The very few natives that inhabit these swamps get their principal meat supply from these hogs. They generally manage to grow enough corn to provide them with bread, so they live from one year's end to another on a monotonous diet of cornbread and hog's meat, or, as it is said, "corn dodger and sour belly." They are very lazy and indifferent to money, and life in these swamps suits them well. Newspapers and books they know little of, and it is said in other parts of the Union: "The people of Arkansas don't know the war is over," meaning, of course, their own civil war between North and South. They manage to keep themselves in boots, clothes, ammunition, coffee, and chewing tobacco, by bartering a few skins. The Americans did not get their name of hustlers from Arkansas. In some parts of this state, where the swamp lies near the Mississippi, and is therefore liable to be flooded at any time, the natives build their little wooden houses on piles driven deep into the soft earth. These houses look more like large pigeon-coops than human habitations, and to enter the front door it is necessary to climb a steep ladder. It is certainly lucky that poverty and distance from towns force these people to be teetotallers, or half of them would often have to sleep under their houses instead of in them. Of course, all Arkansas is not like this, for there are a number of fine towns in the state, and the people in those towns are as far advanced as in any other town of the Union; but the truth must be told, that Arkansas is the last place in the world to recover from the Great Flood; and that she still persists in remaining in a damp condition, to breed snakes and deadly flies, in spite of the efforts of her inhabitants to make things otherwise. She is still in a condition to breed fever, and her inhabitants are thin, and their skin is hard and leathery. When I enquired of a native the distance to the next town he didn't know. I asked him if it was two miles--he stared. I asked him if it was fifty miles, but he still stared. It seemed that the poor fellow did not understand mileage, so I asked how long it would take to walk there. "Yer'll have to be right smart to get there by sundown," said he. I then asked him the size of the town, but this he did not know, for he had never been there, but came very near going there a year ago. I then asked him if he knew anyone that had been there, and he answered that "Ole man Johnson was there the fall before last." What was Johnson's opinion of the town? "Right smart," said my man. Of course I did not expect to find a town like London, New York, or Chicago, or even a town with tramcars, but I must confess to disappointment when I found nothing but a store, a railway station, and five or six miserable-looking houses.