hot through the night,
however cold the atmosphere, or however much exposed the rest of the
body, no evil consequences will ensue. I have passed many a night in
this position, after fatiguing rides of thirty or forty miles in the day
on our extreme frontiers, and through rains, and never experienced any
inconvenience to health, if I could get a pallet on the cabin floor, and
my feet to the fire.

Those who are exposed to these hardships but occasionally, when
compelled by necessity, and who endeavor to protect themselves at all
other times, usually suffer after such exposure.

I have observed that children, when left to run in the open air and
weather, who go barefoot, and oftentimes with a single light garment
around them, who sleep on the floor at night, are more healthy than
those who are protected.

CHAPTER IV.

CHARACTER, MANNERS, AND PURSUITS OF THE PEOPLE.

Cotton and Sugar Planters;--Farmers;--Population of the large towns and
cities;--Frontier class;--Hunters and Trappers;--Boatmen.

There is great diversity in the character and habits of the population
of the Valley of the Mississippi.

Those who have emigrated from the Atlantic states, as have a very large
proportion of those persons who were not born in the Valley, of course
do not differ essentially from the remaining population of those states.
Some slight shades of difference are perceptible in such persons as have
lived long enough in the country to become assimilated to the habits,
and partake of the feelings, of western people.

Emigrants from Europe have brought the peculiarities of the nations and
countries from whence they have originated, but are fast losing their
national manners, and feelings, and, to use a provincial term, will soon
become "westernized."

The march of emigration from the Atlantic border has been nearly in a
line due west. Tennessee was settled by Carolinians, and Kentucky by
Virginians. Ohio received the basis of its population from the states in
the same parallel, and hence partakes of all the varieties from Maryland
to New England. Michigan is substantially a child of New York. The
planters of the south have gone to Mississippi, Louisiana, and the
southern part of Arkansas. Kentucky and Tennessee have spread their sons
and daughters over Indiana, Illinois and Missouri; but the two former
states are now receiving great numbers of emigrants from all the
northern states, including Ohio, and multitudes from the