Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/358

 *ried to the greatest excess, particularly horse racing, cards and betting—a wager always deciding every difference of opinion. On the whole, Port Gibson and its neighbourhood is {321} perhaps the most dissolute as well as the most thriving part of the territory.

I dined at my friend doctor Cumming's,[218] who lives on his fine plantation near the town, and taking a S. W. road of thirteen miles, I arrived in the evening at Bruinsburg.

I shall here conclude my tour, with a few general observations.

The climate of this territory is very unequal, between excess of heat during the principal part of the year, when the inhabitants are devoured by musquitoes, gnats and sand-flies, to excess of cold, in the winter nights and mornings, when a good fire, and plenty of warm woollen clothing are indispensibly necessary, though the middle of the day is frequently warm enough for muslin and nankeen dresses to suffice.

The soil is as various as the climate. The river bottoms generally, and some of the cane brake hills, not being exceeded for richness in the world, while some ridges and tracts of country after being cleared and cultivated for a few years, are so exhausted, as to become almost barren.

Water is very partially distributed—it being scarce,