Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/294

 grease is consumed in the country instead of oil. They hunt them with great dogs, which, without going near them, bark, teaze, and oblige them to climb up a tree, when the hunter kills them with a carabine. A beautiful skin sells for a dollar and a half or two dollars. The black bear of North {264} America lives chiefly on roots, acorns and chesnuts. In order to procure a greater quantity of them, he gets up into the trees, and as his weight does not permit him to climb to any height, he breaks off the branch where he has observed the most fruit by hugging it with one of his fore paws. I have seen branches of such a diameter that these animals must be endowed with an uncommon strength to have been able to break them by setting about it in this manner. In the summer, when they are most exposed to want victuals, they fall upon pigs, and sometimes even upon men.

{265} CHAP. XXX

''Morganton.—Departure for Charleston.—Lincolnton.—Chester.—Winesborough.—Columbia.—Aspect of the Country on the Road.—Agriculture, &c. &c.''

, the principal town of the county of Burke, contains about fifty houses built of wood, and almost all inhabited by tradesmen. One warehouse only, supported by a commercial house at Charleston, is established in this little town, where the inhabitants, for twenty miles round, come and purchase mercery and jewellery goods from England, or give in exchange a part of their produce, which consists chiefly of dried hams, butter, tallow, {266} bear and stag skins, and ginseng, which they bring from the mountains.

From Morganton to Charleston it is computed to be two hundred and eighty-five miles. There are several