of Louisiana.—Conclusion.

Louisiana lies under the same degree of north latitude as Egypt, and bears a striking resemblance to that country. Their soil, their climate, and their very rivers, exhibit the same features, with the exception, that the Mississippi runs from north to south, whereas the Nile takes an opposite course. Close to the eastern bank of the former, we find a continued series of Cyprus, swamps, and lakes, sometimes intersected by a tributary stream of the Mississippi, with elevated banks or hills. Farther towards the east are large tracts of lands, with pinewoods stretching towards the river Mobile, which resembles the Mississippi in every thing, except in size. Further southward, between the Mississippi and Mobile, we find the rivers Amite, Tickfah, Tangipao, Pearl, Pascagola, emptying themselves into a chain of lakes and swamps, running in a south-east direction from the Mississippi to the mouth of the Mobile. Further to the westward is the Mississippi in its meandering course, its banks lined with plantations from Natchez to New Orleans, each plantation extending half a mile back to the swamps. South of New Orleans, is another chain of swamps, lakes, and bayons, terminating in the gulf of Mexico. West of the Mississippi, a multitude of rivers flow in a thousand windings, lined with impenetrable forests of cyprus, cotton trees, and cedars, intermixed with canebrack and the palmetta. In this labyrinth of rivers, the Red-river, the Arkansas, the White-river, and Tensaw rivers are seen meandering. Farther east are the immense prairies of Opelausas, and Attacapas, interspersed here and there with rising farms, forests along the banks of the Red-river, and more to the westward the great prairies, the resort of innumerable buffaloes and of every kind of game. The Red-river, like the Mississippi, forms an impenetrable series of swamps and lakes. Beyond this river are seen pinewoods, from which issues the Ouachitta, losing itself afterwards in the Delta of the Mississippi. Beyond these pine woods, in a north western direction, rise the Mazernes mountains, extending from the east to west 200 miles, and forming the boundary line between east and west Louisiana. To the north and west of the Red-river, the country is dry and healthy, but of inferior quality; to the east we find a chain of lakes; to the south another chain. In summer they dry up, thus affording fine pasturage to buffaloes. In autumn, with the rising of the rivers, they again fill with water. Southward is a continued lake, intermixed with swamps, which terminate at last in the gulph of Mexico.

Louisiana, though the smallest of the states and territories formed out of the ancient Louisiana, is by far the most important, and the central point of the western commonwealth. Its boundaries are, on the south, the Gulph of Mexico; on the west, the Mexican province of Tecas; on the north, the Arkansas territory, and the state of Mississippi; and on the east, the state of Mississippi, and Mexico. The number of inhabitants amounts to 190,000, 106,000 of whom are people of colour. The constitution of the state inclines to Federal. The governor, the senators, and the representatives, in order to be eligible, must be possessed of landed property—the former to the amount of at least 5000 dollars, the next 1000, and the latter 500. Every citizen of the state is qualified to vote. The government in this, as well as in every other state, is divided into three separate branches. The chief magistrate of the state is elected for the term of four years. Under him he has a secretary of state. The present governor is an Anglo-American; Mr. Johnson, the secretary, is a Creole.

The legislative branch is composed of the senators, and of the house of representatives. The former consists of sixteen members, elected for the term of four years. They choose from among themselves a president, who takes the place of the governor, in case of the demise of the latter.[K] The house of representatives consists of forty-four members, headed by a speaker; the court of justice of three judges of the district court, a supreme judge of the criminal court of New Orleans, and eight district judges, with an equal number of district attorneys. The sessions are held every Monday. The parish and county courts have twenty-eight county or parish judges, twenty-six sheriffs, and 159 lawyers, to assist them in their labours. In a political view, the acquisition of Louisiana is no doubt the most important occurrence in the United States since the revolution; and, considered altogether, it may be called a second revolution. Independently of the pacific acquisition of a country containing nearly a million and a half of square miles, with the longest river in the world flowing through a valley several thousand miles in length and breadth, their geographical position is now secured, and they form, since the further acquisition of Florida, a whole and compact body, with a coast extending upwards of 1000 miles along the gulph of Mexico, and 500 miles on the Pacific ocean. Whether the vast increase of wealth amassed by most of those who settled on the banks of the Mississippi will prove strong enough to retain this political link unbroken, is very much to be doubted. It is very clear that the inhabitants of the valley of the Mississippi, and especially of Louisiana, entertain a feeling of estrangement from their northern fellow citizens.

With the exception of a number of respectable Americans, Louisiana and the valley of the Mississippi have hitherto been the refuge of all classes of foreigners, good and bad, who sought here an asylum from oppression and poverty, or from the avenging arm of justice in their native countries. Many have not succeeded in their expectations—many have died—others returned, exasperated against a country which had disappointed their hopes, because they expected to find superior beings, and discovered that they were men neither worse nor better than their habits, propensities, country, climate, and a thousand other circumstances had made them. The fault was theirs. Though there exists not, perhaps, a country in the world where a fortune can be made in an easier way, yet it cannot be made without industry, steadiness, and a small capital to begin with—things in which these people were mostly deficient. And there is another circumstance not to be lost sight of. Whoever changes his country should have before him a complete view and a clear idea of the state in which he intends to settle, as well as of the rest of the Union: he ought to depend upon his own means, on himself in short, and not upon others. Upon no other terms will prosperity and happiness attend the emigrant’s exertions in the United States. The foreign mechanic who, emigrating into the United States, selects the states of New York, Pennsylvania, or Ohio, will find sufficient occupation, his trade respected, and his industry rewarded by wealth and political consequence. The manufacturer with a moderate capital, will choose Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and the like places. The merchant who is possessed of 2 or 3000 dollars, and settles in Ohio, in the north western part of Pennsylvania, or over in Illinois, will, if he be prudent and steady, have no reason to complain of the Yankees. The farmer, with a capital of from 3 to 4000 dollars, will fix upon the state of Ohio, in preference to any other, especially if he comes accompanied only by his own family, and is therefore obliged to rely on the friendly assistance of his neighbours. He will there prefer the lands adjacent to navigable rivers, or to the rise of the new canal. If he goes beyond Ohio, he will find eligible situations in Illinois, and in Missouri. Any one who can command a capital exceeding 10,000 dollars, who is not incumbered with a large family, and whose mind does not revolt at the idea of being the owner of slaves, will choose the state of Mississippi, or of Louisiana, and realize there in a short time a fortune beyond his most sanguine expectations. He has his choice there of the unsold lands along the Mississippi, and Red-river, in the parishes of Plaquemines or Bayon Bastier; in the interior, of La Fourche, Iberville, Attacapas, Opelousas, Rapides, Nachitoches, Concordia, New Feliciana, and all the way up the Mississippi, to Walnut-hills, four hundred miles above New Orleans. All that has been urged against the unhealthiness of the country may be answered in these few words. Louisiana, though not at every season of the year equally salubrious, is far healthier than Cuba, Jamaica, and the West Indies in general. Thousands of people live free from the attacks of any kind of fever. On the plantations there is not the least danger.—In New Orleans the yellow fever has not appeared these four years past, and the place is so far from being unhealthy now, that the mortality for the last three years was less in this place than in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. Cleanliness, sobriety, a strict attention to the digestive system, and the avoiding of strong liquors, and exposure to heat, or to the rising miasmata, will keep every one as healthy in Louisiana as any where else. The neglect of proper precautions will cause as serious inconvenience in Louisiana as in any other country. This is the real condition of the state, and those acquainted with it will readily bear testimony to the correctness of my opinion, that it holds out not only to British emigrants, but also to capitalists of that country, advantages far surpassing those of their own vast dominions in any quarter of the globe.

In Louisiana they should embark a part of their capital, not in land speculations, or in buying extensive tracts, which they have to sell in the course of time in small parcels, but in plantations. These are sources of wealth far superior to the gold mines of Mexico, and are guaranteed by a firm constitution, and by the character and the habits of a liberal people, taken in the whole, whatever John Bull may have to say against it. In this manner may the said John Bull still reap the reward of his having formed and maintained the first settlements in the United States, at a vast expense of blood and treasure.

This would be the means of drawing closer the now rather relaxed ties which formerly united him with his kinsman, for Brother Jonathan is neither so bad as John Bull supposes him to be, nor so faultless as he fancies himself.—Medium tenuere beati.

THE END.