Treinta y seis Abencerrages Having seen the baths, we reascended toward the Queen's Toilet, and on our way passed through some apartments of the time of Charles V. One of these stands on a small courtyard, and has a gallery round the interiour, which is strongly wickered with rods of iron. We are told that here the sultana was imprisoned after the accusation of the Zegries; for romance has here lent another tradition to the mod ern tenants of the Alhambra. It is said with more apartments, to receive the slippers of those who approached the royal presence. For the Asiaticks uncover the feet instead of the head, in token of deference. The baths here, two in number, are formed of large slabs of white marble, and are of uncommon size, being quite large enough for swimming. The floor is paved with marble slabs, and the walls are of stucco, richly impressed and illuminated, while the ceiling forms an arched vault of bold and Nothing is more cruel than to be aroused from beautiful execution. Apertures cut through it in a cherished day-dream to the dull realities of waking the form of stars, allowed the vapour to escape, and existence, and it is but an ungrateful task to be called admitted the only external light that reached this upon to disturb these old associations, which cling, spot, destined to the exercise of a religious observlike their own cobwebs, to the walls of the Alhambra; ance and to luxury. As we grouped through these for what will remain to Granada in the eye of poetry, if ruined apartments, reconnoitring their dark and unyou take away its Zulemas, its Zaydes, its Zegries, tenanted recesses, with no other sound than that of and its Abencerrages? Even an attempt to save the our own resounding footfall, treading heedless through lives of thirty-six Abencerrages will, we fear, be re- the once secret and hallowed precincts of the harem, ceived as anything but an act of kindness. Never-it was curious and melancholy to turn, in fancy, theless, it may be but fair to state, that all we have from the present to the past, and conjure up the far been accustomed to read in romances of the trial of different spectacle which the place must have prethe queen, of her defence by the four Christian cav-sented ere the evil day of Granada had arrived.' aliers, and this slaughter of the Abencerrages, is nowhere to be met with upon the page of history. These stories rest upon the authority of a work called "The Civil Wars of Granada," written toward the close of the sixteenth century, by one Gines Perez de Hita, who professes to have translated it from an Arabick manuscript. This work, though it pretends to be a history, has not even the usual quantity of truth with which writers of fiction are accustomed to cast a shade of probability over their in- probability, that Queen Joanna, becoming foolish ventions. It was probably written to imbody the with grief upon the death of her husband, Philip the Moorish and Castilian romances, which we find Handsome, was confined for a time in the apart plentifully scattered throughout the work, and which ments adjoining this cage, which was constructed either grew up round the chivalry of the two nations, for her reception. This, though disputed, receives or were afterward composed, when the lapse of some colouring of possibility from the fact that the time began to leave room for the embellishments of apartment bears the initials of Charles V., her son, fancy. and from the notorious imbecility of Joanna, who The "Civil Wars" is not, however, without used to spend most of her time in the company of merit, as a mere work of fiction; it gives an insight her dead husband, and even carry his body with her into the chivalrous usages of the Saracens of Gra- on her journeys; thereby acquiring for herself the nada, and the bull-feasts, cane-tilts, and tournaments, surname of "The Foolish." The Alhambra, in its are described with vivid simplicity. It is from this day of adversity, is still the prison of a maniack.— work that the chief incidents of Florian's beautiful We saw in a lower cell of one of the towers, overlookromance have been taken; and even an identity of ing the precipice of the Daro, an emaciated and scenes and names is observable in the Gonsalve de squalid wretch, sitting in the sill of a grated window, Gordoue. and gazing with haggard and vacant, yet steadfast The sleeping and feasting apartments, and baths, eye, upon the narrow portion of the Vega thence are found in a lower story of the palace, and are visible. His hands grasped two of the windowsubterranean, except on the side of the precipice. bars, and his meager and bloodless face, rendered In the chambers are large alcoves for beds, raised still more ashy by the blackness of his matted hair a little above the level of the floor, and paved with and beard, was forced between the irons, as if there tiles of various colours, the entrance being flanked were a satisfaction in approaching a little nearer to by columns sustaining horseshoe arches. In the the scenes upon which he gazed so wistfully. We centre of the chambers are jets, to cool the air or thought at first that he was a state prisoner, of whom lull the senses of the sleeper. The feasting-hall we had already seen several taking the air on the has no windows, and was therefore doubtless light-Tower of La Vela; but learned on inquiring that he ed artificially, to give effect to Asiatick luxury.- was a maniack, brother to the woman who had the Near its ceiling is a gallery, where musicians re-keys of this portion of the palace. mained in waiting to attune their melodies to the mood of those who feasted, bathed, or sought sleep, in the adjoining apartments. The first of the bathingrooms contains small marble baths of the size in use among us, and which are said to have been set apart for children. Farther on is the principal room, whose destination is sufficiently shown by the niches without the door, similar to those of the other state THE TALLIPOT TREE is a native of the island of Ceylon, in the East Indies. This tree is remarkable on account of its leaves, which are of such a size as to cover ten men, and keep them from the rain; they are very light, and travellers carry them from place to place, and use them for huts. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE NATCHEZ, OR DISTRICT OF NATCHEZ, What the country had been under the French do minion, may well be inferred from its condition some years afterward, when the British received possession of it from France, by virtue of negociated (From the Western Messenger.) treaties at Paris in 1762 and 1763. True it is, that THE earliest information of THE NATCHEZ or DIS- the cession was nominally made to Great Britain by TRICT OF NATCHEZ, (as it was differently termed,) France. As it was she who surrendered to Great is furnished by the French. That spirited people, Britain "the port and river of Mobile, and everyalthough behind the Spaniards and English, in the thing on the left side of the Mississippi she possesscareer of maritime discovery which so brilliantly ed, or had a right to possess, except the island of marked the fifteenth century, soon made up for their New Orleans." Still the virtual grantor was Spain, backwardness. Early in the following century for whose benefit France alienated her province of Canada was discovered, Quebec founded, and the Louisiana partly to Great Britain; and the residue great chain of northern lakes explored. In 1673, to the Spanish government, as a compensation and the party of Joliet and Marquette set off from exchange in its hands, for the British conquest of Michilimackinac, and revealed to Europeans the Havana. Among the first acts of ownership exernoble river which gives name to the state of Missis- cised by Great Britain over this portion of her brillsippi. This discovery was soon followed by a suc-iant conquests obtained from the house of Bourbon, cession of enterprises under La Salle, Iberville, and in the war of 1755, was the proclamation of seventh Bienville, which extended the occupation, and some- October, 1763. By this instrument, the country times the settlements of France, along the gulf of embraced by Appalachicola, the gulf of Mexico, Mexico, from the bay of St. Bernard's in the West, lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, the Mississippi to the Mobile in the East. It was not, however, as far north as thirty-one degrees, and a line due till 1700, according to some French writers, that east to the Chatahooche, was erected into the govfort Rosalie was built at Natchez; others represent ernment of West Florida. This is the first apit as still later, in 1719. This ancient memorial of pearance of the geographical term, West Florida, the distinguished people who first explored these which had previously formed a part of Louisiana, beautiful regions in the Southwest, is said to have and extended to the Perdido river. These British been so named by Bienville, in compliment to Ro- limits were, however, upon a representation of the salie, Countess De Pontchartrain. An obscure Board of Trade to the king, extended to the Yatrace of a part of this ancient fortification still sur- zoos, or Yazoo north, and the east line abovemenvives, to leave a faint impression of the romantick tioned. This appears in the commission issued to changes of Mississippi fortune, from the dominion Governour Chester, second March, 1770. By of France, Britain, and Spain, to the beneficent and these official acts, the District of Natchez was, unenterprising rule of the great Republick of North der the British government, established as a part of America. West Florida. But the country, sparsely settled, and surrounded by numerous tribes of Indians, presents no brilliant picture at this period of its history. Long as the country had been in the occupation of the French, for more than seventy-eight years, their settlements, (as they did all over the West,) merely dotted the country. Al ng the coast of the gulf of Mexico, up the rivers, at points remote and insulated, from Mobile, Biloxi, New Orleans, and Natchez, to Michilimackinac and Quebec, the French settlers composed only broken strings of population. Hunting, not agriculture, seems to have been the favourite employment of the people; and too often were the sons of France seduced by the romantick and perilous charms of savage life, from pursuing the sober but slow arts which conduct nations to the proud achievements of civilization, over the wilderness of nature. No Europeans have, to such an extent, and so happily, amalgamated with the natives of America, as the French. It is the key to the Indian attachment which is shown to them above all other foreigners. The earliest Indian alienation of the District of Natchez by treaty, that is known to the writer, is described in the following affidavit of a surveyor in the employment of the British government :|| "The Natchez district is bounded to the westward by the river Mississippi, and extends from Loftus Cliff up the said river to the mouth of the Yazoo, the distance being one hun The governour who founded this advanced fort in the interiour of our continent, is said to have been very anxious to fix the seat of government of the province of Louisiana, on the mountain bluffs of Natchez. This brilliant destiny was, however, overruled in favour of the more commercial, though in all other respects, inferiour position of New Orleans. If beauty of site, lofty hills, in this generally low and flat region, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate, could have overbalanced the temptations of wealth, Natchez would have become the seat of the French empire in the Southwest. As it is, Nature has lavished her choicest treasures to adorn and enrich this beautiful spot. A lofty bank, two hundred feet above the ordinary level of the river, commanding a view of the most majestick stream of Western America, which sweeps far to the right and left, presents one of the most remarkable points in this region. Here, the French, with the taste characteristick of that polished people, established the seat of their government for the district of Natchez. During the government of France, the divisions of the province of Louisiana, were Biloxi, Alebamos, Natchitoches, Yazoos, Wabash, and Natchez, with New Orleans. For French Louisiana extended to New France, or Canada. It is the district of Natchez, however, and principally while under the government of British and Spaniards, that forms the subject of the present sketch. • Marquette's Journal. Butler's Ky. *Treaty of Paris, 1763. + Hall's Law Journal, 5 vol. 405; also Land Law U. S. + Idem 412. See Land Law U. S. vol. 2 Appendix 1, p 275. Calvin Smith, now in his seventieth year, enjoying the ample fruits of a life skilfully devoted to agriculture, has not been unmindful of the curiosity of his countrymen to learn the incidents of early Mississippi history. To the curious cares of this ancient settler, the reader is indebted for the follow-miles distant, and on the opposite side of the Missising primitive picture of the Natchez district. The sippi river. Natchitoches and Washitaw settlements facts are unvarnished, the colouring as much so, were two hundred miles, and the Post of Arkansas an the form alone has been changed. Where dates old French settlement, was 300 miles distant. No roads have been forgotten or unknown to Mr. Smith, the existed through the interiour; there were paths to the papers of William Dunbar, (better known by the Choctaw towns, and thence to the Tennessee; there marked courtesy of a republican people, as Sir was likewise a trace to Pensacola. The latter, This during the British dominion, formed the seat of Willian Dunbar,) have been resorted to. gifted and scientifick gentleman, after leaving Scot-government for West Florida; of which Mississippi, The it will be recollected, constituted a part. The governland in 1771 settled at Baton Rouge in 1776. journal of his plantation from 1776, an extensive ment was as simple as the people were plain in their correspondence, (all most liberally placed in the manners; their wants were great, but the means of author's hands by Doctor William Dunbar,) offer a gratifying them few. The only court in the Natrich mine of southwestern history, in its early chez was held by the commandant, who acted as British and Spanish days. judge; two assistants, a clerk and sheriff, compleMr. Smith was the son of New England cler-ted the simple government, whose decrees a small gyman, who emigrated to Natchez in 1776. At garrison enforced. The jurisdiction of this court that time, our annalist relates, that the town of Nat- extended, in all civil cases, to suits involving sums chez consisted of ten log-cabins, and two framed less than one hundred dollars, and in criminal cases houses, all below the bluff. The bank of the river only embraced slaves. An appeal lay from the extended between three and four hundred yards to commandant to the governour at Pensacola. The the edge of the water, at an ordinary stage. There condition of the settlers was poor and embarrassing. were six or eight families, and four mercantile es- The stock of the farmers consisted of horses, cattle, tablishments, in a small way. The latter consisted and a few sheep, but scarcely any hogs; slaves of one Barber, his two nephews in one firm, James were few, and sometimes obtained from the West Willing was a second, Hanchett & Newman a Indies as the country advanced in prosperitythird, and Broomart a fourth. At this time no set- Trade had scarcely penetrated the country with the tlement existed between Natchez and St. Cather- inspiring energies which a good market for the ine's creek. On the latter there were only twenty produce of labour never fails to effect. In 1778, families settled. The site of the fort was over- were the principal article of traffick, and they were obtained from the northern territories. the British merchants did encourage the production of tobacco; but with the government of Variously named, by the French Rosalie, by the British Panmure, which is retained in the Spanish records now in the probate court of Natchez; and Carlos by the Spaniards.bg their nation, the patronage was withdrawn for a At the period when our materials begin, the Ameri long and dreary interval. At this period of Missis-can Revolution had just broken out. The first effects sippi history, it may be gratifying to contrast it with of this brilliant era of American history upon thoso the condition of the hardy and vigorous common- remote settlements, were the visits of Colonels Gib wealths which now flourish upon the waters of the Ohio and the Upper Mississippi. Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, were then portions of the great Indian wilderness that constituted the wide domain and productive park, which was roamed over by the sparse tribes of the red man. A few scattered and insignificant French villages existed at the Arkansas Post, St. Genevieve, St. Louis, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes, Michilimackinac, and Detroit. The white man did not possess a foothold beyond these feeble points, within the first five of the above states. In Ohio he had no possession; in Kentucky he was limited to a few stations containing one hundred and two fighting men in 1777. In Tennessee, now possessing a population about equal to that of Kentucky, the white settlements were confined to a few stations on Cumberland and Holston. Yet the population of those regions amounted, by the census of 1830, to 3,010,702. If the average ratio of annual increase at 1833* for eight years be added to the above, say twenty-five per cent. for that time, the above total of population will become 3,763,377. What a contrast to the solitude of the wilderness! the barbarity, the savage state of the Indian! Such are some of the conquests over barbarousness effected by the indomitable enterprise of American freemen. There were some circumstances favourable to the prosperity of the American colonists in Mississippi, which, however superiour their unshackled energies were in other respects, were not enjoyed by our countrymen in the Northwest. The Indian nations in the Southwest, either originally less warlike than the northern tribes, or exposed more directly, and for a longer time, to the arts and the arms of the whites, were comparatively harmless and pacifick; offering little if any obstruction to the settlers, and frequently affording them an asylum from the vengeance or the justice of the Spanish government. "The Spaniards would as soon go to h**1," said Man to Fulsome, when meditating the Natchez insurrection of 1779, as demand us from the Choctaws. The latter tribe have been immemorially distinguished for their aversion to shed the blood of the whites. The contrast of northern settlement is deeply marked in a war of twenty years, characterized by every feature of ferocious and bloodthirsty warfare. It raged from 1774 to 1794, the date of Wayne's battle of the Maumee. The country was contested by inches, and won by blood. In fact, the white man, without his disposition for agricultural labour, and consequent superiour rate of population, could not have conquered the Indian. The success of the latter is to be attributed to his industry and fecundity, much more than to his superiour art or valour. It is, however, to be observed, that had not the Indians been furnished with arms and ammunition by their British allies, the contest in the northwestern region of North America would have been as hopeless, as it has proved over the rest of the world, between the civilized and barbarous races of man. son and Linn, in 1776 from Fort Pitt to New Orleans to procure military stores for the defence of the American forts on the Ohio. This mission was eminently successful, owing to the friendship of the Spanish government.* It was followed by that expodition of Major David Rogers in 1778 for the same purpose, which after reaching the neighbourhood of Cincinnati terminated most fatally. Towards the latter end of February, 1778, James Willing, formerly of Philadelphia, and who was one of the merchants found by Smith at Natchez, was despatched by the old Congress to New Orleans, on a similar commission to that of Gibson, Linn and Rogers. This person had lived some time in the country, a fellow-subject with the planters on the coast, as the banks of the Mississippi are familiarly termed by the French. He had shared liberally in the hospitalities which have ever distinguished a country sparsely settled, and particularly in southern regions. He had feasted at the tables, and had drank the wine of the river planters, as a boon companion and friend. Who could have been less an object of apprehension as a military visiter through a region of profound peace, and which required, nay justified, no hostilities against its peaceable settlers? Yet, to the disgrace of the American commission which Captain Willing bore, on his arrival, he plundered the inoffensive inhabitants holding no hostile attitude-seizing their slaves, shooting their stock, and firing their buildings, from Natchez to Maushac. To these enormities, justified by no laws of war, and uncalled for by his commission, Captain Willing added the violation of his own protections given to the friends of the United States. On landing at Natchez, Willing, to the surprise of the inhabitants, unfurled the American flag, and claimed to take possession of West Florida. In a short time he had apprehended all persons who had anything worth plundering, and who were reported to be unfriendly to the cause of the United States, in other words were royalists, or in revolutionary phrase, tories. He seized their slaves, plate, and all kinds of goods.Isaac Johnson, Colonel Hutchins, the Alstons, Hiram Stewart, and Alexander M'Intosh, were almost stripped of every moveable that was of any value. There were upward of a hundred negroes, with other valuable articles, plundered by this band of robbers. The plundered people were then compelled to take an oath not to bear arms against the United States, and were dismissed to their naked homes. After Willing had got his fill of plunder at Natchez, he set off for New Orleans, taking Reuben Harrison along with some more recruits. On this voyage, the planters on the coast, as far as Maushac, which terminated the British territory, fared still worse than those of Natchez. William Dunbar, (and a few of his friends who availed themselves of his sagacious advice,) saved their slaves by conveying them over to the Spanish side of the Mississippi. When the party had arrived at New Orleans, the plunderers who had come from Pennsylvania, were unwilling to share with the recruits, the booty they • See Butler's Ky., 2d edition, p 155. † Idem ante, p. 104. |