We found at the landing a keel loaded with lead from Kaskaskias on the Mississippi;[98] It was worked by eight stout Canadians, all naked, except a breech clout. They are the descendants of the original French settlers, and they resemble the Indians both in their manners and customs, and complexion; which last is occasioned by their being exposed naked to all weathers from their infancy; which also renders them very hardy, and capable of enduring much fatigue. They are temperate in the use of spiritous liquors, while engaged in any laborious employment, but they must be fed with double the quantity of food which would suffice American or English labourers. The meat which they prefer is bacon or salt pork, of which they use daily about four pounds each man, besides bread and potatoes.
They are preferred to any other description of people for navigating the craft on the rivers in this country, being patient, steady, and trusty, and never deserting their boats until their engagement is fulfilled, which the American boatmen frequently do.
We got an excellent breakfast at Mr. Menager’s, a French emigrant, who keeps a tavern and a store of very well assorted goods, which he goes yearly to Baltimore to purchase. He is a native of Franche {129} Comté, and his wife is from Burgundy. They are very civil and obliging, and have a fine family. It is fifteen years since they arrived in this country, together with nearly 800 emigrants from France, of whom only about twenty families now remain at Galliopolis; the rest having either returned to France, descended the Ohio to French Grant, proceeded to the banks of the Mississippi, or fallen victims to the insalubrity of the climate, which however no longer, or only partially exists, as it has gradually ameliorated in proportion to the progress of settlement.[99]
Menager has a curious machine for drawing water from his well forty or fifty feet deep, and which will answer equally well for any depth. He got the model from Mr. Blennerhasset. As I am not mechanick enough to give an adequate description of it, I shall only remark, that it is equally simple and ingenuous, and saves much labour; the full bucket flying up and emptying itself into a small wooden cistern, while the empty bucket sinks at the same time into the well, and that without being obliged to work a winch as in the common mode, where wells are too deep for pumps.
In Galliopolis there are about fifty houses all of wood, in three long streets parallel to the river, crossed at right angles by six shorter ones, each one hundred feet wide. A spacious square is laid out in the centre, on which they are now making brick to build a court-house for Gallia county.
During a walk through the town after breakfast, we were civilly accosted by an old man at the door of the most western house, who invited us to enter and rest ourselves. He was named Marion, and with his old wife, reminded me of Baucis and Philemon, or of Darby and Joan. They came here with the first emigrants from Burgundy—bought some town lots, on which they planted fruit trees, and converted into corn fields, as they could not procure tenants {130} nor purchasers to build on them. They have no children—they seem much attached to each other, and are healthy, and content with their situation.—They insisted with much hospitality on our tasting the old lady’s manufacture of cherry bounce, before they knew that we could converse with them in their native tongue; but, when they found that we could not only do so, but that I could make a subject of conversation of their own country, and even of their own province, from having visited it long since they had bid it a final adieu—it was with difficulty they would permit us to leave them, before we had spent at least one day with them. Indeed I never saw the amor patriæ more strongly manifested, than in the fixed and glistening eyes, which they rivetted on my face, whilst I described the present state of their provincial capital Dijon.
Galliopolis abounds with fruit, to the planting of which, French settlers always pay great attention; but the town does not thrive, although very pleasantly situated on an extensive flat.
Pursuing our voyage at ten o’clock, half a league below Galliopolis, we passed a skiff containing a family, the head of which was a carpenter and farmer from Baltimore, going to Green river about five hundred miles lower down.
At two o’clock we had rowed fourteen miles, having passed Racoon island and creek on the right, during which the bottom was so extensive on each side, that we could not see the tops of the river hills over the banks. We were here charmed with the melody of the red birds responding to each other from the opposite banks, particularly on passing Racoon island. Our exercise having given us an appetite, we landed and dined under a shady bank on the right, opposite to a creek, which from that circumstance, and its not being noticed in our chart or Navigator, we named Meridian creek.
{131} Here we began to see again the tops of the low river hills on the right, but on the left the extensive bottom still continued, notwithstanding which the settlements are very thinly scattered, especially for the last eight miles.