Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/357

 proximity of some stagnant ponds, and the annual inundation of the Mississippi, which swells Bayau Pierre and causes it to stagnate for from four to six months, every year. The ponds might be drained, were the inhabitants not so entirely occupied by business and {320} pleasure, to which two pursuits they devote the whole of their time.

It is thirty miles from Port Gibson to the Mississippi, following the windings of the Bayau Pierre, through a very hilly and broken country, but it is only fourteen miles by the road. As when the waters are up the bayau is navigable for large craft, that season is the most bustling time in Port Gibson, the storekeepers then importing goods and exporting cotton. On the subsiding of the waters, the sickly season commences, and lasts with little variation from July to October, inclusive. This is more or less the case over the whole territory, particularly on the banks of the Mississippi, and in the neighbourhood of swamps and stagnant ponds. The driest seasons are the most unhealthy. The prevailing malady is a fever of the intermittent species, sometimes accompanied by ague, and sometimes not. It is rarely fatal in itself, but its consequences are dreadful, as it frequently lasts five or six months in defiance of medicine, and leaves the patient in so relaxed and debilitated a state, that he never after regains the strength he had lost. It also frequently terminates in jaundice or dropsy, which sometimes prove fatal.

All newcomers are subject to what is called a seasoning, after which, though they may be annually attacked by this scourge of the climate, it rarely confines them longer than a few days. Every house in Port Gibson is either a store, a tavern, or the workshop of a mechanick. There is a very mean gaol, and an equally bad court-house, though both are much in use, particularly the latter, as, like the United States in general, the people are fond of litigation. Gambling is car