Wednesday, 14th, after breakfast, Mr. Blennerhasset accompanied me to Natchez, where we made a few visits, in doing which we called on Mr. Evans, whose niece, Mrs. Wallace, a young and gay widow, and his eldest daughter, favoured us with a few tunes on an organ, built for him by one Hurdis, an English musical instrument maker and teacher of musick, {319} then residing in Natchez. The instrument was tolerably good, and ought to be so, as it has cost one thousand dollars.
I returned home with Mr. Blennerhasset, and next morning very early, proceeded through Washington, Sulserstown and Uniontown to Greenville, and from thence by a tolerably good road, in a northerly direction, twelve miles to Trimble’s tavern, where I put up for the night. I was much impeded in my progress for the last two miles, by the effects of a hurricane, which had happened about a year before, and which had blown down by the roots, or broken off the tops of all the trees in its way—levelling every cabin and fence that opposed its passage, but like the generality of the hurricanes (which happen frequently in this climate and always from the westward) not exceeding half a mile in breadth. Trimble’s family had like to have been buried under the ruins of their cabin, not having had over a minute to escape to the outside, and throw themselves flat on the ground, when it was blown down. Those gusts are very tremendous, being always accompanied by thunder, lightning, and torrents of rain, but from running in such narrow veins, they are very partial, and therefore not so much dreaded as those general ones which sometimes devastate the West India islands.
Next day I proceeded nine miles in a northerly direction to Port Gibson, on a western branch of the Bayau Pierre. This little town of twenty houses is the capital of Claiborne county, and is esteemed the most thriving place in the territory, notwithstanding it is extremely unhealthy, from the proximity of some stagnant ponds, and the annual inundation of the Mississippi, which swells Bayau Pierre and causes it to stagnate for from four to six months, every year. The ponds might be drained, were the inhabitants not so entirely occupied by business and {320} pleasure, to which two pursuits they devote the whole of their time.
It is thirty miles from Port Gibson to the Mississippi, following the windings of the Bayau Pierre, through a very hilly and broken country, but it is only fourteen miles by the road. As when the waters are up the bayau is navigable for large craft, that season is the most bustling time in Port Gibson, the storekeepers then importing goods and exporting cotton. On the subsiding of the waters, the sickly season commences, and lasts with little variation from July to October, inclusive. This is more or less the case over the whole territory, particularly on the banks of the Mississippi, and in the neighbourhood of swamps and stagnant ponds. The driest seasons are the most unhealthy. The prevailing malady is a fever of the intermittent species, sometimes accompanied by ague, and sometimes not. It is rarely fatal in itself, but its consequences are dreadful, as it frequently lasts five or six months in defiance of medicine, and leaves the patient in so relaxed and debilitated a state, that he never after regains the strength he had lost. It also frequently terminates in jaundice or dropsy, which sometimes prove fatal.
All newcomers are subject to what is called a seasoning, after which, though they may be annually attacked by this scourge of the climate, it rarely confines them longer than a few days. Every house in Port Gibson is either a store, a tavern, or the workshop of a mechanick. There is a very mean gaol, and an equally bad court-house, though both are much in use, particularly the latter, as, like the United States in general, the people are fond of litigation. Gambling is carried to the greatest excess, particularly horse racing, cards and betting—a wager always deciding every difference of opinion. On the whole, Port Gibson and its neighbourhood is {321} perhaps the most dissolute as well as the most thriving part of the territory.
I dined at my friend doctor Cummin’s,[218] who lives on his fine plantation near the town, and taking a S. W. road of thirteen miles, I arrived in the evening at Bruinsburg.
I shall here conclude my tour, with a few general observations.
The climate of this territory is very unequal, between excess of heat during the principal part of the year, when the inhabitants are devoured by musquitoes, gnats and sand-flies, to excess of cold, in the winter nights and mornings, when a good fire, and plenty of warm woollen clothing are indispensibly necessary, though the middle of the day is frequently warm enough for muslin and nankeen dresses to suffice.
The soil is as various as the climate. The river bottoms generally, and some of the cane brake hills, not being exceeded for richness in the world, while some ridges and tracts of country after being cleared and cultivated for a few years, are so exhausted, as to become almost barren.
Water is very partially distributed—it being scarce, unpleasant, and unwholesome, within seven or eight miles of the Mississippi—and it being fine and in abundance from that to the eastward to the pine woods, which generally begin at from fifteen to twenty miles distance from the river.