This colony is useful to the neighbourhood. It furnishes, from its store, many articles of great value, not so well supplied elsewhere; and it is a market for all spare produce. Many kinds of culinary plants, and many fruit-trees are cultivated here; and the Harmonites set a good example of neatness and industry. When we contrast their neatness and order, with the slovenly habits of their neighbours, we see (says Mr. Birkbeck) the good that arises from association, which advances these poor people a century, at least, on the social scale, beyond the solitary beings who build their huts in the wilderness.
At Harmony Mr. Birkbeck and his family lived at the tavern, and their board there cost two dollars per week, each person: for these they received twenty-one meals. Excellent coffee and tea, with broiled chickens, bacon, &c. for breakfast and supper, and a variety of good, but simple fare at dinner. Except coffee, tea, or milk, no liquor but water is thought of at meals in this country.
Mr. Birkbeck observes that, when the back country of America is mentioned in England, musquitoes by night, and rattlesnakes by day, never fail to alarm the imagination: to say nothing of wolves and bears, and panthers, and Indians still more ferocious than these. His course of travelling, from the mouth of James River, and over the mountains, up to Pittsburg, about five hundred miles; then three hundred miles through the woods of the state of Ohio, down to Cincinnati; next, across the entire wilderness of Indiana, and to the extreme south of the Illinois:—this long and deliberate journey, (he says,) one would suppose, might have introduced his party to an intimate acquaintance with some of these pests of America. It is true that they killed several of the serpent tribe; black snakes, garter-snakes, &c. and that they saw one rattlesnake of extraordinary size. They experienced inconvenience from musquitoes in a few damp spots, just as they would have done from gnats in England. In their late expeditions in the Illinois, where they led the lives of thorough backwoods-men, if they were so unfortunate as to pitch their tent on the edge of a creek, or near a swamp, and mismanaged their fire, they were teased with musquitoes, as they would have been in the fens of Cambridgeshire: but this was the sum total of their experience of these reported plagues.
Wolves and bears are extremely numerous, and commit much injury in the newly-settled districts. Hogs, which are a main dependance for food as well as profit, are the constant prey of the bears; and the holds of these animals are so strong, that the hunters are unable to keep down their numbers.
[In the autumn of the year 1817, Mr. Birkbeck removed, with his family, to the property he had purchased, between the Great and Little Wabash, and to which he has given the name of "English Prairie." In his "Notes on America," and in his "Letters from the Illinois," he has described, in an interesting manner, the face of the country, its soil, productions, mode of culture, and capacities of improvement; and has pointed out the great advantages which it offers to settlers, especially to labourers and to farmers with small capital. The confidence that is reposed in his judgment and agricultural skill, has already induced several persons to emigrate into the same neighbourhood, both from England and the United States; but the singularity of his religious opinions, and his objection to the admission of religious instructors of any description into his settlement, had prevented many conscientious persons from joining him, who might have proved useful members of his little community.]
From this place we must return to Philadelphia, for the purpose of accompanying Mr. Weld on a journey to Washington, the federal city or metropolis of the United States.