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510	Mississippi	Historical	Society.
Pike County, embracing as it does a good deal of wealth and producing several thousand bales of cotton, formerly traded exclusively with this city. Owing to various causes, which we will hereafter enumerate, we have lost this valuable commerce, and almost every bale of cotton now made there is hauled to Covington, in Louisiana, and thence shipped to New Orleans, across the lake, where the planters supply themselves with those articles which they formerly purchased of our merchants.
The next day crossed the country to Monticello, once a village of considerable importance, but now somewhat decayed. It is situated on a beautiful bluff or plateau on the west bank of Pearl River, which is here a fine, bold stream, affording steamboat navigation many months in the year. No river has been more neglected by the Legislature than the Pearl. Rising in the very heart of our State, in the counties of Winston and Neshoba, and sweeping along through a fine cotton region by the capital of Mississippi, it might easily be made navigable almost its whole extent. But an extraordinary indifference to practical internal improvements has too long characterized our Legislature, and the resources we should have applied to such objects have been squandered in the vain attempt to make bank paper supply the place of gold and silver. Although Monticello has felt heavily the hand of time, it is still a charming little place. Our friend, Bowen, makes every one at home at his comfortable inn, and there are many agreeable families in and around the place, and quite an extensive circle of professional and mercantile gentlemen.
Lawrence may be called the mother county of North Mississippi. It was settled many years ago, chiefly by Georgians and Carolinians, and although it still retains a dense population it has planted its little colonies throughout the northern and middle counties of this State. Go where you will, through the more newly settled counties, and you find very many industrious and intelligent planters, who boast that they came from ?old Lawrence.? Several of the pioneers of this county have died within the last two or three years?among the rest the venerable Col. Runnells, father of Gen. H. G. Runnells, late Governor of this State. He was a man of strongly marked character. He was an active partisan officer in the closing scenes of the revo-
A Trip Through the Piney Woods.?Claiborne. 511
; lution, being engaged in several battles, and in two or three
?	desperate affairs with the Tories. After the revolution and tin til his immigration to this Territory, he took a leading part in the border difficulties with the Indians and received from them, as the late Gen. Dale informed us, the title of "Bloody-'shoe." Col. Runnells served in the Legislature of Georgia and Mississippi nearly thirty years, and was ever distinguished for his strong practical sense and inflexible support of popular rights. He retained his activity and faculties to the last, and when past seventy, would canvass his county, mount his horse, and ride twenty miles before breakfast to address the people from the stump! We believe he was never defeated. Col. Runnells was a zealous member of the Baptist Church. He is now dead; but the high and holy political principles he defended with his sword and warmly inculcated through a long life of virtue and usefulness still flourish in the patriotic old county
where he so long resided.
From Monticello we had a delightful ride on the east bank of Pearl River down to Columbia, the county seat of Marion, about thirty miles. This is unquestionably one of the most pleasant, natural roads in the Union. It runs, for the most part, on the second bottom or hammock land, or level surface, and just sandy enough to be always dry. Magnificent trees hang over it like a canopy, and beautiful streams, sparkling one moment in the sunbeams and then leafing into shadow, dash across, hurrying along with magic messages from the hidden hills to the flowing river. The moment the traveler going eastward crosses the Pearl he will see the marked change in :the water. There are clear creeks and springs in Pike, Franklin and Amite, but none that compare with Silver Creek and White-sand, and the thousand rills and rivers that flow to the south on the eastern side of Pearl and mingle their crystal floods with the chafing waters of the Gulf. The traveler rides into one of these, supposing it to be only a few inches deep and soon finds the water washing his saddle skirts, and the silver-sided perch playing around his stirrups. The fabled fountains of Arethusa or Egeria were not more beautiful than these transparent
streams.
The chrystal water is so smooth, so clear,
The eye discovers every pebble there;
So	son. its motion, that you scarce perceive The running brook, or what you see believe.
?Ov. Mbt.