he found he did not like the place, exciting the Indian warrior and Ne gro king to precipitate their nations into the horrors of war; but I en. deavoured to dispel these melancholy feelings by the recollection of our Bible and Missionary Societies, and of that faithful band of veterans who, through evil report and good report, amid occasional success and accumulated disappointment, still continue the undismayed, uncompromising advocates of injured Africa. We bade adieu to the Indian nation on the evening of the 28th, crossing Lime Creek, the western boundary, in a boat. We had travelled that day about 40 miles, and had passed as usual many large parties of emigrants, from South Carolina and Georgia, and many gangs of slaves. Indeed,at the edges of the creeks and on the banks of the rivers, we usually found a curious collection of sans soucis, sulkies, carts, Jersey waggons, heavy waggons, little planters, Indians, Negro horses, mules, and oxen; the women and little children sitting down frequently for one, two, or three, and sometimes for five or six hours, to work or play, while the men were engaged in the almost hopeless task of dragging or swimming their vehicles and baggage to the opposite side. Often a light carriage with a sallow planter and his lady would bring up the rear of a long cavalcade, and indicate the removal of a family of some wealth, who allured by the rich lands of Alabama or the sugar plantations on the Mississippi, had bidden adieu to the scenes of their youth, and undertaken a long and painful pilgrimage through the wilderness. We left Lime Creek early on the 29th, and, after riding a few miles, arrived at Point Comfort; a fine cotton plantation, whose populous neighbourhood, and highly cultivated fields, reminded us that we were no longer travelling through a nation of hunters. Indeed, the appearance of oaks in the place of our pine woods, was indicative of a ma terial change in the soil; and we soon opened on some of the beautiful prairies which you have frequently seen described, and which, as they were not large,reminded me of our meadows in the well wooded parts of England. As travellers, however, we paid dearly for the advantages offered to the landholders by the rich soil over which we were passing. Our road, which Our road, which had hitherto been generally excellent for travelling on horseback, became as wretchedly bad; and we passed through three swamps, which I feared would ruin our horses. They were about a mile long each; but we estimated the fatigue of crossing any of them as equivalent to at least 15 or 20 miles of common travelling. They were overshadowed with beautiful but entangling trees, without any regular tract through the verdure which covered the thick clay in which our horses frequently stuck, as much at a loss where to take the next step, as how to extricate themselves from the last. Sometimes they had to scramble out of the deep mire upon the trunk of a fallen tree, from which they could not descend without again sinking on the other side. Sometimes we were so completely entangled in the vines, that we were compelled to dismount to cut our way out of the vegetable meshes in which we seemed to be entrapped. These swamps are ten times more formidable than even the flooded creeks, over two of which, in less than three miles, we had this day to have our horses swum by Indians, whose agility in the water is beautiful. The traveller himself is either conveyed over in a boat, or, if the creek is very narrow, crosses it on a large tree, which has been so dexterously felled as to fall across and form a tolerable bridge. We slept that night at a poor cabin just erected, and setting off early on the 30th, and passing by Pine Barren Spring, and two very bad swamps, stopped to breakfast at a solitary house, where our host's talkative daughter made breakfast for us. She could not refrain the expression of her surprize at the sight of a White servant, having never seen one before, and was much more astonished when I told her that the White and Black servants in my country eat at the same table. We arrived in the evening at a few palings which have dignified the place with the appellation of Fort Dale, where travellers are accommodated tolerably on a flourishing plantation. Our landlord was an intelligent man; and among his books I saw the Bible, the koran, a hymn book, Nicholson's Encyclopedia, Sterne, Burns, Cowper, Cœlebs, Camilla, and the Acts of the Alabama Legislature, of which he was a member. The next morning we breakfasted at a retired house 20 miles distant, kept by one of three families who came out of Georgia two years since to settle and to protect each other. The husband of one of the party has since been shot by the Indians in the woods. He died in three hours after he was found weltering in his blood, and was attended by the woman who gave me the account. The wife of another of the party was murdered by the Indians a few days afterward when on a visit to some friends fifteen miles distant, where five women and four children were butchered and scalped; and the house of the narrator was soon afterwards burnt to the ground bythe same enemy, provoked probably by some injury or insult offered by travellers through their nation, which they would retaliate on the Whites whenever they had an opportunity. We passed in the afternoon by "Indian Path;" and about twilight arrived at Murder Creek, at deep glen, where we took up our abode for the night. The name sounded rather terrific, after the dismal stories we had heard in the day; but as the man and his wife, my servant, two travellers in a bed, and three in their blankets on the floor, all slept in the same room as myself, a single glance in any direction was suffi cient, with the aid of the glimmering of our wood fire,to dispel any fearful visions of the night. This little creek aud valley derive their name from the murder of 18 or 20 Whites by the Indians, fifteen years since, They were camping out when the Indians fell upon them; and the scene of the massacre is marked out by a black stump in the garden. We left Murder Creek by moonlight, at 4 o'clock on the 1st inst.; and passing by Burnt Corn, where we quitted the usual road to Mobile, we took the nearer but more solitary route to Blakeley. We breakfasted with a very pleasing family in the middle of the forest. They were the first whom I heard regret that they had quitted Georgia; they said that although they could do better here than in Georgia, the manners of their neighbours were rough and ill suited to their taste, They stated, however, that things were improving; that the laws respecting the observance of the Sabbath were enforced; and that they hoped much from the liberal provision made by Government, in the sale of the public lands, for an extensive school in the centre of everytownship of six miles square, Their children were attending gratis (as is customary) the school in their township, which is already established, although the population is as yet very scanty. The master who teaches Latin, and, I believe, French, has a salary of 700 dollars per annum, and the neighbours are providing him with assistant tutors. This liberal provision for schools in all the newly settled countries, does great credit to the American Government; and it is impossible to estimate too highly its probable ultimate effects. Our host and his family gave us a little provision for the night; as they told us that we must not expect to get "a bite" for ourselves or our horses in less than fifty miles, and we had already tra. velled thirteen. Our road again lay through a most solitary pine barren on a high ridge. The only thingwhich CHRIST, OBSERV. No. 251. attracted my attention during the morning, was a finger-post of wood fastened to a tree and pointing down a grass path, and on which was written "To Pensacola." I felt more lonelyand more distant from home at that moment, than at any time since I lost sight of my native shores. In the afternoon we were surprized by one of the most sublimely dreadful spectacles I ever beheld. Thousands of large pine trees lay torn and shattered on each other, only one in four or five having been left standing, by a dreadful hurricane which occurred a fortnight before, and the ravages of which extended nearly twelve miles. Some had been thrown down with such prodigious violence, that their thick trunks were broken into two or three pieces by the fall; others were splintered from the top nearly to the bottom; while others were lying on each other four or five thick, with their branches intertwined as if they had been torn up by the roots in a body. But it is in vain to attempt to describe the spectacle. I will only say that the most dreadful tossing of the ocean never impressed me so strongly with the idea of uncontrollable power, as this magnificent scene of devastation. Our road was so completely buried that we had to hunt our track at some distance in the woods. My servant observed, "What a many hundred miles people in England would go to see such a sight!" It is such hurricanes as these that Volney describes, as twisting off and lay. ing level the largest trees within the limits of their range; and he very aptly compares their course through the forest, to that of a reaper through a field of wheat. We had intended to stop at sunset, as in these latitudes there is little or no twilight; but as usual we could not persuade ourselves that the night would close upon us immediately, and the ground was so wet on the Table-land of the ridge,'that we proceeded in order to discover a better place to rest for 4 Z the night, till we found ourselves benighted among the swamps, our horses sinking and stumbling, and frequently passing through water two or three feet deep, out of which we could scarcely see our way. The damps of the night in this watery region, prevented our alighting to try to make a fire, till the moon should enable us to proeeed; and indeed we did not think it prudent to dismount on account of the alligators which abound here: we had about sunset passed very near one. Our ears were stunned with the frog concerts which now and then arose and depressed our spirits, by intimating that we were approaching another swamp, al. though it was too dark to see it. What different emotions the frog concerts in Africa excited in Mungo Park, who hailed them as symptoms of his approach to the water, for which he was panting. This was the first time I had really felt in an awkward situation, and my servant's spirits began to fail him. He told me afterwards, that for two hours, the perspiration was dropping from his face, and his knees were shaking as if he was in an ague; the more so as he was afraid that our pound of bacon, which was in his saddle-bag, would allure the alligators to him. We were suddently surprized by a number of moving lights, which led us to suppose that some persons were scouring the forest; but we heard no noise: even when many of them appeared to be moving round us within a few yards' distance, all was silent when we stopped our horses. At last it flashed across my mind that these moving lights must proceed from the beautiful fire-flies we had often heard of, but which I had supposed were confined to the East. Even at such a moment I was delighted with their beauty, evanescent as it was; for they soon disappeared. Occasionally we were again deluded by a solitary fire-fly at a distance, which twinkled like a light from a cottage-window, and to which we several times bent our steps, our spirits depressed by every successive disappointment. At last, just as the moon rose, we reached an elevated spot, where we lighted our fire, toasted our bacon, and after securing our horses by a little fence of saplings, lay down on our blankets under the trees with no common satisfaction. We started before four o'clock the next morning, and breakfasted at a house about ten miles distant. The settlement was establish. ed about fifteen years since-the Indians, contrary to their usual custom, having permitted it; but although the owner had more than 2000 head of cattle grazing in the woods, he had neither milk nor butter to give us to our coffee. This is an extreme case; but it is not uncommon, in this part of the country, to be unable to procure either milk or butter where eighteen or twenty cows are kept, solid animal food being much preferred. Humboldt, you recollect, in the account of his journey from the mountains of Parapara to the banks of the Apure, mentions arriving at a farm where he was told of herds of several thousand cows grazing in the steppes; and yet he asked in vain for a bowl of milk. At the house where we breakfasted, we saw the skin of a bear drying in the sun: seven miles farther we passed a large panther, or tyger, as it is called, which had been lately killed and stuffed. At the next house was the skin of a rattle-snake, which the woman who lived there had killed a few nights before. At this retired house we were detained two or three hours by a violent thunder storm with extremely heavy rain. As soon as the rain abated we set off again to Blakeley, which we were anxious to reach as it was Saturday night. Indeed for the last three days we had travelled fortyfive miles each day, in order to ar rive before Sunday; but to our disappointment, we found there was no church or meeting there of any 1822.] Parochial Libraries—Queries on elegant Literature, description: and we accordingly crossed the bay in the morning to go to church at this place [Mobile], where we were equally disappointed; for, to the disgrace of Protestant America, no place of worship is established here except a Catholic church, built by the French or Spanish. I am, &c. (To be continued.) To the Editor of the Christian Observer. A VICAR of a country parish who is desirous of establishing a small parochial library, would be much obliged to any correspondent of the Christian Observer who is practically conversant with the details of the subject, to give him and others similarly circumstanced, the result of his experience respecting that prime point, the choice of books. The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge has laudably patronised this great object; and many excellent and invaluable publications appear on its list; but the writer has many doubts as to -the propriety of its exclusive plan, which allows of no other works being admitted into the same library with those from Bartlett's Buildings. Who would exclude, for example, the Cheap Repository Tracts, or Mr. Watkins's Tracts, or many of the Bristol Tracts, &c. ? Is there any select but sufficiently extensive and varied list extant, of cheap, scriptural, and popularly interesting books and tracts fit for the purpose; such as a judicious Christian and clergyman can cordially recommend, and which bis parishioners are likely to be gratified with, and to read" to their souls' health?" A COUNTRY VICAR. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. HAVING frequently observed, in your pages, that many questions difficult to answer accurately, but involving great practical conse 699 quences, have received able and early attention from your correspondents, I am encouraged to propose the following queries, which appear to me of great importance to Christians in this highly intellec tual age; and the solution of which will go far towards settling, without much controversy, some questions which greatly divide the opinions of professedly religious persons. 1. How far, consistently with the spiritual-mindedness and self-denial required by the Gospel, and with a conscientious regard to its active duties, may the love of intellectual pursuits, and the admiration of literary talents, be safely allowed? 2. Supposing a person's natural taste to be chiefly for those branches of literature, which, however adorned by eminent talent, can, in point of fact, be considered only as elegant; and that the pleasures thence arising, are those exclusively of a contemplative kind, abstracted from surrounding objects, and opposed to the existing realities of life; what is the extent of sacrifice required by religion? In this query, I do not include novels; though I should perhaps allow quidquid valeant for the few splendid exceptions to their, general worthlessness. The literature here alluded to is of a more intellectual and refined character. 3. How far is it allowable to study and admire, though only in a literary point of view, those, writers who have expended the treasures of an elevated intellect on trifling-of course, I exclude morally bad-subjects? 4. Keeping in view the inherent depravity, and, in a religious sense, the nothingness of man, what is, the sober estimate we may form of human talent; and what is the degree of admiration with which we may legitimately regard mental attainments? I cherish the hope that these queries will be answered by some one who has known by experience, or learned by observation, the fre4Z2 |