In the Southern colonies the country was traversed by deep, broad river highways, leading far inland; the climate was genial, the savages proved comparatively friendly, and the introduction of slavery tended to foster an aristocratic class of landed proprietors,--large plantations, therefore, were the rule. There were a few small trading villages, but the bulk of the people were isolated, and township governments were impracticable. The settlers therefore adopted a primary government akin to the English rural county, having jurisdiction over a wide tract of country, with a commander of militia, appointed by the governor and styled a lieutenant, whose duties and authority were similar to those of the lords-lieutenant at home; judicial powers being exercised by eight or more gentlemen, also appointed by the governor, serving as a county court. It should be remembered that the Southern county was not, as in England, a group of towns,--it was itself the primary organization. The parish was sometimes, in newly settled portions, co-extensive with the county; but more often the latter was, for religious purposes, divided into parishes, the vestries of which had authority in some civil matters. Again, for the purposes of tax levy and collection, the county was divided into precincts; and in some districts conditions were such--among them the hostility of the savages--that the people of each plantation or small neighborhood assembled for worship by themselves, and thus became recognized as a separate community, in some matters self-governed. These differences in local organization account for the terms "plantation," "congregation," and "hundred," often met with in early Southern records. The tendency of the Southern political and social system was to concentrate power in the hands of a few men, in sharp distinction to the New England plan, where the people governed themselves in small primary assemblies, only delegating the conduct of details to their agents, the town officers. Sidenotes: and the town in New England. Unconscious reversion to older Teutonic forms.