Chapter IX: Preface: To Volume III (8)

Although the ginseng is not a plant peculiar to Kentucky, it is still very numerous there. This induces {169} me to speak of it here. The ginseng is found in America from Lower Canada as far as the state of Georgia, which comprises an extent of more than fifteen hundred miles. It grows chiefly in the mountainous regions of the Alleghanies, and is by far more abundant as the chain of these mountains incline south west. It is also found in the environs of New York and Philadelphia, as well as in that part of the northern states situated between the mountains and the sea. It grows upon the declivity of the hills, in the cool and shady places, where the soil is richest. A man cannot pull up above eight or nine pounds of fresh roots per day. These roots are always less than an inch diameter, even after fifteen years’ growth, if by any means we can judge of it with certitude by the number of impressions that are to be seen round the upper part of the neck of the root, produced by the stalks that succeed each other annually. The shape of these roots is generally elliptical; and whenever it is biforked, which is very rare, one of the divisions is always thicker and longer than the other. The seeds of the ginseng are of a brilliant red, and fastened to each other. Every foot seldom yields more than two or three. They are very similar in shape and size to the wild {170} honey suckle. When they are disencumbered of the substance that envelopes them they are flat and semicircular. Their taste is more spicy, and not so bitter as the root. A month or two after they are gathered they grow oily; and it is probable to the rancidity which in course of time the seed attains we must attribute the difficulty there is in rearing them when they are kept too long. They are full ripe from the 15th of September to the 1st of October. I gathered about half an ounce of them, which was a great deal, considering the difficulty there is in procuring them.

It was a French missionary who first discovered the ginseng in Canada. When it was verified that this plant was the same as that which grows in Tartary, the root of which has such valuable qualities in the eyes of the Chinese, it became an article of trade with China. For some time after its discovery the root was sold for its weight in gold; but this lucrative trade was but of short duration. The ginseng exported from America was so badly prepared, that it fell very low in price, and the trade almost entirely ceased. However, for some time past it has been rather better. Though the Americans have been so long deprived of this beneficial trade, it can {171} only be attributed to the want of precaution that they used either in the gathering or preparation of the ginseng. In Chinese Tartary this gathering belongs exclusively to the emperor; it is done only by his orders, and they proceed in it with the greatest care. It commences in autumn, and continues all the winter, the epoch when the root has acquired its full degree of maturity and perfection; and by the means of a very simple process they render it almost transparent.

In the United States, on the contrary, they begin gathering of ginseng in the spring, and end at the decline of autumn. Its root, then soft and watery, wrinkles in drying, terminates in being extremely hard, and loses thus a third of its bulk, and nearly half its weight. These causes have contributed in lowering its value. It is only gathered in America by the inhabitants whose usual occupations afford them leisure, and by the sportsmen, who, with their carabine, provide themselves, for this purpose, with a bag and a pickaxe. The merchants settled in the interior of the country purchase dried ginseng at the rate of ten pence per pound, and sell it again from eighteen pence to two shillings, at the seaports. I have never heard particularly what quantity {172} of it was exported annually to China, but I think it must exceed twenty-five to thirty thousand pounds weight. Within these four or five years this trade has been very brisk. Several persons begin even to employ the means made use of by the Chinese to make the root transparent. This process, long since described in several works, is still a secret which is sold for four hundred dollars in Kentucky. The ginseng thus prepared is purchased at six or seven dollars per pound, by the merchants at Philadelphia, and is, they say, sold again at Canton for fifty or a hundred, according to the quality of the roots. Again, the profits must be very considerable, since there are people who export it themselves from Kentucky to China.

They have again, in Kentucky, and the western country, the same animals that inhabit those parts east of the mountains, and even Canada: but a short time after the settling of the Europeans several species of them wholly disappeared, particularly the elks and bisons. The latter, notwithstanding, were more common there than in any other part of North America. The non-occupation of the country, the quantity of rushes and wild peas, which supplied them abundantly with food the whole year round; and {173} the licks (places impregnated with salt, as I have before mentioned) are the causes that kept them there. Their number was at that time so considerable, that they were met in flocks of a hundred and fifty to two hundred. They were so far from being ferocious, that they did not fear the approach of the huntsmen, who sometimes shot them solely for the sake of having their tongue, which they looked upon as a delicious morsel. At four years old they weigh from twelve to fourteen hundred weight; and their flesh, it is said, is preferable to that of the ox. At present there are scarcely any from Ohio to the river Illinois. They have nearly deserted these parts, and strayed to the right bank of the Mississippi.

The only species of animals that are still common in the country are the following, viz. the deer, bear, wolf, red and grey fox, wild cat, racoon, opossum, and three or four kinds of squirrels.

The animals to which the Americans give the name of wild cat is the Canadian lynx, or simply a different species; and it is through mistake that several authors have advanced that the true wild cat, as they look upon to be the original of the domestic species, either existed in the United States, or more northerly.

The racoon, or _ursus lotor_, is about the size of a {174} fox, but not so tall and more robust. Taken young, it very soon grows tame, and stays in the house, where it catches mice similar to a cat. The name of _lotor_ is very appropriate, as the animal retires in preference in the hollow trees that grow by the side of creeks or small rivers that run through the swamp; and in these sorts of marshes it is most generally found. It is most common in the southern and western states, as well as in the remote parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia. It is very destructive in the corn fields. The usual method of catching this animal is with dogs, in the dead of the night, as it is very rarely to be seen in the day time. Its skin is very much esteemed, throughout the United States, by the hat manufacturers, who purchase them at the rate of two shillings each.

Nearer toward the houses the inhabitants are infested with squirrels, which do also considerable damage to the corn. This species _sciurus corolinianus_, is of a greyish colour, and rather larger than those in Europe. The number of them is so immense, that several times a day the children are sent round the fields to frighten them away. At the least noise they run out by dozens, and take shelter upon the trees, whence they come down the very moment after. {175} As well as the bears in North America, they are subject to emigrations. Toward the approach of winter they appear in so great a number, that the inhabitants are obliged to meet together in order to destroy them. An excursion for this purpose, every now and then, is looked upon as pleasure. They go generally two by two, and kill sometimes thirty or forty in a morning. A single man, on the contrary, could scarcely kill one, as the squirrel, springing upon the branch of a tree, keeps turning round successively to put himself in opposition to the gunner. I was at one of these sporting parties, where, for dinner, which is generally taken in some part of the wood appointed for the rendezvous, they had above sixty of them roasted. Their flesh is white and exceedingly tender, and this method of dressing them is preferable to any other.

Wild turkies, which begin to grow very scarce in the southern states, are still extremely numerous in the west. In the parts least inhabited they are so very tame, that they may be shot with a pistol. In the east, on the contrary, and more particularly in the environs of the seaports, it is very difficult to approach them. They are not alarmed at a noise, {176} but they have a very piercing sight, and as soon as they perceive the gunner they fly with such swiftness that it is impossible for a dog to overtake them for several minutes; and when they see themselves on the point of being taken, they escape by resuming their flight. Wild turkies usually frequent the swamps and the sides of creeks and rivers, whence they only go out morning and evening. They perch upon the tops of the loftiest trees, where, notwithstanding their size, it is not always easy to perceive them. When they are not frightened, they return upon the same trees for several weeks together.

For the space of eight hundred leagues east of Mississippi there is only this one species of the wild turkey. They are much larger than those that we have in our farm-yards. In autumn and winter they chiefly feed on chesnuts and acorns. At that time some are shot that weigh from thirty to forty pounds. The variety of domestic turkies proceeds originally from this species of wild turkies; and when it has not been crossed with the common species, it preserves the primitive colour of its plumage, and that of the feet, which are of a deep red. Though ever since the year 1525 our domestic turkies were naturalized {177} in Spain, whence they were introduced into Europe, it is probable that they are natives of some of the more southern parts of America, where there may be, I have no doubt, a different species from that found in the United States.

{178} CHAP. XIX

_Different kinds of culture in Kentucky.--Exportation of colonial
produce.--Peach trees.--Taxes_

In the state of Kentucky, like those of the southern parts, nearly the whole of the inhabitants, isolated in the woods, cultivate their estates themselves, and particularly in harvest time they assist each other; while some, more independent, have their land cultivated by negro slaves.

They cultivate, in this state, tobacco, hemp, and different sorts of grain from Europe, principally wheat and Indian corn. The frosts, which begin very early, are unfavourable to the culture of cotton, which might be a profitable part of their commerce, provided the inhabitants had any hopes of success. It is by the culture of Indian corn that all those who form establishments commence; since for the few {179} years after the ground is cleared the soil is so fertile in estates of the first class, that the corn drops before it ears. Their process in husbandry is thus: after having opened, with the plough, furrows about three feet from each other, they cut them transversely by others at an equal distance, and set seven or eight grains in the points of intersection. When they have all come up, only two or three plants are left in the ground; a necessary precaution, in order to give free scope for the vegetation, and to insure a more abundant harvest. Toward the middle of the summer the leaves from the bottom of the stalk begin to wither, and successively those from the top. In proportion as they dry up they are carried away carefully, and reserved as a winter sustenance for horses, which prefer that kind of forage to the best hay.

In estates of the first class, that yield annually, Indian corn grows from ten to twelve feet high, and produces, in a common year, forty to fifty English bushels per acre, and sixty to seventy-five in abundant years. Some have been known, the second and third year after the land has been cleared, to yield a hundred. The bushel, weighing about fifty to fifty-five pounds, never sells for more than a {180} quarter of a dollar, and sometimes does not bring half the money.

The species of corn that they cultivate is long and flat in point of shape, and generally of a deep yellow. The time of harvest is toward the end of September. A single individual may cultivate eight or ten acres of it. The culture of corn is one of the most important of the country; much more, however, with regard to exportation than as an object of consumption. The county of Fayette, of which Lexinton is the chief town, and the surrounding counties, are those that supply the most. Good estates produce from twenty-five to thirty bushels per acre, weighing about sixty pounds, although they never manure the ground, nor till it more than once.

The harvest is made in the commencement of July. The corn is cut with a sickle, and threshed the same as in other parts of Europe. The corn is of a beautiful colour, and I am convinced, through the excellence of the soil, that the flour will be of a superior quality to that of Philadelphia, which, as it is well known, surpasses in whiteness the best that grows in France.

The plough which they make use of is light, {181} without wheels, and drawn by horses. It is the same in all the southern states.

The blight, the blue flower, and the poppy, so common in our fields among the corn, have not shewn themselves in North America.

The harvest of 1802 was so plentiful in Kentucky, that in the month of August, the time that I was at Lexinton, corn did not bring more than eighteen pence per bushel, (about two shillings per hundred weight). It had never been known at so low a price. Still this fall was not only attributed to the abundance of the harvest, but also on account of the return of peace in Europe. They are convinced, in the country, that at this price the culture of corn cannot support itself as an object of commerce; and that in order for the inhabitants to cover their expense the barrel of flour ought not to be sold at New Orleans for less than four or five dollars.

In all the United States the flour that they export is put into slight barrels made of oak, and of an uniform size. In Kentucky the price of them is about three-eighths of a dollar, (fifteen pence). They ought to contain ninety-six pounds of flour, which takes five bushels of corn, including the expenses of grinding.

{182} The freightage of a boat to convey the flour to Low Louisiana costs about a hundred dollars. They contain from two hundred and fifty to three hundred barrels, and are navigated by five men, of whom the chief receives a hundred dollars for the voyage, and the others fifty each. They take, from Louisville, where nearly the whole embarkations are made, from thirty to thirty-five days to go to New Orleans. They reckon it four hundred and thirty-five miles from Louisville to the _embouchure_ of the Ohio, and about a thousand miles thence to New Orleans, which makes it, upon the whole, a passage of fourteen hundred and thirty-five miles; and these boats have to navigate upon the river a space of eight or nine hundred miles without meeting with any plantations. A part of the crew return to Lexinton by land, which is about eleven hundred miles, in forty or forty-five days. This journey is extremely unpleasant, and those who dread the fatigues of it return by sea. They embark at New Orleans for New York and Philadelphia, whence they return to Pittsburgh, and thence go down the Ohio as far as Kentucky.

An inspector belonging to the port of Louisville inserted in the Kentucky Gazette of the 6th of August {183} 1802, that 85,570 barrels of flour, from the 1st of January to the 30th of June following, went out of that port to Low Louisiana. More than two thirds of this quantity may be considered as coming from the state of Kentucky, and the rest from Ohio and the settlements situated upon the rivers Monongahela and Alleghany. The spring and autumn are principally the seasons in which this exportation is made. It is almost null in summer, an epoch at which almost all the mills are stopped for the want of water. Rye and oats come up also extremely well in Kentucky. The rye is nearly all made use of in the distilling of whiskey, and the oats as food for horses, to which they give it frequently in little bunches from two to three pounds, without being threshed.

The culture of tobacco has been greatly extended within these few years. The temperature of the climate, and the extraordinary fertility of the soil gives, in that respect, to this state, a very great advantage over that of Virginia; in consequence of which tobacco and corn form the principal branch of its commerce. It exports annually several thousand hogsheads, from a thousand to twelve hundred pounds each. The price of it is from two to three dollars per hundred weight.

{184} Hemp, both raw and manufactured, is also an article of exportation. In the same year, 1802, there has been sent out of the country, raw 42,048 pounds, and 2402 hundred weight, converted into cables and various sorts of cordage.

Many of the inhabitants cultivate flax. The women manufacture linen of it for their families, and exchange the surplus with the trades-people for articles imported from Europe. These linens, though coarse, are of a good quality; yet none but the inferior inhabitants use them, the others giving a preference to Irish linens, which comprise a considerable share of their commerce. Although whiter, they are not so good as our linens of Bretagne. The latter would have found a great sale in the western states, had it not been for yielding Louisiana; since it is now clearly demonstrated that the expense of conveying goods which go up the river again from New Orleans to Louisville is not so great as that from Philadelphia to Limestone.

Although the temperature of the climate in Kentucky and other western states is favourable to the culture of fruit trees, these parts have not been populated long enough for them to be brought to any great perfection. Beside, the Americans are by no means so industrious or interested in this kind of {185} culture as the European states. They have confined themselves, at present, to the planting of peach and apple trees.

The former are very numerous, and come to the greatest perfection. There are five or six species of them, some forward, and others late, of an oval form, and much larger than our garden peaches. All the peaches grow in the open field, and proceed from kernels without being either pruned or grafted. They shoot so vigorously, that at the age of four years they begin to bear. The major part of the inhabitants plant them round their houses, and others have great orchards of them planted crosswise. They turn the hogs there for two months before the fruit gets ripe. These animals search with avidity for the peaches that fall in great numbers, and crack the stones of them for the kernels.

The immense quantity of peaches which they gather are converted in brandy, of which there is a great consumption in the country, and the rest is exported. A few only of the inhabitants have stills; the others carry their peaches to them, and bring back a quantity of brandy proportionate to the number of peaches they carried, except a part that is left for the expense of distilling. Peach brandy sells {186} for a dollar a gallon, which is equal to four English quarts.

In Kentucky the taxes are assessed in the following manner: they pay a sum equivalent to one shilling and eight-pence for every white servant, six-pence halfpenny for every negro, three-pence for a horse, two shillings per hundred acres of land of the first class, cultivated or not, seventeen-pence per hundred of the second class, and sixpence halfpenny per hundred of the third class. Although these taxes are, as we must suppose, very moderate, and though nobody complains of them, still a great number of those taxable are much in arrears. This is what I perceived by the numerous advertisements of the collectors that I have seen pasted up in different parts of the town of Lexinton. Again, these delays are not peculiar to the state of Kentucky, as I have made the same remark in those of the east.

{187} CHAP. XX

_Particulars relative to the manners of the inhabitants of
Kentucky.--Horses and Cattle.--Necessity of giving
them salt.--Wild Horses caught in the Plains of New
Mexico.--Exportation of salt provisions._

For some time past the inhabitants of Kentucky have taken to the rearing and training horses;[50] and by this lucrative branch of trade they derive considerable profit, on account of the superfluous quantity of Indian corn, oats, and other forage, of which they are deficient at New Orleans.

Of all the states belonging to the union, Virginia is said to have the finest coach and saddle-horses, and those they have in this country proceed originally from them, the greatest part of which was brought by the emigrants who came from Virginia {188} to settle in this state. The number of horses, now very considerable, increases daily. Almost all the inhabitants employ themselves in training and meliorating the breed of these animals; and so great a degree of importance is attached to the melioration, that the owners of fine stallions charge from fifteen to twenty dollars for the covering of a mare. These stallions come from Virginia, and, as I have been told, some were at different times imported from England. The horses that proceed from them have slim legs, a well-proportioned head, and are elegantly formed. With draught-horses it is quite different. The inhabitants pay no attention with respect to improving this breed; in consequence of which they are small, wretched in appearance, and similar to those made use of by the peasantry in France. They appeared to me still worse in Georgia and Upper Carolina. In short, I must say that throughout the United States there is not a single draught-horse that can be in any wise compared with the poorest race of horses that I have seen in England. This is an assertion which many Americans may probably not believe, but still it is correct.

Many individuals profess to treat sick horses, but none of them have any regular notions of the veterinary {189} art; an art which would be so necessary in a breeding country, and which has, within these few years, acquired so high a degree of perfection in England and France.

In Kentucky, as well as in the southern states, the horses are generally fed with Indian corn. Its nutritive quality is esteemed double to that of oats; notwithstanding sometimes they are mixed together. In this state horses are not limited as to food. In most of the plantations the manger is filled with corn, they eat of it when they please, leave the stable to go to grass, and return at pleasure to feed on the Indian wheat. The stables are nothing but log-houses, where the light penetrates on all sides, the interval that separates the trunks of the trees with which they are constructed not being filled up with clay.

The southern states, and in particular South Carolina, are the principal places destined for the sale of Kentucky horses. They are taken there in droves of fifteen, twenty and thirty at a time, in the early part of winter, an epoch when the most business is transacted at Carolina, and when the drivers are in no fear of the yellow fever, of which the inhabitants of the interior have the greatest apprehension. {190} They usually take eighteen or twenty days to go from Lexinton to Charleston. This distance, which is about seven hundred miles, makes a difference of twenty-five or thirty per cent in the price of horses. A fine saddle-horse in Kentucky costs about a hundred and thirty to a hundred and forty dollars.

During my sojourn in this state I had an opportunity of seeing those wild horses that are caught in the plains of New Mexico, and which descend from those that the Spaniards introduced there formerly. To catch them they make use of tame horses that run much swifter, and with which they approach them near enough to halter them. They take them to New Orleans and Natches, where they fetch about fifty dollars. The crews belonging to the boats that return by land to Kentucky frequently purchase some of them. The two that I saw and made a trial of were roan coloured, of a middling size, the head large, and not proportionate with the neck, the limbs thick, and the mane rather full and handsome. These horses have a very unpleasant gait, are capricious, difficult to govern, and even frequently throw the rider and take flight.

The number of horned cattle is very considerable in Kentucky; those who deal in them purchase them {191} lean, and drive them in droves of from two to three hundred to Virginia, along the river Potomack, where they sell them to graziers, who fatten them in order to supply the markets of Baltimore and Philadelphia. The price of a good milch cow is, at Kentucky, from ten to twelve dollars. The milk in a great measure comprises the chief sustenance of the inhabitants. The butter that is not consumed in the country is put into barrels, and exported by the river to the Carribbees.

They bring up very few sheep in these parts; for, although I went upwards of two hundred miles in this state, I saw them only in four plantations. Their flesh is not much esteemed, and their wool is of the same quality as that of the sheep in the eastern states. The most that I ever observed was in Rhode Island.

Of all domestic animals hogs are the most numerous; they are kept by all the inhabitants, several of them feed a hundred and fifty or two hundred. These animals never leave the woods, where they always find a sufficiency of food, especially in autumn and winter. They grow extremely wild, and generally go in herds. Whenever they are surprised, or attacked by a dog or any other animal, they either {192} make their escape, or flock together in the form of a circle to defend themselves. They are of a bulky shape, middling size, and straight eared. Every inhabitant recognizes those that belong to him by the particular manner in which their ears are cut. They stray sometimes in the forests, and do not make their appearance again for several months; they accustom them, notwithstanding, to return every now and then to the plantation, by throwing them Indian corn once or twice a week. It is surprising that in so vast a country, covered with forests, so thinly populated, comparatively to its immense extent, and where there are so few destructive animals, pigs have not increased so far as to grow completely wild.

In all the western states, and even to the east of the Alleghanies, two hundred miles of the sea coast, they are obliged to give salt to the cattle. Were it not for that, the food they give them would never make them look well; in fact, they are so fond of it that they go of their own accord to implore it at the doors of the houses every week or ten days, and spend hours together in licking the trough into which they have scattered a small quantity for them. This want manifests itself most among the horses; {193} but it may be on account of their having it given them more frequently.

Salt provisions form another important article of the Kentucky trade. The quantity exported in the first six months of the year 1802 was seventy-two thousand barrels of dried pork, and two thousand four hundred and eighty-five of salt.

Notwithstanding the superfluity of corn that grows in this part of the country, there is scarcely any of the inhabitants that keep poultry. This branch of domestic economy would not increase their expense, but add a pleasing variety in their food. Two reasons may be assigned for this neglect; the first is, that the use of salt provisions, (a use to which the prevalence of the scurvy among them may be attributed,) renders these delicacies too insipid; the second, that the fields of Indian corn contiguous to the plantations would be exposed to considerable damage, the fences with which they are inclosed being only sufficient to prevent the cattle and pigs from trespassing.

The inhabitants of Kentucky, as we have before stated, are nearly all natives of Virginia, and particularly the remotest parts of that state; and exclusive of the gentlemen of the law, physicians, and a small {194} number of citizens who have received an education suitable to their professions in the Atlantic states, they have preserved the manners of the Virginians. With them the passion for gaming and spirituous liquors is carried to excess, which frequently terminates in quarrels degrading to human nature. The public-houses are always crowded, more especially during the sittings of the courts of justice. Horses and law-suits comprise the usual topic of their conversation. If a traveller happens to pass by, his horse is appreciated; if he stops, he is presented with a glass of whiskey, and then asked a thousand questions, such as, Where do you come from? where are you going? what is your name? where do you live? what profession? were there any fevers in the different parts of the country you came through? These questions, which are frequently repeated in the course of a journey, become tedious, but it is easy to give a check to their inquiries by a little address; their only object being the gratification of that curiosity so natural to people who live isolated in the woods, and seldom see a stranger. They are never dictated by mistrust; for from whatever part of the globe a person comes, he may visit all the ports and principal towns of the United States, stay {195} there as long as he pleases, and travel in any part of the country without ever being interrogated by a public officer.

The inhabitants of Kentucky eagerly recommend to strangers the country they inhabit as the best part of the United States, as that where the soil is most fertile, the climate most salubrious, and where all the inhabitants were brought through the love of liberty and independence! In the interior of their houses they are generally very neat; which induced me, whenever an opportunity offered, to prefer lodging in a private family rather than at a public house, where the accommodation is inferior, although the charges are considerably higher.

The women seldom assist in the labours of the field; they are very attentive to their domestic concerns, and the spinning of hemp or cotton, which they convert into linen for the use of their family. This employment alone is truly laborious, as there are few houses which contain less than four or five children.

Among the various sects that exist in Kentucky, those of the Methodists and Anabaptists are the most numerous. The spirit of religion has acquired a fresh degree of strength within these seven or eight {196} years among the country inhabitants, since, independent of Sundays, which are scrupulously observed, they assemble, during the summer, in the course of the week, to hear sermons. These meetings, which frequently consist of two or three thousand persons who come from all parts of the country within fifteen or twenty miles, take place in the woods, and continue for several days. Each brings his provisions, and spends the night round a fire. The clergymen are very vehement in their discourses. Often in the midst of the sermons the heads are lifted up, the imaginations exalted, and the inspired fall backwards, exclaiming, “Glory! glory!” This species of infatuation happens chiefly among the women, who are carried out of the crowd, and put under a tree, where they lie a long time extended, heaving the most lamentable sighs.

There have been instances of two or three hundred of the congregation being thus affected during the performance of divine service; so that one-third of the hearers were engaged in recovering the rest. Whilst I was at Lexinton I was present at one of these meetings. The better informed people do not share the opinion of the multitude with regard to this state of ecstacy, and on this account they are {197} branded with the appellation of _bad folks_. Except during the continuance of this preaching, religion is very seldom the topic of conversation. Although divided into several sects, they live in the greatest harmony; and whenever there is an alliance between the families, the difference of religion is never considered as an obstacle; the husband and wife pursue whatever kind of worship they like best, and their children, when they grow up, do just the same, without the interference of their parents.

Throughout the western country the children are kept punctually at school, where they learn reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic. These schools are supported at the expense of the inhabitants, who send for masters as soon as the population and their circumstances permit; in consequence of which it is very rare to find an American who does not know how to read and write. Upon the Ohio, and in the Barrens, where the settlements are farther apart, the inhabitants have not yet been able to procure this advantage, which is the object of solicitude in every family.

{198} CHAP. XXI

_Nasheville.--Commercial details.--Settlement of the Natches_.

Nasheville, the principal and the oldest town in this part of Tennessea, is situate upon the river Cumberland, the borders of which, in this part, are formed by a mass of chalky stone upwards of sixty feet in height. Except seven or eight houses that are built of brick, the rest, to the number of about a hundred and twenty, are constructed of wood, and distributed upon a surface of twenty-five or thirty acres, where the rock appears almost bare in every part. They cannot procure water in the town without going a considerable way about to reach the banks of the river, or descending by a deep and dangerous path. When I was at Nasheville one of the inhabitants was endeavouring to pierce the rock, in order to make a well; but at that time he {199} had only dug a few feet, on account of the stone being so amazingly hard.

This little town, although built upwards of fifteen years, contains no kind of manufactory or public establishment; but there is a printing-office which publishes a newspaper once a week. They have also began to found a college, which has been presented with several benefactions for its endowment, but this establishment was only in its infancy, having but seven or eight students and one professor.[51]

The price of labour is higher in this town than at Lexinton, and the same disproportion exists between this price and that of provisions. There appeared to be from fifteen to twenty shops, which are supplied from Philadelphia and Baltimore, but they did not seem so well stocked as those at Lexinton, and the articles, though dearer, are of an inferior quality. The cause of their being so dear may be in some measure attributed to the expense of carriage, which is much greater on account of the amazing distance the boats destined for Tennessea have to go up the Ohio. In fact, after having passed by Limestone, the place where they unload for Kentucky, and which is four hundred and twenty miles from Pittsburgh, they have still to make a passage up the river of six {200} hundred and nineteen miles to reach the mouth of the river Cumberland, and a hundred and eighty miles to arrive at Nasheville, which, in the whole, comprises a space of one thousand five hundred and twenty-one miles from Philadelphia, of which twelve hundred are by water. Some merchants get their goods also from New Orleans, whence the boats go up the Mississippi, the Ohio, and Cumberland. This last distance is about twelve hundred and forty-three miles; viz. a thousand miles from New Orleans to the _embouchure_ of the Ohio, sixty-three miles from thence to Cumberland, and a hundred and eighty from this river to Nasheville.

There are very few cultivators who take upon themselves to export the produce of their labour, consisting chiefly of cotton; the major part of them sell it to the tradespeople at Nasheville, who send it by the river to New Orleans, where it is expedited to New York and Philadelphia, or exported direct to Europe. These tradesmen, like those of Lexinton, do not pay always in cash for the cotton they purchase, but make the cultivators take goods in exchange, which adds considerably to their profit. A great quantity of it is also sent by land to Kentucky, where each family is supplied with it to manufacture articles for their domestic wants.

{201} When I was there in 1802 they made the first attempt to send cottons by the Ohio to Pittsburgh, in order to be thence conveyed to the remote parts of Pennsylvania. I met several barges laden with them near Marietta; they were going up the river with a staff, and making about twenty miles a day. Thus are the remotest parts of the western states united by commercial interests, of which cotton is the basis, and the Ohio the tie of communication, the results of which must give a high degree of prosperity to this part of Tennessea, and insure its inhabitants a signal advantage over those of the Ohio and Kentucky, the territorial produce of which is not of a nature to meet with a great sale in the country or the adjoining parts, and which they are obliged to send to New Orleans.

I had a letter from Dr. Brown, of Lexinton, for Mr. William Peter Anderson, a gentleman of the law at Nasheville, who received me in the most obliging manner; I am also indebted to him for the acquaintance of several other gentlemen; among others was a Mr. Fisk, of New England, president of the college, with whom I had the pleasure of travelling to Knoxville.[52] The inhabitants are very engaging in their manners, and use but little ceremony. {202} On my arrival, I had scarcely alighted when several of them who were at the inn invited me to their plantations.

All the inhabitants of the western country who go by the river to New Orleans, return by land, pass through Nasheville, which is the first town beyond the Natches. The interval that separates them is about six hundred miles, and entirely uninhabited; which obliges them to carry their provisions on horseback to supply them on the road. It is true they have two or three little towns to cross, inhabited by the Chicasaws; but instead of recruiting their stock there, the natives themselves are so indifferently supplied, that travellers are obliged to be very cautious lest they should wish to share with them. Several persons who have been this road assured me, that for a space of four or five hundred miles beyond the Natches the country is very irregular, that the soil is very sandy, in some parts covered with pines, and not much adapted to any kind of culture; but that the borders of the river Tennessea are, on the contrary, very fertile, and even superior to the richest counties in Kentucky and Tennessea.

The settlement of the Natches, which is described by the name of the Mississippi Territory, daily acquires {203} a fresh degree of prosperity, notwithstanding the unhealthiness of the climate, which is such that three-fourths of the inhabitants are every year exposed to intermittent fevers during the summer and autumn; nevertheless, the great profits derived from the cotton entice an immense number of foreigners into that part. The population now amounts to five thousand whites and three thousand negro slaves.[53]

The road that leads to the Natches was only a path that serpentined through these boundless forests, but the federal government have just opened a road, which is on the point of being finished, and will be one of the finest in the United States, both on account of its breadth and the solidity of the bridges constructed over the small rivers that cut through it; to which advantages it will unite that of being shorter than the other by a hundred miles. Thus we may henceforth, on crossing the western country, go in a carriage from Boston to New Orleans, a distance of more than two thousand miles.

{204} CHAP. XXII

_Departure for Knoxville.--Arrival at Fort Blount.--Remarks upon
the drying up of the Rivers in the Summer.--Plantations on
the Road.--Fertility of the Soil.--Excursions in a Canoe on
the River Cumberland._

On the 5th of September I set out from Nasheville for Knoxville, with Mr. Fisk, sent by the state of Tennessea to determine in a more correct manner, in concert with the commissaries of Virginia, the boundaries between the two states. We did not arrive till the 9th at Fort Blount, built upon the river Cumberland, about sixty miles from Nasheville; we stopped on the road with different friends of Mr. Fisk, among others, at the house of General Smith, one of the oldest inhabitants in the country, where he has resided sixteen or seventeen years. It is to him they are indebted for the best map of this state, which is found in the _Geographical Atlas_, published by Matthew Carey, bookseller, at Philadelphia. He confessed to me, notwithstanding, that this map, {205} taken several years ago, was in many respects imperfect. The General has a beautiful plantation cultivated in Indian wheat and cotton; he has also a neat distillery for peach brandy, which he sells at five shillings per gallon. In his leisure hours he busies himself in chemistry. I have seen at his house English translations of the works of Lavoisier and Fourcroy.[54]

We likewise saw, _en passant_, General Winchester, who was at a stone house that was building for him on the road; this mansion, considering the country, bore the external marks of grandeur; it consisted of four large rooms on the ground floor, one story, and a garret. The workmen employed to finish the inside came from Baltimore, a distance of nearly seven hundred miles. The stones are of a chalky nature; there are no others in all that part of Tennessea except round flints, which are found in the beds of some of the rivers which come originally from the mountainous region, whence they have been hurried by the force of the torrents. On the other hand there are so very few of the inhabitants that build in this manner, on account of the price of workmanship, masons being still scarcer than carpenters and joiners.

Not far from the General’s house runs a river, {206} from forty to fifty feet wide, which we crossed dry-footed. Its banks in certain places are upwards of twenty-five feet high, the bottom of its bed is formed with flag stones, furrowed by small grooves, about three or four inches broad, and as many deep, through which the water flowed; but on the contrary the tide is so high in winter, that by means of a lock, they stop a sufficient quantity to turn a mill, situated more than thirty feet in height.

We had now passed several of these rivers that we could have strided over, but which, during the season, are crossed by means of ferry-boats.

A few miles from General Winchester’s plantation, and at a short distance from the road, is situated a small town, founded within these few years, and to which they have given the name of Cairo, in memory of the taking of Cairo by the French.

Between Nasheville and Fort Blount the plantations, although always isolated in the woods, are nevertheless, upon the road, within two or three miles of each other. The inhabitants live in comfortable log houses; the major part keep negroes, and appear to live happy and in abundance. For the whole of this space the soil is but slightly undulated at times very even, and in general excellent; in consequence of {207} which the forests look very beautiful. It is in particular, at _Dixon’s Spring_, fifty miles from Nasheville, and a few miles on this side Major Dixon’s, where I sojourned a day and a half, that we remarked this great fertility. We saw again in the environs a considerable mass of forests, filled with those canes or reeds I have before mentioned, and which grow so close to each other, that at the distance of ten or twelve feet a man could not be perceived was he concealed there. Their tufted foliage presents a mass of verdure that diverts the sight amid these still and gloomy forests. I have before remarked that, in proportion as new plantations are formed, these canes in a few years disappear, as the cattle prefer the leaves of them to any other kind of vegetables, and destroy them still more by breaking the body of the plant while browzing on the top of the stalks. The pigs contribute also to this destruction, by raking up the ground in order to search for the young roots.

Fort Blount was constructed about eighteen years ago, to protect the emigrants who came at that time to settle in Cumberland, against the attacks of the natives, who declared a perpetual war against them, in order to drive them out; but peace having been concluded with them, and the population being {208} much increased, they have been reduced to the impossibility of doing them farther harm, and the Fort has been destroyed. There now exists on this spot a beautiful plantation, belonging to Captain William Samson, with whom Mr. Fisk usually resides. During the two days that we stopped at his house, I went in a canoe up the river Cumberland for several miles. This mode of reconnoitring the natural productions still more various upon the bank of the rivers, is preferable to any other, especially when the rivers are like the latter, bounded by enormous rocks, which are so very steep, that scarcely any person ventures to ascend their lofty heights. In these excursions I enriched my collections with several seeds of trees and plants peculiar to the country, and divers other objects of natural history.

{209} CHAP. XXIII

_Departure from Fort Blount to West Point, through the
Wilderness.--Botanical excursions upon Roaring
River.--Description of its Banks.--Saline productions found
there.--Indian Cherokees.--Arrival at Knoxville._

On the 11th of September we went from Fort Blount to the house of a Mr. Blackborn, whose plantation, situated fifteen miles from this fortress, is the last that the whites possess on this side the line, that separates the territory of the United States from that of the Indian Cherokees. This line presents, as far as West Point upon the Clinch, a country uninhabited upward of eighty miles in breadth, to which they give the name of the _Wilderness_, and of which the mountains of Cumberland occupy a great part. As Mr. Fisk was obliged to go to the court of justice, which is held a few miles from thence in the county {210} of Jackson; we deferred crossing the Wilderness for a few days, and I profited by his absence to go and see Roaring River, one of the branches of the Cumberland. This river, from ten to fifteen fathoms broad, received its name from the confused noise that is heard a mile distant, and which is occasioned by falls of water produced by the sudden lapse of its bed, formed by large flat stones contiguous to each other. These falls, from six, eight, to ten feet high, are so near together, that several of them are to be seen within the space of fifty to a hundred fathoms. We observed in the middle of this river, great stones, from five to six feet in diameter, completely round, and of which nobody could form the least idea how they could have been conveyed there.

The right bank of Roaring River rises in some places from eighty to a hundred feet, and surmounted at this height by rocks that jet out fifteen or twenty feet, and which cover again thick beds of ferruginous _schiste_, situated horizontally. The flakes they consist of are so soft and brittle, that as soon as they are touched, they break off in pieces of a foot long, and fall into a kind of dust, which, in the course of time, imperceptibly undermines the rocks. Upon the flakes of _schiste_ that are least exposed to the air {211} and water, we observed a kind of white efflorescence, extremely thin, and very similar to snow.

There exists again upon the banks of this river, and in other parts of Cumberland, immense caverns, where there are masses of aluminous substances, within so small a degree of the purity necessary to be employed in dyeing, that the inhabitants not only go to fetch it for their own use, but export it to Kentucky. They cut it into pieces with an axe; but nobody is acquainted there with the process used on the _Old Continent_ to prepare the different substances, as it is found in trade.

Large rivulets, after having serpentined in the forests, terminate their windings at the steep banks of this river, whence they fall murmuring into its bed, and form magnificent cascades several fathoms wide. The perpetual humidity that these cascades preserve in these places gives birth to a multitude of plants which grow in the midst of a thick moss, with which the rock is covered, and which forms the most beautiful verdant carpet.

All these circumstances give the borders of Roaring River a cool and pleasing aspect, which I had never witnessed before on the banks of other rivers. A {212} charming variety of trees and shrubs are also seen there, which are to be met with no where else. We observed the _magnolia auriculata_, _macrophilla_, _cordata_, _acuminata_, and _tripetala_. The fruit of these trees, so remarkable for the beauty of their flowers and superb foliage, were in the highest perfection. I gathered a few seeds to multiply them in France, and to add to the embellishment of our gardens. These seeds grow rancid very soon. I endeavoured to remedy this inconvenience by putting them into fresh moss, which I renewed every fortnight till my return to Carolina, where I continued the same precautions till the epoch of my embarking for Europe. I have since had the satisfaction to see that my pains were not fruitless, and that I succeeded by this means in preserving their germinative faculty.

Major Russel, with whom I went to lodge after I had taken my leave of Mr. Blackborn, and where Mr. Fisk rejoined me, furnished us very obligingly with necessary provisions for the two days journey through the territory of the Cherokees. Notwithstanding the harmony that at present subsists between the whites and these Indians, it is always more prudent to travel five or six in a party. Nevertheless as we were at a considerable distance from the usual place of _rendezvous_, where the travellers put up, we resolved {213} to set out alone, and we arrived happily at West Point. This country is exceedingly mountainous, we could not make above forty-five miles the first day, although we travelled till midnight. We encamped near a small river, where there was an abundance of grass; and after having made a fire we slept in our rugs, keeping watch alternately in order to guard our horses, and make them feed close by us for fear of the natives, who sometimes steal them in spite of all the precaution a traveller can take, as their dexterity in that point exceeds all that a person can imagine. During this day’s journey we saw nothing but wild turkies, thirty or forty in a flight.