Travels in the United States, etc.,: during 1849 and 1850./ By the Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley.

MAGNOLIA GROVE. 13
brass and catgut could make them: the fiddlers of snowy Olympus played the sublimest of jigs, and the most thrilling of polkas
the Celestial trombones " Yankee-doodle" and "Old Virginny,"
with electrical effect. On they came still-would either give
way I No: louder, and louder yet. The basses and trebles, and
flats and sharps, and livelys and maestosos, were jumbled together
into one most horrible hash and clash of music. Where would it
end? Now comes the tug of war. Messrs. Neptune and Mars,
and their myrmidons, advance against Chang-fo and Co.: the
wind instruments were distending their cheeks almost to bursting,
the drums were beaten till they were quite beat. All the notes
seemed entangled together in inextricable confusion-a grand
hodge-podge of sounds. And now one Mandarin shoulders poor
Minerva and her owl into the gutter (as if she' were an outer barbarian); another apostrophizes the solemn ancient Pluto, with
"Go long, there, clear off, you old critter-wake snakes, will ye,"
and other impressive expostulations, and even the bands of music
are utterly confounded and commnixed. All, however, comes right
at last, the two comets have met without serious damage, and
each was seen pursuing its way in its own separate orbit.
I can not describe to you the beauty of a large magnolia grove
near this place. This majestic wood reaches nearly down to the
beautiful blue bay, and the trees are unspeakably magnificent.
Madame L. V tells me that when all the splendid flowers
are out in their full beauty and fragrance, their odoriferous enchantrments are beyond all expression. I am told their delicious
scent is so powerful, that ten miles out to sea, the air is filled with
the rich perfume!
W5e have several times visited the Choctaw camp in company
with Madame L. V, and in her carriage. These Choctaw
Indians are a singular people. As to civilization, poor creatures!
I can not think that theirs extends beyond wearing old secondhand coats when in full dress, and in drinking the hateful "firewater." They have adopted its ugliest points, and its vilest; but
what know they of its advantages and benefits? Their mode of
life in that camp seems pretty nearly as savage as it can be, except
-and this is, indeed, an improvement-that they no longer go out
in their horrible war parties, nor do they now depend entirely for their
subsistence upon the chase. They have in general a certain nobleness of look, and the women are, many of them, very handsome.
One day an Alabamian, who was not a disciple of" the Mississippi
of men, the Father of Waters" (Father Mathew) came lounging
',NIAGNOLIA GROVE.
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