Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/231

 of an individual are most subject to contest. I did not stop at the house of one inhabitant who was persuaded of {162} the validity of his own right but what seemed dubious of his neighbour's.

Among the numerous causes which have produced this incredible confusion with respect to property, one of the principal may be attributed to the ignorance of the surveyors, or rather to the difficulty they experienced, in the early stage of things, in following their professions. The continual state of war in which this country was at that time obliged them frequently to suspend their business, in order to avoid being shot by the natives, who were watching for them in the woods. The danger they ran was extreme, as it is well known a native will go upwards of a hundred miles to kill a single enemy; he stays for several days in the hollow of a tree to take him by surprise, and when he has killed him, he scalps him, and returns with the same rapidity. From this state of things, the result was that the same lot has not only been measured several times by different surveyors, but more frequently it has been crossed by different lines, which distinguish particular parts of that lot from the lots adjacent, which, in return, are in the same situation with regard to those that are contiguous to them; in short, there are lots of a thousand acres where a hundred {163} of them are not reclaimed. Military rights are still looked upon as the most assured. One very remarkable thing is, that many of the inhabitants find a guarantee for their estates that are thus confused; as the law, being always on the side of agriculture, enacts that all improvements shall be reimbursed by the person who comes forward to declare himself the first possessor; and as the estimation, on account of the high price of labour, is always made in favour of