Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/321

 parson's garrulity. A mile of a delightful road through open woods on a dry ridge brought us from Mr. Smith's, to Mr. Robert Cochran's fine plantation. It was near dinner time, and a thunder cloud rising before us, gave my companion a pretext for wishing to stop, but I having declared before that I would not, and now refusing Mr. Cochran's invitation, who from the stile as we passed told us dinner was on the table, the good man good humouredly sacrificed his desire to mine, and proceeded with me, by which complaisance he got wet to the skin. He only accompanied me another mile, turning off to the left to go to Greenville, while I continued my route to the southward along the lower Natchez road, which runs nearly parallel to the Mississippi, on the ridges behind the river bottoms.

A thunder cloud which had been threatening at a distance for some time before, now began to rise and spread rapidly. It was in vain that I put spurs to my {287} horse—I was instantly deluged with torrents of rain, accompanied by as tremendous thunder and lightning as I ever had before witnessed, and a heavy gust of wind at the same time, blew down several trees in every direction close round me. My horse though an old steady traveller, was so affrighted that I could not manage him but with great difficulty. Three miles and a half through the storm brought me to Glascock's small plantation, where I fortified against a chill with a glass of gin presented to me by the good lady of the house, who also regaled me with some fine peaches. The rain soon subsiding, I resumed my journey in my wet clothes, but I had scarcely advanced a mile, when another shower forced me to take shelter at a small, but pleasantly situated farm, rented by a Mr. Hopper from Mr. Cochran.

The face of the country became now more broken, but the soil improved, and the road degenerating to a bridle path through the woods, and being hilly, and forked and