All the region hereabout was inhabited by the Chickasaw Indians, who were so called in their language because they were "swamp-dwellers" and "eaters of the bog-potato." This tribe long ago removed to the Indian territory, where they are now in a prosperous condition and successful agriculturists. On the southwestern border of Tennessee is what is known as the fourth Chickasaw bluff, and here is the city of Memphis, the leading town between St. Louis and New Orleans. The bluff shore rises about eighty feet above the river at the ordinary stage of water, and is fronted by a wide levee extending for two miles and a broad esplanade bordered by warehouses. It was here that De Soto in 1541, with his band of adventurous explorers searching for gold, came and first saw the great river, their chronicler writing home "the river was so broad that if a man stood still on the other side, it could not be told whether he was a man or no; the channel was very deep, the current strong, the water muddy and filled with floating trees." Memphis is a handsome city, attractively laid out, the residential section having spacious lawn-bordered avenues, and there being an attractive park in the centre, the Court Square inhabited by numerous squirrels and adorned by Andrew Jackson's bust. Memphis has seventy thousand people, and a large trade both by river and railroad, being a leading cotton-shipping port, whence steamboats take vast amounts down to New Orleans for foreign export. Among its attractions are the cotton compresses and cotton-seed oil mills. In the Civil War, Memphis was captured by the Union gunboats in June, 1862, and held afterwards. On the outskirts, a grim memorial of the great conflict, is the National Cemetery, with fourteen thousand Union soldiers' graves. PECULIARITIES OF THE GREAT RIVER.