Twelfth Day's Instruction.
UNITED STATES CONTINUED.
Narrative of an excursion from Charleston into Georgia and West Florida. From
Travels in North America, by William Bartram.
At the request of Dr. Fothergill, an eminent physician in London, Mr. Bartram went to North America, for the purpose, chiefly, of collecting, in Florida, Carolina, and Georgia, some of the rare and useful productions which had been described, by preceding travellers, to abound in those states. He left England in the month of April, 1773, and continued abroad several years.
In 1776, he was at Charleston; and on the 22d of April, in that year, he set off on horseback, intending to make an excursion into the country of the Cherokee Indians. He directed his course towards Augusta, a town on the Savannah river.
During his first day's journey he observed a large orchard of mulberry-trees, which were cultivated for the feeding of silkworms. The notes of the mocking-bird enlivened all the woods. He crossed into Georgia, by a ferry over the Savannah; and he thence passed through a range of pine-forests and swamps, about twelve miles in extent. Beyond these, in a forest, on the border of a swamp, and near the river, he reached a cow-pen, the proprietor of which possessed about fifteen hundred head of cattle. He was a man of amiable manners, and treated Mr. Bartram with great hospitality. The chief profits made by this person were obtained from beef, which he sent, by the river, for the supply of distant markets.
About one hundred miles beyond this place is Augusta, in one of the most delightful and most eligible situations imaginable. It stands on an extensive plain, near the banks of the river Savannah, which is here navigable for vessels of twenty or thirty tons burden. Augusta, thus seated near the head of an important navigation, commands the trade and commerce of the vast and fertile regions above it; and, from every side, to a great distance. [Since Mr. Bartram was here, this place has become the metropolis of Georgia.]
Below Augusta, and on the Georgia side of the river, the road crosses a ridge of high swelling hills, of uncommon elevation, and sixty or seventy feet higher than the surface of the river. These hills, from three feet below the common vegetative surface, to the depth of twenty or thirty feet, are entirely composed of fossil oyster-shells, which, internally, are of the colour and consistency of white marble. The shells are of immense magnitude; generally fifteen or twenty inches in length, from six to eight wide, and from two to four inches in thickness; and their hollows are sufficiently deep to receive a man's foot.