This important State was originally a part of the Mississippi Territory. It has acquired a population very rapidly, and far exceeds in numbers, the State from which it was taken, and it is said, that no part of the Western country has had a more rapid growth. In 1800, that portion of the present State of Mississippi, which is now Alabama, had only 2,000 inhabitants! In 1810 it contained 10,000; and when the writer of this visited it to attend a land sale, in the winter of 1820, it numbered 127, 000! By the census of 1830, 199,221 freewhites, 112, 625 slaves; total, 311,846! This rapid increase was partly owing to the fame of its good lands and superior salubrity, its contiguity to Georgia and the Carolinas, to which, in its production and soil, it bears a strong resemblance. Emigrants from the land of pine and cypress forests, are pleased to see these trees in the new region to which they transplant themselves; and the rush that was made to it by the CArolinians, was so great, that to be believed , it must have been seen. The route was through the Cherokee nation, and never shall we forget the scene which presented itself on the whole line of the turnpike road, which the Indians constructed through their country and kept in tolerable repair. Encampments of emigrants, of more or less wealth, were met with every morning before breakfast, having their all with them, and big with hope for the land of promise. One family struck us particulary. A North Carolinian, hearing "talk" of Alabama, had geared up his shingle cart and one horse, and was wending his way across the Chatahoochy River, as our party was passing in an opposite direction. The shingle cart, which was so frail, that a jerrsyman would hardly trust it to carry a load of sand, was piled high with articles of household goods, and the lean horse wending his way as if it had come from the land where pigs hunt in couples, so as to find a blade of grass! But the amusing part of the calvalcade was an unique vehiculumm, composed after the following fashion. Two rough shafts were fastened to the ends of a whiskey iron-bound hogshead, with pins, as to allow the hogshead to revolve. In it was placed the family bedding, and a lean milch cow acted the horse, while in a trough, above the revolving beds, & c. sat high, dry and airy, the children of the family!
The mother drove the cow -- the cask floated over the stream --the children laughed, and the chickens which accompanied them, cackled and crowed in all the animation of travellers. So novel a mode of transport, induced us to make a minute survey. When all was hapily got over, the mother took a basin from the cart, milked the cow, and adding some coarse bread, the whole group took a comfortable dinner. We dare say, the old folks are grand parents and have a fine cotten plantation --possibly, ere this, so rapid are transformations in America, they have re-traversed the same road in a coach and four, (a favorite mode of travel in Alabama,) on a visit to Ballston and Sratoga. --Be that as it may.
Alabama has furnished thousands of such emigrants, with all they wished. IT is much more healthy than the maratime parts of Carolina, and has a soil better adapated to cotton. The general shape of the State is that of a parallelogram, the only undefined line being the southern one. From this line another parallelogram is formed, extending between Florida and the state of Mississippi; in includes Mobile Bay, and was once part of West Florida, but necessary to Alabama, to enable her to communicate with the Gulf of Mexico.
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