Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/461

Rh December 22nd.—Now we are there! Now we are there! And summer breezes and sunshine surround us! But—But I must tell you consecutively that which has formed a turning point in my whole state of feeling.

This is the seventh day of my journey down the Mississippi. When I came out on the piazza this morning, I felt as if I were in an enchanted world. The sweetest summer breezes caressed me, the softest blue heaven lay over the Mississippi and the open, cultivated fields on its banks, snowy masses of summer-cloud were chased by the warm breeze, and upon the verdant meadows which covered the shores shone out lovely habitations, standing in groves of orange-trees, shrubberies of roses, cypresses, and cedars. An indescribably mild and delicious life of beauty breathed in everything and over everything. Everything was changed. We had, below Memphis, entered the region of sugar, or the country in which the sugar-cane is cultivated, as well as cotton and maize. We had passed Natchez, where formerly a powerful Indian tribe had worshipped the sun, and maintained a perpetual fire; a place with bloody memories. We had left the city of the bloody memories behind us; we had left behind us the States of Mississippi and Arkansas. We were now in Louisiana, which embraced both shores of the river. We were speeding into the bosom of the south, and it received us with a warm heart. So I felt it, and my own heart expanded itself to every gentle power of life and of nature. I sate silently aft on the piazza the whole forenoon, in a sort of quiet intoxication of enjoyment, inhaling the delicious atmosphere and the southern landscape, thrilled with the enchanting aspect of heaven and earth, and the indescribable soft mild air which was diffused through infinite space between them.

It was noon. The air became more and more delicious, and more and more animated became the scenes on the