Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

spot called. Montgomery's-falls. The channel of the river is on the left side of a large rock, directly in the middle of the falls by keeping this in view, there is no danger : though the descent is rapid, and the boat difficult to steer. Three miles lower is a very rocky place, called Ewalt'sdefeat the channel is on the east side, near the shore. Thence to Freeport, a distance of eighty miles, the river is full of eddies, ripples, rapids, rocks and other dangers, which it requires the utmost attention to avoid. In some of the ripples, the water runs at the rate of ten miles an hour; and a boat will go at the rate of twelve without any other assistance than the steering oar, Freeport lies at the mouth of Buffalo-creek, which falls into the river on the west; and opposite to it are received the waters of the Kiskeminetas. Sandy-creek is thirty-two miles from Freeport at its mouth a vessel of 160 tons burthen was lately launched, filled with a cargo, and thence sailed for the West Indies. This creek is but ten miles from Pittsburg.

The river is interspersed with several small islands, which have a very pleasing effect: though they interrupt the navigation, and render it particularly dangerous at night; as the current has a tendency at times to cast a boat on the points of islands, and on the sand-bars which project from them. I could hear of but few objects of curiosity worth observing: I visited indeed the seat of some old Indian settlements, but did not find them distinguished by the fine features which characterize the ruins near Brownsville. Not far from Pittsburg is a well which has its surface covered with a bituminous matter resembling oil; and which the neighbouring inhabitants col lect, and use in ointments and other medicinal preparations. The vapour rising from this well is inflammable and has been known to hang in a lambent state over the orifice, being fed by fresh exhalations, for several hours together. The medical men of Pittsburg profess to have analyzed this oil; and to have discovered in it a variety of virtues, if applied according to their advice. They also extol the water of the Alleghany, and send their patients to bathe in it when the season permits: to this water is ascribed the faculty of strengthening weak stomachs, and aiding digestion. Those who are afflicted with habitual vomitings too (a complaint not uncommon here), are said

[ocr errors]

to find relief from drinking it. Such persone resort to Pittsburg for this purpose, and make a favourable report of the effects of their libations: though I am of opinion, that the amendment which they experience is to be attributed to their refraining from spirituous liquors, the primitive cause of their malady; and not to any peculiar virtue in this beautiful flood, which is supplied by effusions of melted snow from the mountains, and the waters of lakes, neither of which sources is by any means healthy.

The Onondargo, which (as I observed) has a portagecommunication with this river, is a fine lake of brackish water, surrounded by springs, from two to five hundred gallons of the water of which make a bushel of salt. It appears as if nature expressly intended this region to be populated, and, as a strong temptation, placed this treasure in the bosom of hills and woods. Had it not been for these and similar springs dispersed through the western country, salt must have been at such a price as to deter persons from settling there. All the animals of those parts have a great fondness for salt. The cattle of farmers who give this substance to their stock, prove superior in value by 25 per cent. to such as are not supplied with an article so essential not only to their general improvement, but their health. The native animals of the country too, as the buffalo, elk, deer, &c. are well known to pay periodical visits to the saline springs and lakes, bathing and washing in them, and drinking the water till they are hardly able to remove from their vicinity. The best roads to the Onondargo from all parts, are the buffalo-tracks; so called from having been observed to be made by the buffaloes in their annual visitations to the lake from their pasture grounds; and though this is a distance of above two hundred miles, the best surveyor could not have chosen a more direct course, or firmer or better ground. I' have often travelled these tracks with safety and admiration. I perceived them chosen as if by the nicest judgment; and when at times I was perplexed to find them revert on themselves nearly in parallel lines, I soon found it occasioned by swamps, ponds, or precipices, which the animals knew how to avoid; but that object being effectted, the road again swept into its due course, and bore towards its destination as if under the direction of a compasó

[ocr errors]

An old man, one of the first settlers in this country, built his log-house on the immediate borders of a salt spring. He informed me that for the first several seasons, the buffaloes paid him their visits with the utmost regularity; they travelled in single files, always following each other at equal distances; forming droves, on their arrival, of about three hundred each. The first and second years, so unacquainted were these poor brutes with the use of this man's house or with his nature, that in a few hours they rubbed the house completely down; taking delight in turning the logs off with their horns, while he had some difficulty to escape from being trampled under their feet, or crushed to death in his own ruins. At that period he supposed there could not have been less than ten thousand in the neighbourhood of the spring. They sought for no manner of food; but only bathed and drank three or four times a day, and rolled in the earth; or reposed, with their flanks distended, in the adjacent shades; and on the fifth and sixth days separated into distinct droves, bathed, drank, and departed in single files, according to the exact order of their arrival. They all rolled successively in the same hole; and each thus carried away a coat of mud, to preserve the moisture on their skin; and which, when hardened and baked by the sun, would resist the stings of millions of insects that otherwise would persecute these. peaceful travellers to madness or even death.

1

In the first and second years this old man with some companions killed from six to seven hundred of these noble creatures, merely for the sake of the skins, which to them were worth only two shillings each; and after this "work of death," they were obliged to leave the place till the following season; or till the wolves, bears, panthers, eagles, rooks, ravens, &c. had devoured the car casses, and abandoned the place for other prey. In the two following years, the same persons killed great numbers out of the first droves that arrived, skinned them, and left the bodies exposed to the sun and air; but they soon had reason to repent of this; for the remaining droves, as they came up in succession, stopped, gazed on the mangled and putrid bodies, sorrowfully moaned or furiously lowed aloud, and returned instantly to the wilderness in an unusual run, without tasting their favourite spring, or licking the imprégnated earth, which was also once their

most agreeable occupation; nor did they, or any of their ́race, ever revisit the neighbourhood.

The simple history of this spring, is that of every other in the settled parts of this western world; the carnage of beasts was every where the same. I met with a man who had killed two thousand buffaloes with his own hand; and others, no doubt, have done the same. In consequence of such proceedings, not one buffalo is at this time to be found east of the Mississippi; except a few domesticated by the curious, or carried through the country as a public shew. The first settlers, not content with this sanguinary extermination of the animal, also destroyed the food to which it was most partial; which was cane, growing in forests and brakes of immeasurable extent. To this the unsparing wretches set fire in dry seasons; in order to drive out every living creature, and then hunt and persecute them to death.

Deer, which also abounded in this country, have nearly shared the same fate as the buffaloes; and they too would be entirely annihilated, if they were not capable of subsisting in places almost inaccessible to man. The small number that remain, frequent the mountains; their de sire for the water of the saline springs however, occasionally brings them into the plains, where they do not want for enemies there being no settler who would not abandon the most important business, in order to pursue this species of game. What was formerly common to all in consequence of the multitude of herds daily passing backward and forward, can now only gratify a few; for they esteem the death of this fine animal a triumph, and neglect no opportunity of thus distinguishing themselves over their associates. On killing a deer, he is immediately skinned, even while yet palpitating; nor are the bowels taken out, lest the hide should shrink. The haunches alone are valued as food; the rest is either given to the dogs, or left for beasts of prey or vermin, which every where abound.

The salt lake and springs are also frequented by all the other kinds of beasts, and even by birds; and from the most minute enquiries, I am justified in asserting that their visitations were periodical; except doves, which appear to delight in the neighbourhood of impregnated springs, and to make them their constant abode. In such situations

E

they are seen in immense numbers, as tame as domestic pigeons, but rendered more interesting by their solitary notes and plaintive melody.

In descending the river, and traversing immense tractsof meadow and woodlands which are in a state of nature, I have found the atmosphere, after a hot day, so mephitic and offensive, as to give me vomitings and head-aches, which undoubtedly would have terminated in a yellow or intermittent fever if I had not previously fortified my blood with bark and other preventives. I recommend the same precaution to every person visiting this part of the world, and also to avoid studiously the night air. I have been wet with a dew so strong and palpable as to feel its effects for several days, in a general chill through my body, and a pain through particular bones. Yet in consequence of the violent heat of the day, people frequently defer their journeys and most of their pleasures, till the night; but a sad experience exposes the danger of the practice, in the strong language of rheumatism, consumption, and mental debility and distress.

You will ask me perhaps what parts of the country in the neighbourhood of the rivers which I have described, are likely to secure the blessings of health. I answer at once, though in direct contradiction to various writers, that no part of the western country is healthy; and I have already detailed my motives for this assertion. For if the air is impregnated (as is undoubtedly the case) with a poisonous exhalation so offensive to the constitution of the brute creation as to compel them to migrate several hundred miles annually in search of an antidote (which I conclude to be the real cause of their visits to the salt lake and springs,) what must be its operation on man; whose organization is much more feeble; and whose blood, from the manner of his subsistence, is more subject to be polluted by the climate, and the various other elements of disease!

I allow that there are situations less dangerous than others; for hills and eminences are evidently more favourable than plains and valleys; yet the Americans universally build in valleys, and on bottoms as they call them : which latter are plains formed by subsiding waters and from putrid ingredients, and subject to occasional overflows and partial stagnation. But this too can be accounted for; the bor

« AnteriorContinuar »