Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/326

 islands, until he was seventeen, when being concerned with a son of colonel Haffey, in a contraband adventure to Martinique, he lost every thing, and then came to the continent, where he had supported himself as an itinerant house and landscape painter, in which capacity he had travelled over most parts of the United States. Unfortunately for the credit of his veracity, he described my old friend colonel Henry Haffey, as a native French Creole of Martinique, when in reality, he was born in the North of Ireland, and had nothing of the Frenchman, either in manner or character. Besides, having no children himself, he had adopted Henry Haffey Gums, a nephew of his wife's. On this discovery I humoured my companion, and affected to believe all he said, which betrayed him into many laughable absurdities and contradictions.

CHAPTER L

Sulserstown—Washington—Mr. Blennerhasset's—Natchez—Historical sketch of Mississippi territory—Col. Sargeant's—Col. Scott's—Fine country—Mr. Green's.

The road turning more to the S. W. led us through a wood along a high ridge a little broken by hills, descending abruptly on each hand at intervals, with only one small settlement in the six miles to Sulserstown, which is a village of ten small houses, {292} three of which are taverns. After passing it, I observed to the N. W. an extensive cotton plantation, with a good house in a very picturesque situation, occasioned by an insulated hill near it, with a flat plain on the top, cultivated in cotton, supported on every side by a cliff, clothed with wood, rising abruptly from the cultivated plantation below, which beyond the insulated hill, was bounded by a range of broken higher hills, cultivated to near the tops, and crowned with woods.

Six miles more brought us through a tolerably well in