I musn't wurry your patiences. If I'm elected, I shall support Gineral Jackson, and obey your instructions, 'cause I'm a 'publican, and blieve in the right of instructions.

Here ended the public speaking for that day, and for the campaign, for the election was just at hand, it being but a few days before it took place. The crowd dispersed, and the court met and adjourned until the succeeding morning. Every body was busy discussing the great affairs of State, as well as the respective merits of the great men who were aspiring to the confidence of the people and the honors of office. In the course of the evening, Backout notified his countrymen that he declined holding a poll, being, as he said, well satisfied that he could not be elected; but his friends rebelled, and swore he should not decline, announcing their determination to vote for him at all hazards; and, consequently, he was obliged to withdraw his avowal to decline, and permit his name to remain on the calendar of aspirants.

The contest was waxing warmer every hour. The candidates and their friends were exerting all their energies, and resorting to every possible stratagem and artifice, to rally their forces for the conflict, as well as to enlist new recruits. The whole country was one general scene of excitement and busy commotion. The gatherings of the coming storm, however, were not violent, nor did it portend any thing of evil, calculated to inspire apprchensions of danger to the general peace and harmony of society. It was like the gentle rustlings of the forest before a brisk summer's gale, accompanied with a few sudden peals of thunder, and ever and anon a puny, but turbulent, whirlwind, exhausting its might in hurling into the air a few particles of dust and chaff.

In this representative district, Hidewell was the suc

cessful candidate for the lower house of Assembly, literally distancing all his competitors. In the Senatorial district Dibbledabble outran his opponent so far, that the inspired statesman was under the necessity of applying to some of his more learned friends to make the calculation, and when it was made it was with difficulty he could comprehend the numbers, being so much larger in amount than he had ever before, in all his life-time counted. Thundergust and Foxhead made quite an interesting and close run, for Congress, Thundergust leading out (as a sportsman would say,) about a neck's length.

If the picture we have presented of the course of electioneering for office, and the portraits we have drawn of the character of public functionaries of the country, be correct, (and we are sure our readers will substantially sustain us in both) then is it not time the citizens of this, as yet, free government, should pause and reflect before they plunge the abyss of everlasting political ruin? What will it avail us that the unshod feet of our fathers left the frozen plain clothed in gore, and their unburied bones yet lie bleaching upon our native hills, if we disregard the rich purchase of their blood, and the dear bought inheritance for which they surrendered up their magnanimous souls to the father of spirits, and gave their flesh to the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air? It is in vain that the worthless prodigal boasts an honest, virtuous, prudent and renowned ancestry! The fair character of the father but adds a deeper and darker tint to the blackening disgrace of the profligate son!

Let the aged reflect upon the condition of the country, and the manner of conducting public affairs, fifty years ago, when aspirants to office dared not leave their

homes to solicit votes, and let the young look upon the calendar of names that then filled the councils, and occupied the public offices of the country, and contrast them with the public functionaries of the present day! The latter will appear like a swarm of pigmies, "cutting fantastic capers" at the feet of an army of giants! But electioneering does not exhaust its whole force, nor leave the foot-prints of its corrupting march, alone in the council halls and public offices of the country. Its blighting and desolating influence spreads over the whole face of the community, and ramifies every avenue of society.— False theories and principles are disseminated amongst the people-slander and detraction flies upon every wind, publishing ten thousand calumnies, to blacken the character and blight the prospects of the purest patriots of the land-the citizens are excited to riots and mobs-the bonds of social friendship, and, even of kindred blood, are rent assunder-the morals of the whole community are corrupted-hostile wranglings and personal conflicts ensue; and frequently the closing scene of the drama is clothed in a mantle of blood.

CHAPTER XIX.

ANTIQUITIES OF TENNESSEE-BURYING-GROUNDS -REMAINS OF ANCIENT FORTRESSES, TOWNS, &c.

To describe minutely the various burying grounds, ruins of ancient fortifications, towns, &c., to be found in the State of Tennessee, would swell this work far beyond its prescribed limits. We must content ourselves with a few general remarks, and a description of a few of the most singular and interesting of those tenements of the dead, and decaying fragments of art, that testify to the existence, and mark the footsteps of another, but, now extinct and unknown race of civilized people, as well as that of savage nations who once inhabited this country; and, over whose bones, and the decaying ruins of whose labors, we are almost daily treading-unconscious that we are trampling upon the ruins of ancient splendor, and marching with careless stride over the sepulchres of other and different nations of civilized as well as savage human beings, who must have inhabited these regions many centuries ago; but who have fallen before. the all desolating sweep of the ruthless and relentless

sythe of time; and over whose individual, as well as national name, hath been spread the impenetrable veil of everlasting oblivion. Many conjectures have been published by the learned and curious, in relation to these unknown nations; but conjectures are wholly useless; for not a record, a monument, or even an inscription remains to inform us what nations of people now lie entombed in the silent dust, beneath the feet of the present inhabitants of this country.

When our territorial predecessors first fixed their habitations here, they found burying grounds, bearing indisputable marks of antiquity, at short intervals, all over the country. Many skeletons and thousands of human bones were also found in caves and rock-houses. These latter were, no doubt, the skeletons and bones of the Indians; for it was their custom to deposit their dead in caverns and rock-houses. But of the burying grounds the Indians could give no account, except that their fathers, according to the traditions of the nation, found them here when they first came into the country.

It is known that the whole country is dotted over with artificial mounds of earth, of various sizes; and that these mounds contain human bones. Sometimes a great number of bones are found in a small mound, while others, very large, contain only the bones of one or two individuals. So far as these mounds have been examined

and hundreds of them have been opened-the bones are uniformly found deposited in a kind of stone coffin, made by laying a broad flat rock at the bottom, setting up others at the sides end ends, and then placing one on the top. Beads and curious wrought stones are often found deposited with the bones. These mounds are to be found in every part of the civilized world; but by what people they were thrown up, or at what period,