Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/320

 *ney. I at last discovered a mode of parrying his wearisome curiosity, by becoming curious in my turn. This seemed to gratify him equally, as it led to a circumstantial account of a life as little chequered by incident as can be conceived. He had been the scholar of the family, one of the sons of a farmer's family in New England being always selected for that purpose. He had graduated at college—been ordained—went to Carolina—kept a school there—was appointed by a synod a missionary for the propagation of the gospel among the Indians, in which situation for several years, he had raised a family, and leaving his eldest children to possess and cultivate lands granted him by the Indians, he had removed with his wife and his youngest children to this territory, where, by keeping a school, preaching alternate Sundays, at two or three different places, twelve or fourteen miles asunder, and cultivating a small cotton plantation, he made a very comfortable subsistence. {286} Although I could not agree with him with respect to the comfort of a subsistence so hardly earned, yet I could not help admiring the truth of the old adage, that custom is second nature, and always fits the back to the burthen.

Our first two miles was through the river bottom, the most remote part of which from the river, is inundated annually by the back waters of bayau Pierre, which overflows all the neighbouring low lands for forty miles from its mouth, when its current is checked by the rising of the Mississippi. On the subsiding of the floods, so much water remains stagnant, as to cause the fever and ague to be endemick in all the tract of country washed by the bayau Pierre, from ten miles above the town of Port Gibson.

On leaving the swamp we ascended a hill, on the brow of which is a charmingly situated plantation owned and occupied by a Mr. Smith. The increased elasticity of the air, renovated our spirits, and seemed to increase the good