It is manifest from the narrative of de Soto's expedition, that a dense population once covered this whole territory. It is equally manifest that they were a race infinitely superior to the almost exterminated tribes which still remain. In the arts of what we term civilization, in the comforts and conveniences of social life, in the organization of society, in works of taste, in a knowledge of the principles, and an appreciation of the beauties of architecture, and in the application of the various mechanical powers requisite to the construction of buildings on a grand and magnificent scale, they may challenge comparison with some of the proudest nations of antiquity, in the old world. What has become of those mysterious nations, we are at a loss to conjecture; but their works remain, though in ruins, eternal monuments of their genius and power. As far as they have been explored, they afford ample evidence that the appellation "New World" is an entire misnomer. As the eloquent Mr. Wirt once said--"_This is the old World_," and the day may come, when the antiquarian will find as much that is attractive and interesting in the time hallowed ruins and the almost buried cities, of America, as those of Pompeii and Herculaneum, of Thebes and Palmyra. Changed as the whole country has been, in the lapse of three centuries, in respect to most of those things which must have struck the original discoverers with wonder, admiration, and awe--there is one feature, as described by de Soto, that still remains, so distinct and characteristic, that, if the brave old Adelantado should suddenly rise from his watery grave, he would immediately recognize the place of his burial. The Mississippi is still the same as when those bold adventurers first beheld it. The historian describes it as "a river so broad, that if a man stood still on the other side, it could not be discerned whether he was a man or no. The channel was very deep, the current strong, the water muddy and filled with floating trees." Of all the great rivers of this continent, it is a distinction which is probably peculiar to the Mississippi, that it was discovered, not by navigators entering it from the ocean, but by a band of adventurous explorers, striking it in their march, at some thousand miles from its mouth! For more than a century after the expedition of de Soto, these mighty regions were suffered to remain in the quiet possession of their original owners, undisturbed by the visits of white men. In 1654, the adventurous Col. Woods, from the infant colony of Virginia, wandered into these then remote regions, and crossed "the great river," after which it lay forgotten for twenty years longer.