Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/162

 agreeable occupancy of the family during the violent heats of summer.

I have observed that wherever we have stopped on the banks of the river, we have rarely experienced that hospitality, which might be expected to prevail amongst people so remote from polished society.

Two hunters sat down with us after they had finished their breakfast, and they entertained us above an hour with their feats of deer and bear killing, in which the one always related something more extraordinary than the other. At last they bantered each other to go out and kill a deer.

It still rained very heavy, but nothing deterred by it, they each took their rifle, stuck their tomahawks into the belts of their hunting shirts, and accompanied by a fine dog, led by a string to prevent his breaking (or hunting the game beyond the reach of their rifles) they set off for the woods.

Seeing some cotton regularly planted on the opposite side of the river, on inquiry, I learned that from hence down the Ohio, a good deal of cotton is raised, although on account of its not standing the winter, it must be planted every year. Though the climate farther south is more congenial to it, it is nevertheless an annual throughout the continent to the northward of Cape Florida, differing from the countries between the tropicks, where I have sometimes seen the same plants bear to the seventh year; but that only in places where it was neglected, as the common usage there is to replant every third or fourth year. A few miles from Crumps's there is a large gin worked by two men, which can clean seven hundred pounds per day; the toll for ginning is one eighth of the quantity cleaned.

The copper-head snake[102] abounds here, but the rattle-*