Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/228

 *tant from their source, are subject to no other change in the volume of their waters but what results from a more or less rainy season; and their springs, which are very numerous, always supply water in abundance; this applies more particularly to the southern states, with which I am perfectly acquainted.

According to the succinct idea that we have just given of Kentucky, it is easy to judge that the inhabitants are exposed to a very serious inconvenience, {158} that of wanting water in the summer; still we must except those in the vicinity of great rivers and their principal channels, that always preserve water enough to supply their domestic wants; thence it results that many estates, even among the most fertile, are not cleared, and that the owners cannot get rid of them without the greatest difficulty, as the emigrants, better informed now a days, make no purchases before they have a correct statement of localities.

Kentucky is that of the three states situated west of the Alleghanies which was first populated. This country was discovered in 1770, by some Virginia sportsmen, when the favourable accounts they gave of it induced others to go there. No fixed establishment, however, was formed there before 1780. At that time this immense country was not occupied by any Indian nation; they went there to hunt, but all with one common assent made a war of extermination against those who wished to settle there. Thence this country derives the name of Kentucky, which signifies, in the language of the natives, the Land of Blood. When the whites made their appearance there, the natives showed still more opposition to their establishment; they carried for a long {159} time death and desolation, and dispatched, after their usual