Mobile for the purpose of looking into the conditions of southern
Alabama, returned to New Orleans, and then ran up Bayou Teche in a
government tug-boat as far as New Iberia, where I was literally driven
back by clouds of mosquitos of unusual ferocity. At New Orleans I
despatched an additional report to the President, and then,
relentlessly harassed by the break-bone fever, which a physician
advised me I should not get rid of as long as I remained in that
climate, I set my face northward, stopping at Natchez and Vicksburg to
gather some important information.


_The End of an Aristocracy_

At Natchez I witnessed a significant spectacle. I was shown some large
dwelling-houses which before the Civil War had at certain seasons been
occupied by families of the planting aristocracy of that region. Most
of those houses now looked deserted and uncared for, shutters
unhinged, window-panes broken, yards and gardens covered with a rank
growth of grass and weeds. In the front yard of one of the houses I
observed some fresh stumps and stacks of cordwood and an old man busy
cutting down with an ax a magnificent shade-tree. There was something
distinguished in his appearance that arrested my attention--fine
features topped with long white locks; slender, delicate hands;
clothes shabby, but of a cut denoting that they had originally been
made for a person above the ordinary wood-chopper. My companion, a
Federal captain, did not know him. I accosted him with the question to
whom that house belonged. "It belongs to me," he said. I begged his
pardon for asking the further question why he was cutting down that
splendid shade-tree. "I must live," he replied, with a sad smile. "My
sons fell in the war; all my servants have left me. I sell fire-wood