Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/294

 the pot to fire, or tumble off the logs. There are several English families living without bread, butter, milk, tea or coffee, for months, who, if deprived of one of those articles in England, would have cursed it and all in it, as the worst country under heaven. Some three families cook and bake in one iron skillet, called the cook-all, though plenty might be bought, or ovens made of the stone near them. Some boast of having learnt to do without sugar, because it is so dear in this untaxed land, flowing with sugar, milk, and honey! It is, perhaps, wise to reduce our wants, or rather necessaries.

Met Mr. Stockwell,[100] who is intimately acquainted with Messrs. Birkbeck and Flower. He says that the former, though he refused purchasing land for his friends in England, is now turning over his own unsaleable land to them. He has {312} done no one thing which he promised to do. Corn was carried in skiffs, from Harmony, down the Wabash, at the enormous cost of two dollars a bushel, yet the settlement has plenty of labourers, land, and horses. Mr. Birkbeck is very much embarrassed, and G. Flower very short of cash. The flock of sheep must perish, or subject him to great loss. When Mr. Stockwell called, in the summer, on Mr. Birkbeck, the family was not up. He rode to the house, through watery swamps and wondrous fogs, insomuch that Mr. Birkbeck found it necessary to apologize for the weather and the fogs, saying, "it was the first fog seen, all summer." Mr. Stockwell is sure that all the prairies, known to him, are naturally sickly, from the lakes north, to the Gulf of Mexico south. The cause is natural, and not to be com-*