DE SOTO, EARLY GOVERNOR OF GULF COAST TERRITORY.

Alabama was first known to Europeans in 1541. The expedition of De Soto had to fight its way through the Indian tribes who peopled this section at that period. While these tribes were more numerous, they were less savage than the Northern Aborigines.

IS summer in the quiet land of bloom,
'Neath skies that winter never knew;
In forests deep the dusky cypress plume
Nods where the wildvine tendrils clew
Among the humbler growth, beneath the shade
Of centuried and hoary oaks,

And where the rainbow-tinted sunbeams fade,
Under the long and trailing cloaks.

Of mosses, bannered to the lofty boughs,
That weave a close and leafy screen

For nooks where fly-begoaded cattle browse,
In covers cool, of grateful green.

Before the facade of the deep, dark wood,
The fallow fields and pastures lie,

And ripening harvests, teeming, rich and good,
Give pleasing promise to the eye.

Among the china and the orange trees,

And flowers of myriad dye,

And jasmine vines that in each balmy breeze

Their gay and golden showers fly,

There stands, with open doors, a planter's home,
And stillness reigns about its halls,

Except the sound of bees around the comb,
Or ring dove's low and distant calls.

The sunflower droops in comely grace
Before the day-king's fervid rays-
A Clytie fair, who bends her modest face
Beneath Apollo's ardent gaze.

A shimmering haze is in the air,

The mocking bird his riot stills,

The river glints beneath the sun's fierce glare,
And mists hang o'er the far-off hills.

The pigeons croon beneath the eaving-frieze,
A kitten sleeps in " mammy's" lap,

And in a hammock, swung betwixt two trees, "Old Marster" takes his noontide nap.

The area of Alaska about equals all of the States of the U. S., east of the Mississippi River, including the Gulf States. Warm furs are needed, as winter weather is very severe in parts, where it is said the ground freezes much deeper in winter than it thaws in summer, so that water does not drain off through the lower strata. The climate varies considerably throughout its vast extent.

T'

HERE is a girl in the frozen land,
The land of the midnight sun.
She went there with a singing band,
And when her work is done
She's coming back to sing with me.

I want you all to know;

For I love her, and she's—Oh gee'
My Juno girl from Juneau.

My Juno from Juneau,

I know and you know,

She's the sweetest thing that ever did sing
In the land where the blizzards do blow,
In the land where the blizzards do blow,
And the people dress like Crusoe,
In furs and skins, with wooden pins,
And swear as hard as Pluto.

That girl is the biggest lump of gold
That comes from Alaska land;
And she is warm in spite of the cold
That sweeps that frozen strand.
No other girl on the gay old earth,
From Mexico to snow,

Can stack by her a penny's worth,
My Juno girl from Juneau.

The early settlers and town-building Indians are noted for their pecuilarly built dwellings. Their history dates back to 1540, when they were subdued by Coronado, and they have been recognized as peace abiding citizens for nearly a century past. Their houses are communal, generally but one structure for the whole village.