These favourable circumstances thus co-operating, after bidding adieu to my friends and liberal patrons in these parts, I embarked on board this vessel, and after a short and pleasant passage through the sound, arrived at Sunbury, from whence, after shipping my collections, I sat sail again for Charleston, South Carolina; where being arrived I spent the season in short excursions until next spring; and during this time of my recess I had leisure to plan my future travels, agreeable to Dr. Fothergill’s instructions, and the council and advice of Dr. Chalmers of Charleston, with other gentlemen of that city, eminent for the promotion of science and encouraging merit and industry.
It was agreed that my future route should be directed West and South-West, into the Cherokee country and the regions of the Muscogulges or Creeks.
JOURNAL
OF THE
TRAVELS
CONTINUED.
PART III.
CHAPTER I.
April 22d, 1776, I sat off from Charleston for the Cherokee nation, and after riding this day about twenty-five miles, arrived in the evening at Jacksonsburg, a village on Ponpon river. The next day’s journey was about the same distance, to a public house or inn on the road.
The next day, early in the morning, I sat off again, and about noon stopped at a public house to dine. After the meridan heats were abated, proceeding on till evening, I obtained good quarters at a private house, having rode this day about thirty miles. At this plantation I observed a large orchard of the European Mulberry tree (Morus alba) some of which were grafted on stocks of the native Mulberry (Morus rubra); these trees were cultivated for the purpose of feeding silk-worms (phalaena bombyx). Having breakfasted, I sat forward again.
I soon entered a high forest, continuing the space of fifteen miles to the Three Sisters, a public ferry on Savanna River: the country generally very level; the soil a dark, loose, fertile mould, on a stratum of cinereous-coloured tenacious clay; the ground shaded with its native forests, consisting of the great Black Oak, Quercus tinctoria, Q. rubra, Q. phellos, Q. prinos, Q. hemispherica, Juglans nigra, J. rustica, J. exaltata, Magnolia grandiflora, Fraxinus excelsior, Acer rubrum, Liriodendron tulipifera, Populus heterophylla, Morus rubra, Nyssa sylvatica, Platanus occidentales, Tilia, Ulmus campestris, U. subiser, Laurus sassafras, L. Borbonia, Ilex aquifolium, Fagus sylvatica, Cornus Florida, Halesia, Æsculus pavia, Sambucus, Callicarpa, and Stewartia malachodendron, with a variety of other trees and shrubs. This ancient sublime forest, frequently intersected with extensive avenues, vistas and green lawns, opening to extensive savannas and far distant Rice plantations, agreeably employs the imagination, and captivates the senses by their magnificence and grandeur.
The gay mock-bird, vocal and joyous, mounts aloft on silvered wings, rolls over and over, then gently descends, and presides in the choir of the tuneful tribes.
Having dined at the ferry, I crossed the river into Georgia: on landing and ascending the bank, which was here a North prospect, I observed the Dirca palustris, growing six or seven feet high. I rode about twelve miles further through Pine forests and savannas. In the evening I took up my quarters at a delightful habitation, though not a common tavern. Having ordered my horse a stable and provender, and refreshed my spirits with a draught of cooling liquor, I betook myself to contemplation in the groves and lawns. Directing my steps towards the river, I observed in a high Pine forest on the border of a savanna, a great number of cattle herded together, and on my nearer approach discovered it to be a cow pen: on my coming up I was kindly saluted by my host and his wife, who I found were superintending a number of slaves, women, boys and girls, that were milking the cows. Here were about forty milch cows and as many young calves; for in these Southern countries the calves run with the cows a whole year, the people milking them at the same time. The pen, including two or three acres of ground, more or less, according to the stock, adjoining a rivulet or run of water, is enclosed by a fence: in this enclosure the calves are kept while the cows are out at range: a small part of this pen is partioned off to receive the cows, when they come up at evening; here are several stakes drove into the ground, and there is a gate in the partition fence for a communication between the two pens. When the milkmaid has taken her share of milk, she looses the calf, who strips the cow, which is next morning turned out again to range.
I found these people, contrary to what a traveller might, perhaps, reasonably expect, from their occupation and remote situation from the capital or any commercial town, to be civil and courteous: and though educated as it were in the woods, no strangers to sensibility and those moral virtues which grace and ornament the most approved and admired characters in civil society.