Part 20

On the second evening of our expedition we encamped on a small hill, from whose top there was a most pleasing romantic view, along a stream of considerable size which wound round its base, and as far as our eyes could reach, appeared tumbling in small falls over ledges of rocks. A fire being kindled, and the tent pitched as usual, the Indians sat down to cook some squirrels which we had killed on the borders of the plains. These animals the Indians had observed, as we came along, on the top of a large hollow tree; they immediately laid down their loads, and each taking out his tomahawk, and setting to work at a different part of the tree, it was felled down in less than five minutes, and such of the squirrels as escaped their dogs we readily shot for them.

The Indian dogs, in general, have short legs, long backs, large pricked up ears, and long curly tails; they differ from the common English cur dogs in no respect so much as in their barking but very seldom. They are extremely sagacious, and seem to understand even what their masters say to them in a low voice, without making any signs, either with the hand or head.

[Sidenote: JOURNEY THROUGH THE WOODS.]

Whilst the squirrels were roasting on a forked stick stuck in the ground, and bent over the fire, one of the Indians went into the woods, and brought out several small boughs of a tree, apparently of the willow tribe. Having carefully scraped the bark off from these, he made a sort of frame with the twigs, in shape somewhat like a gridiron, and heaping upon it the scraped bark, placed it over the fire to dry. When it was tolerably crisp he rubbed it between his hands, and put it up in his pouch for the purpose of smoking.

The Indians smoke the bark of many different trees, and a great variety of herbs and leaves besides tobacco. The most agreeable of any of the substances which they smoke are the leaves of the sumach tree, rhus-toxicodendron. This is a graceful shrub, which bears leaves somewhat similar to those of the ash. Towards the latter end of autumn they turn of a bright red colour, and when wanted for smoking are plucked off and dried in the sun. Whilst burning they afford a very agreeable perfume. These leaves are very commonly smoked, mixed with tobacco, by the white people of the country; the smoke of them by themselves alone, is said to be prejudicial to the lungs. The sumach tree bears tufted bunches of crimson flowers. One of these bunches dipped lightly, for a few times, into a bowl of punch, gives the liquor a very agreeable acid, and in the southern states it is common to use them for that purpose, but it is a dangerous custom, as the acid, though extremely agreeable to the palate, is of a poisonous quality, and never fails to produce a most alarming effect on the bowels if used too freely.

A sharp frost set in this night, and on the following morning, at day-break, we recommenced our journey with crossing the river already mentioned up to our waists in water, no very pleasing task. Both on this and the subsequent day we had to wade through several other considerable streams.

A few squirrels were the only wild animals which we met with in our journey through the woods, and the most solemn silence imaginable reigned throughout, except where a woodpecker was heard now and then tapping with its bill against a hollow tree. The birds in general flock towards the settlements, and it is a very rare circumstance to meet with them in the depth of the forest.

[Sidenote: MISTAKEN SETTLERS.]

The third evening we encamped as usual. No sooner had we come to our resting place, than the Indians threw off their clothes, and rolled themselves on the grass just as horses would do, to refresh themselves, the day having proved very hot, notwithstanding the frost the preceding night. We were joined this evening by another party of the Seneka Indians, who were going to a village situated on the Genesee River, and in the morning we all set out together. Early in the day we came to several plains similar to those we had before met with, but not so extended, on the borders of one of which we saw, for the first time, a bark hut apparently inhabited. On going up to it, our surprise was not a little to find two men, whose appearance and manners at once bespoke them not to be Americans. After some conversation we discovered them to be two Englishmen, who had formerly lived in London as _valets de chambre_, and having scraped together a little money, had set out for New York, where they expected at once to become great men; however they soon found to their cost, that the expence of living in that city was not suited to their pockets, and they determined to go and settle in the back country. They were at no loss to find persons who had land to dispose of, and happening to fall in with a jobber who owned some of these plains, and who painted to them in lively colours the advantage they would derive from settling on good land already cleared to their hand, they immediately purchased a considerable track of this barren ground at a round price, and set out to fix themselves upon it. From the neighbouring settlements, which were about ten miles off, they procured the assistance of two men, who after having built for them the bark hut in which we found them left them with a promise of returning in a short time to erect a log house. They had not, however, been punctual to their word, and unable to wield an axe, or to do any one thing for themselves, these unfortunate wretches sat moping in their hut, supporting themselves on some salt provisions they had brought with them, but which were now nearly exhausted. The people in the settlements, whom, on arriving there, we asked some few questions respecting these poor creatures, turned them into the greatest ridicule imaginable for being so helpless; and indeed they did present a most striking picture of the folly of any man’s attempting to settle in America without being well acquainted with the country previously, and competent to do every sort of country work for himself.

[Sidenote: DRUNKEN INDIANS.]

It was not without very great vexation that we perceived, shortly after leaving this hut, evident symptoms of drunkenness in one of the Indians, and on examining our brandy cask it was but too plain that it had been pillaged. During the preceding part of our journey we had kept a watchful eye upon it, but drawing towards the end of our expedition, and having had every reason to be satisfied with the conduct of the Indians, we had not paid sufficient attention to it this day; and though it could not have been much more than five minutes out of our sight, yet in that short space of time the screw had been forced, and the cask drained to the last drop. The Indian, whom we discovered to be drunk, was advanced a little before the others. He went on for some time staggering about from side to side, but at last, stopping and laying hold of his scalping knife, which they always carry with them by their sides, he began to brandish it with a threatening air. There is but one line of conduct to be pursued when you have to deal with Indians in such a situation, and that is, to act with the most determined resolution. If you betray the smallest symptoms of fear, or appear at all wavering in your conduct, it only serves to render them more ungovernable and furious. I accordingly took him by the shoulder, pushed him forward, and presenting my piece, gave him to underhand that I would shoot him if he did not behave himself properly. My companions, whilst I was taking care of him, went back to see in what state the other Indians were. Luckily the liquor, though there was reason to apprehend they had all had a share of it, had not made the same impression upon them. One of them, indeed, was beginning to be refractory, and absolutely threw down his load, and refused to go farther; but a few words from _China-breast-plate_ induced him to resume it, and to go on. On coming up to the first Indian, and seeing the sad state he was in, they shook their heads, and crying, “No good Indian,” “No good Indian,” endeavoured by signs to inform us that it was he who had pillaged the cask, and drank all the brandy; but as it was another Indian who carried the cask, no doubt remained but that they must all have had a share of the plunder; that the first fellow, however, had drank more than the rest was apparent; for in a few minutes he dropped down speechless under his load; the others hastened to take it off from his back, and having divided it amongst themselves, they drew him aside from the path, and threw him under some bushes, where he was left to sleep till he should come again to his senses.

[Sidenote: GENESEE RIVER.]

About noon we reached the Genesee River, at the opposite side of which was situated the village where we expected to procure horses. We crossed the river in canoes, and took up our quarters at a house at the uppermost end of the village, where we were very glad to find our Indian friends could get no accommodation, for we knew well that the first use they would make of the money we were going to give them would be to buy liquor, and intoxicate themselves, in which state they would not fail of becoming very troublesome companions; it was scarcely dark indeed when news was brought us from a house near the river, that they went to after we had discharged them, that they were grown quite outrageous with the quantity of spirits they had drank, and were fighting and cutting each other in a most dreadful manner. They never resent the injuries they receive from any person that is evidently intoxicated, but attribute their wounds entirely to the liquor, on which they vent their execrations for all the mischief it has committed.

Before I dismiss the subject entirely, I must observe to you, that the Indians did not seem to think the carrying of our baggage was in any manner degrading to them; and after having received their due, they shook hands with us, and parted from us, not as from employers who had hired them, but as from friends whom they had been assisting, and were now sorry to leave.

The village where we stopped consisted of about eight or nine straggling houses; the best built one among them was that in which we lodged. It belonged to a family from New England, who about six years before had penetrated to this spot, then covered with woods, and one hundred and fifty miles distant from any other settlement. Settlements are now scattered over the whole of the country which they had to pass through in coming to it. The house was commodious and well built, and the people decent, civil, and reputable. It is a very rare circumstance to meet with such people amongst the first settlers on the frontiers; in general they are men of a morose and savage disposition, and the very outcasts of society, who bury themselves in the woods, as if desirous to shun the face of their fellow creatures; there they build a rude habitation, and clear perhaps three or four acres of land, just as much as they find sufficient to provide their families with corn: for the greater part of their food they depend on their rifle guns. These people, as the settlements advance, are succeeded in general by a second set of men, less savage than the first, who clear more land, and do not depend so much upon hunting as upon agriculture for their subsistence. A third set succeed these in turn, who build good houses, and bring the land into a more improved state. The first settlers, as soon as they have disposed of their miserable dwellings to advantage, immediately penetrate farther back into the woods, in order to gain a place of abode suited to their rude mode of life. These are the lawless people who encroach, as I have before mentioned, on the Indian territory, and are the occasion of the bitter animosities between the whites and the Indians. The second settlers, likewise, when displaced, seek for similar places to what those that they have left were when they first took them. I found, as I proceeded through this part of the country, that there was scarcely a man who had not changed his place of abode seven or eight different times.

As none but very miserable horses were to be procured at this village on the Genesee River, and as our expedition through the woods had given us a relish for walking, we determined to proceed on foot, and merely to hire horses to carry our baggage; accordingly, having engaged a pair, and a boy to conduct them, we set off early on the second morning from that of our arrival at the village, for the town of Bath.

[Sidenote: PICTURESQUE VIEWS.]

The country between these two places is most agreeably diversified with hill and dale, and as the traveller passes over the hills which overlook the Genesee River and the flats bordering upon it, he is entertained with a variety of noble and picturesque views. We were particularly struck with the prospect from a large, and indeed very handsome house in its kind, belonging to a Major Wadsworth, built on one of these hills. The Genesee River, bordered with the richest woods imaginable, might be seen from it for many miles, meandering through a fertile country; and beyond the flats, on each side of the river, appeared several ranges of blue hills rising up one behind another in a most fanciful manner, the whole together forming a most beautiful landscape. Here, however, in the true American taste, the greatest pains were taking to diminish, and, indeed, to shut out all the beauties of the prospect; every tree in the neighbourhood of the house was felled to the ground; instead of a neat lawn, for which the ground seemed to be singularly well disposed, a wheat field was laid down in front of it; and at the bottom of the slope, at the distance of two hundred yards from the house, a town was building by the major, which, when completed, would effectually screen from the dwelling house every sight of the river and mountains. The Americans, as I before observed, seem to be totally dead to the beauties of nature, and only to admire a spot of ground as it appears to be more or less calculated to enrich the occupier by its produce.

The Genesee River takes its name from a lofty hill in the Indian territory, near to which it passes, called by the Indians Genesee, a word signifying, in their language, a grand extensive prospect.

[Sidenote: GENESEE RIVER.]

The flats bordering upon the Genesee River are amongst the richest lands that are to be met with in North America, to the east of the Ohio. Wheat, as I told you in a former letter, will not grow upon them; and it is not found that the soil is impoverished by the successive crops of Indian corn and hemp that are raised upon them year after year. The great fertility of these flats is to be ascribed to the regular annual overflowing of the Genesee River, whose waters are extremely muddy, and leave no small quantity of slime behind them before they return to their natural channel. That river empties itself into Lake Ontario: it is somewhat more than one hundred miles in length, but only navigable for the last forty miles of its course, except at the time of the inundations; and even then the navigation is not uninterrupted the whole way down to the lake, there being three considerable falls in the river about ten miles above its mouth: the greatest of these falls is said to be ninety feet in perpendicular height. The high lands in the neighbourhood of the Genesee River are stony, and are not distinguished for their fertility, but the valleys are all extremely fruitful, and abound with rich timber.

The summers in this part of the country are by no means so hot as towards the Atlantic, and the winters are moderate; it is seldom, indeed, that the snow lies on the ground much longer than six or seven weeks; but notwithstanding this circumstance, and that the face of the country is so much diversified with rising grounds, yet the whole of it is dreadfully unhealthy; scarcely a family escapes the baneful effects of the fevers that rage here during the autumn season. I was informed by the inhabitants, that much fewer persons had been attacked by the fever the last season than during former years, and of these few a very small number died, the fever having proved much less malignant than it was ever known to be before. This circumstance led the inhabitants to hope, that as the country became more cleared it would become much more healthy. It is well known, indeed, that many parts of the country, which were extremely healthy while they remained covered with wood, and which also proved healthy after they had been generally cleared and settled, were very much otherwise when the trees were first cut down: this has been imputed to the vapours arising from the newly cleared lands on their being first exposed to the burning rays of the sun, and which, whilst the newly cleared spots remain surrounded by woods, there is not a sufficient circulation of air to dispel. The unhealthiness of the country at present does not deter numbers of people from coming to settle here every year, and few parts of North America can boast of a more rapid improvement than the Genesee country during the last four years.

[Sidenote: SMALL TOWNS.]

In our way to Bath we passed through several small towns that had been lately begun, and in these the houses were comfortable and neatly built; but the greater part of those of the farmers were wretched indeed; one at which we stopped for the night, in the course of our journey, had not even a chimney or window to it; a large hole at the end of the roof supplied the deficiency of both; the door was of such a nature, also, as to make up in some measure for the want of a window, as it admitted light on all sides. A heavy fall of snow happened to take place whilst we were at this house, and as we lay stretched on our skins beside the fire, at night, the snow was blown, in no small quantities, through the crevices of the door, under our very ears.

At some of these houses we got plenty of venison, and good butter, milk, and bread; but at others we could get nothing whatsoever to eat. At one little village, consisting of three or four houses, the people told us, that they had not even sufficient bread and milk for themselves; and, indeed, the scantiness of the meal to which we saw them sitting down confirmed the truth of what they said. We were under the necessity of walking on for nine miles beyond this village before we could get any thing to satisfy our appetites.

The fall of snow, which I have mentioned, interrupted our progress through the woods very considerably the subsequent morning; it all disappeared, however, before the next night, and in the course of the third day from that on which we left the banks of the Genesee River we reached the place of our destination.

_LETTER _ XXXVII.

_Account of Bath.—Of the Neighbourhood.—Singular Method taken to improve it.—Speculators.—Description of one, in a Letter from an American Farmer.—Conhorton Creek.—View of the Navigation from Bath downwards.—Leave Bath for Newtown.—Embark in Canoes.—Stranded in the Night.—Seek for Shelter in a neighbouring House.—Difficulty of procuring Provisions.—Resume our Voyage.—Lochartsburgh.—Description of the eastern Branch of the Susquehannah River.—French Town.—French and Americans ill suited to each other.—Wilkes-barré.—Mountains in the Neighbourhood.—Country thinly settled towards Philadelphia.—Description of the Wind-Gap in the Blue Mountains.—Summary Account of the Moravian Settlement at Bethlehem.—Return to Philadelphia._

Philadelphia, November.

[Sidenote: BATH.]

BATH is a post town, and the principal town in the western parts of the state of New York. Though laid out only three years ago, yet it already contains about thirty houses, and is increasing very fast. Amongst the houses are several stores or shops well furnished with goods, and a tavern that would not be thought meanly of in any part of America. This town was founded by a gentleman who formerly bore the rank of captain in his Majesty’s service; he has likewise been the founder of Williamsburgh and Falkner’s Town; and indeed to his exertions, joined to those of a few other individuals, may be ascribed the improvement of the whole of this part of the country, best known in America by the name of the Genesee Country, or the County of the Lakes, from its being watered by that river, and a great number of small lakes.

[Sidenote: LAND SPECULATION.]

The landed property of which this gentleman, who founded Bath, &c. has had the active management, is said to have amounted originally to no less than six millions of acres, the greater part of which belonged to an individual in England. The method he has taken to improve this property has been, by granting land in small portions and on long credits to individuals who would immediately improve it, and in larger portions and on a shorter credit to others who purchased on speculation, the lands in both cases being mortgaged for the payment of the purchase money; thus, should the money not be paid at the appointed time, he could not be a loser, as the lands were to be returned to him, and should they happen to be at all improved, as was most likely to be the case, he would be a considerable gainer even by having them returned on his hands; moreover, if a poor man, willing to settle on his land, had not money sufficient to build a house and to go on with the necessary improvements, he has at once supplied him, having had a large capital himself, with what money he wanted for that purpose, or sent his own workmen, of whom he keeps a prodigious number employed, to build a house for him, at the same time taking the man’s note at three, four, or five years, for the cost of the house, &c. with interest. If the man should be unable to pay at the appointed time, the house, mortgaged like the lands, must revert to the original proprietor, and the money arising from its sale, and that of the farm adjoining, partly improved, will in all probability be found to amount to more than what the poor man had promised to pay for it: but a man taking up land in America in this manner, at a moderate price, cannot fail, if industrious, of making money sufficient to pay for it, as well as for a house, at the appointed time.

The numbers that have been induced by these temptations, not to be met with elsewhere in the States, to settle in the Genesee County, is astonishing; and numbers are still flocking to it every year, as not one third of the lands are yet disposed of. It was currently reported in the county, as I passed through it, that this gentleman, of whom I have been speaking, had, in the notes of the people to whom he had sold land payable at the end of three, or four, or five years, the immense sum of two millions of dollars. The original cost of the land was not more than a few pence per acre; what therefore must be the profits!

It may readily be imagined, that the granting of land on such very easy terms could not fail to draw crowds of speculators (a sort of gentry with which America abounds in every quarter) to this part of the country; and indeed we found, as we passed along, that every little town and village throughout the country abounded with them, and each place, in consequence, exhibited a picture of idleness and dissipation. The following letter, supposed to come from a farmer, though somewhat ludicrous, does not give an inaccurate description of one of these young speculators, and of what is going on in this neighbourhood. It appeared in a news-paper published at Wilkes-barré, on the Susquehannah, and I give it to you verbatim, because, being written by an American, it will perhaps carry more weight with it than any thing I could say on the same subject.

[Sidenote: METHOD OF IMPROVING PROPERTY.]