Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/212

 o'clock. I refused. {212} "Then," said they, "Doctor, you shall drink in bed." My charioteer had foolishly called me Doctor, Squire, Colonel, and what not, during the whole of this wilderness journey; hence, I was here applied to as an eminent physician.

30th.—Travelled 12 miles to breakfast on fine buck venison at three farthings per pound, or one dollar for the buck, at the house of a shrewd old kind-hearted Pennsylvanian, now nearly worn out and ready to sleep, either with or without, his fathers. "I have," says he, "lately lost my son, and my farms are running fast to ruin. I have 200 acres, some of which I hire out, and I have just finished what my son began, a good new log-house. This Indiana is the best country in the world for young men. Were I a young man I would live no where else in all the universal world." "Although," says he, "many hundreds of waggons, with droves of men and beasts, four or five hundred in a drove, and at least 5,000 souls from Kentucky have passed my house since last harvest, all bound for the Missouri."

At eleven, p. m., I reached Old Vincennes,[70] the first and oldest town in this state, situated in a fine woodless Prairie on the banks of the big Wabash, a fine broad, clear, and generally deep stream, running to the Ohio by Shawneese town, but when its waters are low, weeds rise from the bottom, and grow, and rot, and impregnate the air with pestilence. On passing through this place, a farmer {213} said that last spring he lost seven cows, and that hundreds were poisoned by some unknown herb found growing in their pastures on river-bottom land. A medi-*