From the course, rode to the mansion of Mrs. M----r, the very _beau ideal_ of a Southern dwelling, having on either front very deep porticoes opening into a capacious hall, with winding stairs of stone outside leading on to a gallery twenty feet wide, which is carried round the building on a level with the first-floor story, and is covered by a projecting roof supported by handsome pillars: by this means the inner walls are far removed from the effect of either sun or rain, and the spacious apartments kept both cool and dry. The kitchen and other offices are detached, forming two sides of a quadrangle, of which the house is the third, and the fourth a garden. Here I saw a negro whose age was supposed by Mrs. M----r to be about one hundred and twenty. He had been in her husband's house, who was an officer in the Spanish service, when she married, and first came here half a century back, and was then considered past labour. The old boy was quite a wag; cracked several jokes, as well as his want of teeth would let him, upon one of the company about to be married; and, on being shown a lump of fine Cavendish tobacco he had asked for, his eye sparkled like a serpent's. Mr. M----r assured me his appetite was good; and that when supplied with abundance of tobacco, he was always as at present, cheerful. After eleven o'clock P.M. put on my cloak, and, tempted by the fineness of the night, accompanied my friend T----r on his way to his own quarters; returning along the edge of the lofty bluff between whose foot and the river is squeezed the town of Natchez. Whilst smoking my cigar here, the murmur of a fray came to me, borne upon the light breeze: my curiosity was excited by the indistinct sounds, and I walked along in the direction whence they came for a couple of minutes. As I neared it, the tumult grew in loudness and fierceness; men's hoarse and angry voices, mingled in hot dispute, came crashing upwards as from the deeps of hell. I bent anxiously over the cliff, as though articulate sounds might be caught three hundred feet above their source;--a louder burst ascended, then crack! crack! went a couple of shots, almost together;--the piercing shrieks of a female followed, and to these succeeded the stillness of death. I lay down upon the ground for several minutes, holding my ear close over the edge of the precipice, but all continued hushed. I then rose, and seated myself upon one of the benches scattered along the heights, almost doubting the evidence of my senses--which told of a wild brawl and probable murder as having had place beneath the very seat I yet occupied--so universal was the tranquillity.