About ten miles beyond Green River commence what are called the Barrens, or Kentucky Meadows. On the first day of his journey over them, M. Michaux travelled fifteen miles; and, on the ensuing morning, having wandered to some distance out of the road, in search of a spring, at which to water his horse, he discovered a plantation in a low and narrow valley. The mistress of the house told him that she had resided there upwards of three years, and that, for eighteen months, she had not seen any individual except of her own family: that, weary of living thus isolated, her husband had been more than two months from home in quest of another spot, towards the mouth of the Ohio. A daughter, about fourteen years of age, and two children, considerably younger, were all the company she had: her house was abundantly stocked with vegetables and corn.
This part of the Barrens was precisely similar to that which M. Michaux had traversed the day before; and the same kind of country extends as far as the line which separates the state of Tenessee from that of Kentucky. Here, to the great satisfaction of M. Michaux, he once more entered the woods. Nothing, he says, can be more tiresome than the doleful uniformity of these immense meadows, where there is no human creature to be met with; and where, except a great number of partridges, no species of living beings are to be seen.
The Barrens comprise a portion of country from sixty to seventy miles in length, by sixty miles in breadth. According to the signification of the name, M. Michaux had imagined that he should have to cross a naked space, scattered here and there with a few plants; but he was agreeably surprised to find a beautiful meadow, where the grass was from two to three feet high. He here discovered a great variety of interesting plants. In some parts he observed several species of wild vines, and, in particular, one which is called by the inhabitants "summer grapes:" the bunches of fruit were as large, and the grapes as good in quality, as those in the vineyards round Paris. And it appeared to M. Michaux that the attempts which had been made in Kentucky, to establish the culture of the vine, would have been more successful in the Barrens, the soil of which appeared to him better adapted for this kind of culture, than that on the banks of the Kentucky. The Barrens are very thinly populated; for, on the road where the plantations are closest together, M. Michaux counted but eighteen in a space of sixty or seventy miles.
Nasheville, the principal and the oldest town in this part of Tenessee, is situated on the river Cumberland, the borders of which are here formed by a mass of chalky stone, upwards of sixty feet in height. Except seven or eight houses, built of brick, the rest, to the number of about a hundred and twenty, were constructed of wood, and were distributed over a surface of twenty-five or thirty acres, where the rock appeared almost naked in every part.
This little town, although it had been built more than fifteen years, contained no kind of manufactory or public establishment; but there was a printing-office, at which a newspaper was published once a week. A college had also been founded here; but it was yet in its infancy, having not more than seven or eight students, and only one professor.
The price of labour in the vicinity of Nasheville was higher than at Lexington. There appeared to be from fifteen to twenty shops, which were supplied from Philadelphia and Baltimore; but they did not seem so well stocked as those of Lexington, and the articles, though dearer, were of inferior quality.
All the inhabitants of the western country, who go by the river to New Orleans, return by land and pass through Nasheville, which is the first town beyond Natchez. The interval which separates these towns is about six hundred miles, and was, at this time, entirely uninhabited. Several persons who had travelled this road, assured M. Michaux that, for a space of four or five hundred miles beyond Natchez, the country was very irregular; that the soil was sandy, in some parts covered with pines, and not much adapted for culture; but that, on the contrary, the borders of the river Tenessee were fertile, and superior even to the richest parts of Kentucky.
On the fifth of September, M. Michaux set out from Nasheville for Knoxville. He was accompanied by a Mr. Fisk, one of the commissioners who had been appointed to determine the boundaries between the states of Tenessee and Kentucky. They stopped on the road, with different friends of Mr. Fisk; among others, with General Smith, one of the oldest inhabitants of the country. M. Michaux saw, en passant, General Winchester. He was at a stone house which was building for him on the road. This mansion, the state of the country considered, bore the external marks of grandeur: it consisted of four large rooms on the ground-floor, one story, and a garret. The workmen employed to finish the inside had come from Baltimore, a distance of near seven hundred miles.
A few miles from the residence of General Winchester, and at a short distance from the road, is a small town which had been founded but a few years, and to which the inhabitants had given the name of Cairo, in memory of the taking of Cairo by the French.
Between Nasheville and Fort Blount the plantations, though always isolated in the woods, were, nevertheless, by the side of the road, and within two or three miles of each other: the inhabitants resided in log-houses, and most of them kept negroes, and appeared to live happily and in abundance. Through the whole of this space the soil was but slightly undulated: in some places it was level, and in general it was excellent.