l is extracted from the seed of the cotton-plant:
this is a recent discovery, and likely to prove a most profitable one
to the proprietors of this mill.

In the afternoon, accompanied Mr. H----n to the northern extremity of
the city, where we found broad streets already marked out: plunging deep
into the forest, many scattered houses of brick were springing up on
sites where barely trees enough had been cut down to afford elbow-room
for the builders.

_January 2nd._--Quitted Mobile on the box of the mail for Portersville:
our way lay over Spring Hill and through the Pine-barren; the road was a
track cleared by the woodman's axe; the stumps were not as yet
macadamized by time, still the horses picked their way amongst them at a
very fair pace. At a single log-house, situated about mid-way, we pulled
up to change horses; here too I perceived, by the array of a table
placed in the open hall, dinner was provided. On my asking the landlord,
who was a countryman, how soon dinner would be ready, he replied with a
friendly confidential air, "Almost immediately, but unless you're cruel
sharp-set, I'd recommend _you_ not to mind it, sir."

I took the hint thus disinterestedly given, and walked forward, passing
over one of the primitive bridges common in this section of the
country, where swamps and watercourses are frequent; these are commonly
overlaid also, as far as may be necessary, by a back-wood railway; that
is, by trunks of trees packed closely side by side, over which the
machine is dragged at a trot: in Canada this sort of road is termed a
corduroy.

Half an hour's start of our mail, whose pace was not over five or six
miles per hour, enabled me to prolong my walk as far as I chose, and I
enjoyed my freedom greatly; the perfect solitude of the scene; the
absence of all trace of man, excepting the one narrow and seemingly
interminable track, whose unvarying line might be traced as far as eye
could reach; not a sound could be heard, only the low sighing of the
breeze as it swept over the ocean of graceful pines whose spiry heads
appeared to kiss the sky. In ten minutes after quitting the log-hut
where the coach rested, I was in fact plunged in a solitude as complete
as it was beguiling.

If you by any chance turned about to look back upon the line you had
trod, or muse upon the scene, the only remembrance of your true course
was the sun; and indeed more than once, as time wore on, did I halt
struck with a sudden appr