stores, and rushed off for townships, village lots, and mill privileges. So crowded were the mushroom cities, that barns, sheds, and the privilege to lean against the gate posts were in requisition for lodging places. This affair did not end in a mere bubble, it ended in the ruin of more than ninetenths of all who caught the contagion. For many years after the question was invariably asked by the prudent Boston merchants of applicants for a credit-"Have you had anything to do with the eastern land speculations?"

Some fifteen years ago, more or less, there was an effort made to build a city at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, which was to be called Cairo. Streets were graded, house and store lots were laid out for miles up the banks of both rivers. Elegant colored maps were exhibited in the eastern cities, most minutely particular in design. There was to be a bank here, a custom-house there, a church in another place, and fine brick and stone dwellings in every direction. A hundred steamers were lying at the wharves "painted like life," and merchandise was piled about in perfect looseness of profusion. Drays were industriously engaged in removing the merchandise back into the populated streets. Men, women, and children were thronging the squares and sidewalks! Indeed, from the pictured description, one would suppose that both Cincinnati and New Orleans were to be removed and combined to make Cairo. Such was what Cairo was to be according to the representations of the speculators. All the world were in some way to pay tribute to Cairo. No wonder that many shrewd men who had never seen the location were taken in by the purchase of shares and lots. On the map and on the plan, a more desirable location for a great city could not be found. However, after all the rage for speculation, the city of Cairo remains, to be built. A dilapidated old wharf-boat, a long wooden portico with a shanty behind it, called the United States Hotel, a flock of geese, a lean pig, and a jackass—these make up what Cairo now is in reality. The location of Cairo is everything that could be desired for a city; but, unfortunately, there is one disadvantage not mentioned, the water overflows the place for fifteen miles back every spring freshet. Large operations were really commenced one dry season, but the first freshet carried all the buildings down stream except the aforementioned portico and wharfboat.

In the lowlands, on the banks of the Mississippi, are innumerable openings from the river, called bayous. These dead waters often extend back inland for a hundred miles or more. Occasionally they find an outlet into a lake, and in such a case afford a natural and convenient canal for the transportation of produce to the great river thoroughfare. Nothing in reality or imagination can exceed the terrific scenes to which these green slimy waters open. An intolerable stench is incessantly exhaled, to fill the atmosphere with pestilence. Huge uncouth alligators lazily float upon the surface, or bask in the sunshine upon the borders; unclean fish tamely lie in the dark depths; enormous mud turtles dispute passage with the canoe; mottled snakes dart over the floating vegetable fungi; mammoth frogs utter their unearthly croakings from the half-immersed tree branches. the mud rises with sufficient adhesion, the funereal cypress rears its deathassociating trunk and hangs its boughs with the somber weeds of crapy moss; unknown, unheard of vegetation starts up and attains a rankness that is suggestive of disease and dissolution. Approach the shore and the moccasin snake lies coiled at your feet, with his upper jaw thrown back

ready for your reception; swarms of musketoes-not the puny insect of a northern clime, but as large as horse-flies-blacken the air, and fix their snipe-like bills upon you; spiders as large as walnuts, red, yellow, black, and green, draw their webs from tree to tree. There are no birds-nay, it is the retreat of the turkey-buzzards; here they come to digest the offal gathered from afar, and to rear their young. A silence reigns profound, such as may be imagined to have existed through the untold ages before the earth was fitted for the residence of man, only to be occasionally broken by such noises as one hears with a distempered brain. The scene, in truth, might be more highly colored, but few have nerves equal to the task. Talk of the waters of the fabled Styx! Old Charon's craft was a pleasure-boat, and his passengers were favored with excursions of cool summer sailing in comparison with what is experienced here. There is but one thing here seemingly out of place. There is a large white flower, in appearance like the lilies of the northern lakes, but of gigantic size. Its stems grow from the bottom oftentimes from fifteen to twenty feet, and spread their broad leaves upon the water's surface. The buds throw open their snowy petals and diffuse a delicious fragrance in this desert of death. If there are yet parts of the earth unfitted for the residence of man, but in a state of gradual transformation, these places are among them.

A short time ago, as a large number of persons were journeying by steam up the Mississippi, there could have been observed one fellow whose identity was in no particular danger of being lost in the multitude which thronged the boat. He evidently considered himself "some pumpkins" to somebody somewhere. Mr. Bubbleham-for, thus shorn of all Christian cognomen, our hero had recorded himself with the clerk-made his appearance in nankeen pants, white vest, black coat, Leghorn hat, and gold spectacles. The spectacles being worn over a pair of light lusterless eyes, left one somewhat in doubt whether their purpose was to assist his own sight or hinder the sight of others. The Leghorn hat covered a bald head, albeit that head could not have stood so uprightly upon Mr. Bubbleham's shoulders yet forty years. Upon that head's being uncovered, the most skeptical would have laid aside his doubts in the truth of phrenology by force of the illustration afforded by that one development of self-esteem. There it stood, naked and glistening-the very intensest expression of predominance over all others-over himself. He, of all other men, was the man to make a speculation of, if he could be bought at his small true value and sold at the large value he put upon himself. He was not boisterous or bullying in his manner, on the contrary, there was a quiet aristocratic bearing about him that denoted, not the natural born gentleman, but the excessively cultivated one. There was a peremptoriness in his manner of addressing the steward decidedly rich to the earnest observer of the humorous peculiarities of human nature: "John, stop sir, if you please, I intend to breakfast! That white fish, John-a portion from behind the front fin, if you please. The hot griddle-cakes, John. Now, John, the loaf sugar and the cream for my coffee!" His more plebeian-appearing neighbors patiently waited until the spectacles were sufficiently employed to dispense with the services of John for their benefit. In the course of the morning Mr. Bubbleham contrived quietly to spread out sundry imposing and highly picturesque maps and charts upon the table. He thereupon commenced the most eloquent illustrations to the audience which soon circled around him. "Fine country that heavily wooded and strong bottom"-"Capital cotton lands after

clearing "—"Salubrious climate, never freezes, is never very hot"-" Beautiful clear rivers, navigable for the largest steamboats," &c. &c. And in the excitement of the harangue, the pale stupid features belonging to the gold spectacles and the self-esteem development actually flushed. By the oft repetition of these commendatory phrases, he had apparently convinced himself that these lands were a parcel set off from paradise, and himself engaged in the thankless service of ushering the unbelieving thitherward. The Mr. Bubbleham had more attractions in himself than had his lands.

"I say, you, aint he a horse ?" "A leetle too slick for me, I vum—I reckon I have been out there in them diggins!" "All froth,-wonder if that's why they called him Bubbleham ?" Such were some of the undertone comments while the gentleman was talking. Whether any gulls were caught this deponent saith not. If the fact must be told, the hero of this digression was nothing more nor less than a veritable land-speculator. He had barely escaped making a dozen fortunes eastward, when he found "his occupation was gone." He traveled west, and succeeded in the same manner. He went south, and his picture is taken here in full practice upon the very bayous afore described. He, probably, discovered that he was offering his wares too near home, for on the next morning the gold spectacles were missing. Mr. Bubbleham had gone to try his fortunes on board another boat.

Art. IV. COMMERCIAL CITIES AND TOWNS OF THE UNITED STATES.

NUMBER XXXIV.

THE CITY OF SAVANNAH, GEORGIA.

THIS city is situated (as all know) on the southern bank of the river of that name, twenty miles from its mouth, upon a sandy bluff of about sixty feet in hight. The city presents by no means a prepossessing appearance from the water, as the warehouses on the water's edge are the only buildings visible, in consequence of the site being a dead level. But after one ascends the hill, the beauty of the city strikes him. It is laid out on a very liberal scale, and may truly be called a "city of magnificent distances." The streets all intersect each other at right angles, between every two of them there is an alley, and at every other corner is a beautiful square, usually circular or oval in shape. These and the streets are closely shaded by the Pride of India trees, set out by Oglethorpe, which are beautiful in the extreme, and which have procured for Savannah the appelation of the forest city. Two of the principal streets, viz., Broad and the Bay," have grassy promenades in the center, with carriage ways on each side. The streets are unpaved and quite sandy, so much so that most business men ride on horseback instead of driving on chaises or buggies. There are no very handsome buildings, with the exception of the new custom-house, the Second Presbyterian and St. John's (Episcopal) churches, and perhaps the dwelling house of Joseph S. Fay, Esq. A plain monument to General Green, (erroneously known as the Pulaski monument,) who was prominent in the attack on the city, when held by the British, the corner stone of which was laid by Lafayette, stands in the principal square; and a very imposing one to Count

Pulaski, who gallantly fell in the same assault, is in the course of erection. Many of the antiquated "tabby" (plastered) houses strike a stranger agreeably from their appearance of venerable respectability.

Savannah is much resorted to by invalids in the winter, although many of those unfortunates who are far gone with consumption find themselves obliged to go farther South, to St. Augustine, the climate of which is said to be less liable to change, milder, and dryer than that of Savannah. Although the great deficiency of accommodations there is a drawback on its advantages. There are beautiful rides and drives around Savannah-one called the "Thunderbolt road," which leads to the Cemetary of Bonaventure, belies the character implied by the name, by being lovely in the extreme.

The river is muddy usually, and quite rapid, and its banks are flat and very uninteresting, so that there are few inducements for marine pleasures, and indeed yachting is almost unknown. The country around the city is level and unpicturesque; the rides are rendered pleasant only by the dense walls of foliage on either side and overhead, almost shutting out any view of the fields behind. A prominent constituent in this foliage is the Southern moss, by the graceful gray covering of which, any tree which it embraces, however ugly it may really be, is rendered beautiful. The fig-tree grows luxuriantly here, but the orange is more unfortunate, as it is cut off sometimes, and perhaps once in twenty years on an average, by frost. About the boundary line of Florida is the Northern natural limit for it apparently. The society of Savannah is not very gay even in winter, as few parties are usually given; and to a stranger the place seems very dull on account of the disinclination which the inhabitants seem to exhibit to walking out, although this may be enhanced by the fact that there is no street corresponding to the Broadway of New York, and one street is about as much of a promenade as another.

In summer all who have time and money to spare, go either to the North, to visit the watering places, or, if they heroically resolve to "expend their money in their own State," in compliance with the urgent appeals of the States' rights papers, they visit the Springs in the mild and fertile Cherokee country, where, if they cannot find the elegancies which adorn the fashionable watering places at the North, they can be less under the restraint of fashion, and can find more leisure to admire nature in all her purity.

COMMERCE.

Few persons after superficially viewing Savannah, could imagine the amount of its Commerce. The city contains but about 25,000 free inhabitants, but it is the chief outlet and inlet of a vast cotton-growing region. Its Commerce rapidly increases, while that of Charleston seems to have reached its climax, and finds difficulty in holding its own.

The reason for this is, that Savannah is every day extending lines of communication into those parts of the country whence their produce should naturally and will come, when proper facilities are afforded for the purpose. Charleston early secured a large portion of the trade of Upper Georgia, by building a railroad to Hamburg, opposite Augusta, (the South Carolina Railroad,) because, by means of the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to near Atlanta, where both the Macon and Western Railroads and it join the Atlantic and Western or (as it is usually called, from the fact that the State owns largely in and controls its management,) State Railroad, which runs to

Chattanooga-it (Charleston) is placed on an equal footing with Savannah, in regard to the rates on all freight, from or for the region above the junction mentioned. And the natural consequence was, that the downward freight, instead of going directly to Savannah, via the Macon and Western Railro ids, was usually sent to Augusta, with instructions, to ship it to Savannah if there was a river, (i. e., if the water was high enough,) as the freights per boats are lower than per rail, and if there was not, to send it to Charleston by railroad. The loss to Savannah in this way, which was serious, as the river is down about one-half of the time, will soon be obviated by the construction of the Au usta and Waynesborough Railroad, from the former to the latter place, which is a station on the Central Railroad, forming an almost direct line to Savannah; so that planters may send their cotton, &c., at that place, either direct, or to Augusta, and let it have the benefit of cheapness of transportation per river, if it is passable, and if not, per railroad, at probably a cheaper rate, than to Charleston, as the distance will be less. And goods for the up country will possess a like advantage in being sent to Savannah. This road will connect directly with the Georgia road it is hoped, which would be an advantage which the Charleston people have long arduously striven for, but their advances, aided by the stockholders in the Georgia Railroad, to the Augusta people to allow them to cross their bridge and connect, have been sturdily repulsed, not, as one might suppose, simply because they were prejudiced in favor of the seaport of their own State, but because such a junction could make but a mere way station of their city, and the services of factors and forwarding merchants could hardly be required.

Last year, however, the S. C. Co. bought land out of the city limits, on both sides of the river, and is vigorously pressing forward their road to join the Georgia Railroad out of the city.

Besides the river and the railroad communication (with all its branches and extensions) which I mentioned, large quantities of freight pass to and from Macon and other landings on the Ocmulgee River, per steamboat; while a considerable coasting trade is carried on along the whole Georgia and Florida coast as far as the St. John's, and up that river to Pilatki. A canal is open from the Ogeechee, and a plank road has recently been built to the same river. Steamers run regularly to and from Charleston, and some of the finest steamships in our steam marine, viz., the Florida, Alabama, Augusta, and Atlanta, will when the latter is completed, form a semi-weekly line to New York, while the "State of Georgia" will run semi-monthly to Philadelphia until the line is made a weekly one by the addition of her unbailt consort, the "Keystone State." The Conway, the first of a line of British mail steamers, runs between the Bermudas, Savannah, and the British West Indies, connecting with the British mail Chagres line. Regular lines of packets run to all our large ports, while vessels clear with cargoes for all parts of the world, with the exception of China and the East Indies. The products of the State are as follows:-from the upper or "Cherokee country" she gets upland cotton, white corn, excellen: wheat, and many mineral substances, among which are gold, iron, marble, building stone, lime, &c, and raises in some parts enough bacon to supply the home demand. In the middle or "wire-grass" region, the chief products are upland cotton and pine timber, (the latter per rivers and canal). In the lower or "Sea Island" district, sea island cotton, rice, and naval stores, (which is a recent but quite successful branch of production here-particularly on the St. Mary's River). Most excellent sugar is also raised in small quantities.