Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 8).djvu/67

 {36} The river now becoming much straiter than we had found it before for three hundred miles, made the trip easier and safer, and on the eighth day of January, 1817, we arrived at New Orleans.

During my stay I remained the principal part of the time on board this barge. The weather some part of the time was cool, and three nights the ground froze quite hard. Oranges and other fruits froze on the trees. By accounts from Natchez we learned that the snow had fallen six inches deep; a circumstance never known before by the oldest person resident there.

The poor negroes, I was informed, suffered much, and many of them died. Having tarried till my business was closed, I determined to return by land; and finding a number of persons, who were going on the same route, I provided myself with a knapsack, a blanket, a tin quart pot and necessary provisions, and on the 23d day of February shouldered my knapsack and set out on my journey. I travelled three miles to the northward to Lake Pontichetrain;[18] there found a vessel in the afternoon ready to cross the lake, being about thirty miles. The wind being light, the next day at twelve o'clock we met the opposite shore; went to a tavern, took dinner, and found eight men travelling the same way, mostly strangers to each other, and but one who had travelled the road before. After collecting our forces, we went on, and travelled about fifteen miles that afternoon. The country being flat, we had to wade in water and mud a considerable part of the way, and in many places knee deep. This we found to be attended with bad consequences, as many of us took cold thereby. At night we stopped at a small house, the occupants of which gave us leave to sleep on