18. The morning was clear; temperature 20°. In the afternoon the ice melted.
19. Temperature 29° in the morning. In the forenoon, snow fell to the thickness of an inch and a half. In the evening it became liquid.
There is much wet ground in the vicinity of the falls. Intermittent fevers afflict the inhabitants toward the end of summer and in autumn. Last season an unusual degree of sickness was experienced.
New settlers continue to descend the river. Family boats are almost continually in sight. In a {138} boat lying ashore to-day, a man was busy in making shingles. He has brought with him pine timber from Allegany river. Shingles give a good price here, where pine trees do not grow, and they furnish him with employment at intervals. This is a good specimen of the provident habits and the industry of New Englanders, a people admirably adapted for taking possession of the woods.
March 1. To-day the people of Jeffersonville elected a Squire, (Justice of the Peace.) Two young men disagreed, and fought a furious battle. In justice to the election, it is admitted that the fight was in consequence of an old quarrel.
I have met with no less than eight Scotsmen to-day. We are said to be the most national of all Europeans in America, and the most loyal to old monarchy.
The weather is mild and clear, with the aspect of spring. Birds begin to chirp in the woods; their plumage is fine, but they are not songsters.
Jeffersonville contains about sixty-five houses, thirteen stores (shops,) and two taverns; the land office for a large district of Indiana, and a printing office that publishes a weekly newspaper, and where the American copy of the most celebrated of all reviews is sold. A steam-boat is on the stocks, measuring 180 feet long, and forty broad; estimated to carry 700 tons. There are now thirty-one steam-boats on the Mississippi and Ohio. Twenty-nine more are building, and in a forward state.
At present, a passage from New Orleans to the falls of Ohio costs 100 dollars, including provisions. Goods are carried at 61/4 cents per pound weight. This high rate, with the danger of passing through a most unhealthy climate, in case of arriving after the beginning of July, {139} or before the end of October, gives Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York, a decided preference to Europeans who would settle in the lower parts of the Ohio country, or on the Missouri. It is, indeed, conjectured, that the increase of steam-boats will soon occasion a competition, and a great fall in the freight; but, it is only after a great deduction taking place, that New Orleans need be compared with Baltimore, as the port for landing emigrants.
May 19. The steam-boat, Western Engineer and a number of keel-boats, descended the falls to-day, with a considerable body of troops, accompanied by a mineralogist, a botanist, a geographer, and a painter.[81] Their object is to explore the Missouri country, and to form a garrison at the mouth of Yellow Stone river, about 1800 miles up the Missouri river. Five other steam-boats, besides other craft, are expected to join the expedition. The Western Engineer has on the bow, a large sculpture of the head of a snake, through which the waste steam escapes; a device, independently of the general aspect of the equipment, that might be enough to strike terror amongst the savage tribes.