Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/147

 being wet and marshy. The banks were covered with the andromeda, vaccinium, and more particularly with a species of rhododendrum, that bears a flower of the clearest white; the fibres of the stamina are also white, and the leaves more obtuse, and not so large as the rhododendrum maximum. This singular variation must of course admit its being classed under a particular species. I discovered this beautiful shrub a second time on the mountains of North Carolina. Its seeds were at that time ripe, and I carried some of them over with me to France, which came up exceedingly well. The river Juniata was not, in that part, above thirty or forty fathoms broad, and in consequence of the tide being very low, we forded it; still, the greatest part of the year people cross it in a ferry-boat. Its banks are lofty and very airy. The magnolia acuminata is very common in the environs; it is known in the country by the name of the cucumber tree. The inhabitants of the remote parts of Pensylvania, Virginia, and even the western countries, pick the cones when green to infuse in whiskey, which gives it a pleasant bitter. This bitter is very much esteemed in the country as a preventive against intermittent {39} fevers; but I have my doubts whether it would be so generally used if it had the same qualities when mixed with water.

From the crossing of the river Juniata to Bedford Court House, the country, although mountainous, is still better, and more inhabited, than that we travelled over from Shippensburgh. The plantations, although seldom in sight of each other, are near enough to give a more animated appearance to the country. We arrived at Bedford in the dusk of the evening, and took lodgings at an inn, the landlord of which was an acquaintance of the American officer with whom I was travelling. His house