If this village had no other recommendation, it is endeared to my recollection as the birthplace and residence of Monsieur Baptiste Menou, who was one of its principal inhabitants when I first visited it. He was a bachelor of forty, a tall, lank, hard featured personage, as straight as a ramrod, and almost as thin, with stiff, black hair, sunken cheeks, and a complexion a tinge darker than that of the aborigines. His person was remarkably erect, his countenance grave, his gait deliberate; and when to all this is added an enormous pair of sable whiskers, it will be admitted that Mons. Baptiste was no insignificant person. He had many estimable qualities of mind and person which endeared him to his friends, whose respect was increased by the fact of his having been a soldier and a traveller. In his youth he had followed the French Commandant in two campaigns; and not a comrade in the ranks was better dressed, or cleaner shaved on parade than Baptiste, who fought besides with the characteristic bravery of the nation to which he owed his lineage. He acknowledged, however, that war was not as pleasant a business as is generally supposed. Accustomed to a life totally free from constraint, he complained of being obliged to eat and drink and sleep at the call of the drum. Burnishing a gun, and brushing a coat, and polishing shoes, were duties beneath a gentleman; and after all, Baptiste saw but little honor in tracking the wily Indians through endless swamps. Besides he began to have some scruples as to the propriety of cutting the throats of the respectable gentry whom he had been in the habit of considering as the original and lawful possessors of the soil. He therefore proposed to resign, and was surprised when his commander informed him that he was enlisted for a term, which was not yet expired. He bowed, shrugged his shoulders, and submitted to his fate. He had too much honor to desert, and was too loyal, and too polite, to murmur; but he forthwith made a solemn vow to his patron saint never again to get into a scrape from which he could not retreat whenever it suited his convenience. It was thought that he owed his celibacy in some measure to this vow. He had since accompanied the friendly Indians on several hunting expeditions towards the sources of the Mississippi, and had made a trading voyage to New Orleans. Thus accomplished, he had been more than once called upon by the Commandant to act as a guide, or an interpreter; honors which failed not to elicit suitable marks of respect from his fellow villagers, but which had not inflated the honest heart of Baptiste with any unbecoming pride. On the contrary there was not a more modest man in the village.