United States: Deep South, full strength

My new friends and I are sitting outside what’s fast becoming my favourite bar in the world: the Under the Hill Saloon in Natchez, Mississippi. Already one man has held forth on the presidential campaign to anyone who’d listen — which, given how entertainingly he did it (‘Donald Trump? Pure white trash’) was most of us. Another has asked me if I’ve ever fired a gun and, if not, whether I’d like to see how much fun it is.

But by this stage it’s getting late, and I really should be going — except that the conversation has just turned to alligator hunting, a subject I’m unlikely to get the chance of ever discussing again. (The key, I now know, is to use rotten chicken as bait.) And all the time, we’ve been able to gaze at the Mississippi river only a few yards away.

These days, the American South doesn’t seem sure whether to market itself as bracingly different from the rest of the country or reassuringly similar. For the British visitor, though, there’s not much doubt about which is more convincing: because the South often makes other parts of America feel almost bloodless by comparison.

Apparently most Brits visiting the region tend to drive straight from Memphis to New Orleans. Yet, by missing out on Mississippi, they’re also missing out on the full-strength, high-tar South at its most compelling. Even the ritziest children’s clothes shops have window signs reading ‘No Guns Allowed’ — and even the sweetest middle-aged female tour guides refer to the American Civil War as ‘the War of Northern Aggression’. Meanwhile, at the average gas station, you’ll search the well-stocked bookstands in vain for anything not Bible-related.

Mississippi plantation house

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For those who want to explore Mississippi more fully, a good first stop from Memphis is Tupelo, where the house Elvis was born in has pride of place — and, as it consists of two tiny rooms, takes only a few minutes to tour.