Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/258

 the river Tennessea are, on the contrary, very fertile, and even superior to the richest counties in Kentucky and Tennessea.

The settlement of the Natches, which is described by the name of the Mississippi Territory, daily acquires {203} a fresh degree of prosperity, notwithstanding the unhealthiness of the climate, which is such that three-fourths of the inhabitants are every year exposed to intermittent fevers during the summer and autumn; nevertheless, the great profits derived from the cotton entice an immense number of foreigners into that part. The population now amounts to five thousand whites and three thousand negro slaves.[53]