turned about four hundred hogs into a field near the road. Every freedman that came that way stopped; and in a week I had as many as I wanted. They all like to hire out where there is plenty of pork." Others, to fill their quota of hands, were paying the fines of stout negroes on the chain-gangs, and bailing those who were lying in jail.

All sorts of contracts were entered into; and various devices were used to stimulate the energies of the freedmen. Some paid wages; some gave a share in the crop; and I heard of planters who defrayed all expenses, and gave five cents a pound for the cotton raised on their lands. One man, who hired sixty freedmen at moderate wages, divided them into six gangs of ten each, and offered a premium of three hundred dollars to the gang which should produce the greatest number' of bales.

General Swayne estimated that there were five thousand Northern men in the State, engaged in planting and trading. Many of them were late army-officers. Business in the principal towns had been paying large profits; and Northern merchants, who purchased their goods at the North, were, notwithstanding the popular prejudice against them, enabled to compete with, and undersell, native traders who bought in smaller quantities and at second hand.

The hilly northern part of Alabama falls off gradually through the rolling prairies and alluvial bottoms of the central, to the low, flat southern portion of the State. Much of this latter region is sandy and barren, producing little besides poor whites and sweet potatoes. There are fertile bottom lands, however, adapted to the sugar-cane; and rice has also been successfully cultivated near the coast.

All through the lower half of the State, the long tree-moss grows with great luxuriance. It flourishes in a warm, moist climate; and the forests of the entire Southern country, below thirty-three degrees, are festooned by it. It likes the dank and heavy shade of swamps, which it darkens still more with its pendant shrouds. In favorable localities it grows to a great length, till its long-fibred masses appear dripping from the

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trees. One can imagine the effect when the great winds move through the woods, and to their solemn roaring is added the weird, unearthly aspect of a myriad gloomy banners, waving and beckoning from every limb.

Gathered by means of hooks attached to long poles, and seasoned by a simple process, this moss becomes a valuable article of merchandise, being principally used in the manufacture of mattresses. I saw many bales of it going down the rivers to New Orleans, Mobile, and Savannah. Its color on the boughs is a dull greenish gray; but when prepared for market, it resembles black crinkled horse-hair. A gentleman of Charleston told me that just before the war he tried the experiment of sending a bale of it to France, where it was not permitted to pass the custom-house until his factor had obtained from him a properly attested certificate, showing that it was to be taxed, not as hair, but as a vegetable substance. The French called it "vegetable horse-hair."

The best cotton lands of Alabama lie between the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, where a bale to the acre is the usual yield. The valleys of the Black Warrior and some lesser streams are scarcely inferior.

The general fertility of the great central portion of the State is offset by two or three disadvantages. One is the mud of the "black lime land," which, in the rainy season, is often of such depth and tenacity that travel on the roads by means of wheeled vehicles is impracticable. A greater inconvenience is the scarcity of wells. In the northern portion of the State good water is abundant; but in other parts plantations are supplied only by means of house and field cisterns. In some towns excellent Artesian wells have been constructed; a few reaching a depth of a thousand feet, and throwing water in sufficient volume and force to carry machinery. At Selma there were lately two very good flowing wells, but on an attempt being made to bore a third, a rock was split, which injured materially the condition of the two first. In the large public square at Montgomery, the broad circular basin of the Artesian well, surrounded by an iron railing on a stone curb,

visited by throngs of citizens, descending the steps, dipping up the water, or catching it as it gushes from the spout, and filling their pails and casks, forms an interesting feature of the place.

In the northern part of Alabama there are beautiful and fertile valleys adapted to the culture of both cotton and grain. On the other hand, there are hills unfit for cultivation. Between these two extremes there are upland tracts of moderate fertility, capable of producing a third or a quarter of a bale to the acre. This is the region of small farms and few negroes. The climate throughout the elevated portions of the State is healthy and delightful. On the low river bottoms there is much suffering from fevers and mosquitoes.

The common-school system of Alabama is very imperfect. The wealthy planters send their children to private schools, and object to taxation for the education of the children of the poor. The poor, on the other hand, take no interest in schools, to which they will not send their children as long as money is to be paid for tuition, or as long as there is cotton to pick and wood to cut at home. The isolation of the inhabitants on plantations, or in widely scattered log-cabins, and the presence of an uneducated race forming nearly one half the population, have been great obstacles in the way of popular education.

Alabama has a common-school fund, derived principally from lands, comprising the sixteenth section in each township, given for educational purposes by the United States. This fund has never been consolidated, but each township enjoys the income, by sale or rent, of its own allotted portion. The system works badly. The sixteenth section is valueless in many of the townships where both the land and the inhabi-tants are poor, and where there is consequently most need of educational assistance; while in townships occupied by planters who have grown rich on the richness of the soil, and who need no such assistance, it has generally proved very valuable. Mr. Taylor, the State Superintendent of Schools, told me that in one of these wealthier townships, in Montgomery County, there was for some years but a single child to whose education

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the sixteenth-section fund could be properly applied. She was a girl; and the independent planters performed their duty faithfully in her case. They sent her to a boarding-school, where she received a fashionable education; and, when she came to marry, furnished her wedding-outfit, and presented her with a piano.

Alabama is comparatively a new State. Admitted into the Union in 1819, her rise in importance has kept pace steadily with the progress of modern cotton cultivation. It sounds strange to hear planters still young refer to their experiences in the early days of cotton in regions which are now celebrated for its production. "I came to Montgomery County in 1834," said one. "I raised my first cotton crop in 1836. I had nine negroes, and I made a bale to the hand. They did n't know how to pick it. So I hired thirty Indian girls to pick, handsome young creatures as ever you saw. Cotton was then eighteen cents a pound. The Indian war disturbed us some; but I and a dozen more settlers went out and killed more Indians than all Scott's army. I have now two large plantations; this year I work a hundred and ten hands, and fiftyfive mules and horses, on thirteen hundred acres of cotton and five hundred of corn; and I intend to make more money than ever before."

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The principal railroads of the State were all in running condition; although the rolling stock was generally shabby and scarce. The Montgomery and West Point Road, which Wilson's raiders damaged to the amount of several millions, had been temporarily repaired. Depots were never plenty in the South, and where our forces had passed, not one was left; a great inconvenience, especially to single gentlemen, going to take the train at two or three o'clock in the morning, finding the cars locked and guarded until the ladies should all be seated, and compelled to wait perhaps an hour, in the cold, for them to be opened.

CHAPTER LXIII.

IN AND ABOUT ATLANTA.

THE railroad runs eastward from Montgomery, forks at Opelika, and enters Georgia by two divergent routes, the south branch crossing the Chattahoochee at Columbus, and the north branch at West Point.

Wilson, the Raider, paid his respects to both these roads. The main body of his troops proceeded to Columbus, (one of the principal towns of Georgia,) which they carried by assault, with a loss of but thirty men, capturing fifteen hundred prisoners, twenty-four pieces of artillery, and immense military stores. At the same time Lagrange's Brigade took West Point. These were the closing battles of the great war of the rebellion. Pushing on towards Macon, Wilson's advance was met, not by bloody opposition, but by a flag of truce announcing the surrender of Lee and the armistice between Sherman and Johnston.

Concerning our loss at West Point I was not able to obtain very exact information. A citizen, who claimed to have been in the fight, said to me; "We had seven men killed, and we just slaughtered over three hundred Yankees." A negro said: "I saw five dead Yankees, and if there was any more nobody knows what was done with 'em." A returned Confederate soldier, who regarded with great contempt the little affair the citizens bragged so much about, said it was no fight at all; the militia gave up the fort almost without a struggle; and there were not over a dozen men killed on both sides. The fort was situated on a high hill; and one old man, who was in it, told me they could not hold it because they could n't use the guns effectively, they "could n't elevate 'em down enough."