Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/191

 the space between every house is almost entirely covered with stramonium. This dangerous and disagreeable plant has propagated surprisingly in every part where the earth has been uncovered and cultivated within twelve or fifteen years; and let the inhabitants do what they will, it spreads still wider every year. It is generally supposed to have made its appearance at James-Town in Virginia, whence it derived {104} the name of James-*weed. Travellers use it to heal the wounds made on horses' backs occasioned by the rubbing of the saddle.

Mullein is the second European plant that I found very abundant in the United States, although in a less proportion than the stramonium. It is very common on the road leading from Philadelphia to Lancaster, but less so past the town; and I saw no more of it beyond the Alleghany Mountains.

On the 1st of August we arrived at Limestone in Kentucky, fifty miles lower than Alexandria. There ended my travels on the Ohio. We had come three hundred and forty-eight miles in a canoe from Wheeling, and had taken ten days to perform the journey, during which we were incessantly obliged to paddle, on account of the slowness of the stream. This labour, although painful, at any rate, to those who are unaccustomed to it, was still more so on account of the intense heat. We also suffered much from thirst, not being able to procure any thing to drink but by stopping at the plantations on the banks of the river; for in summer the water of the Ohio acquires such a degree of heat, that it is not fit to be drank till it has been kept twenty-four hours. This excessive heat is occasioned, on the one hand, by the {105} extreme heat of the climate in that season of the year, and on the other, by the slow movement of the stream.