Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/167

 the land, except in the small depressions and alluvion of the creek, of an inferior quality, and chiefly timbered with oaks and hickories thinly scattered. Ages must elapse before this kind of land will be worth purchasing at any price. Still, in its present state, it will afford a good range of pasturage for cattle, producing abundance of herbage, but would be unfit for cotton or maize, though, perhaps, suited to the production of smaller grain; there is not, however, yet a grist-mill on the Arkansa, and flour commonly sells above the Post, at 12 dollars per barrel. For the preparation of maize, a wooden mortar, or different kinds of hand or horse-mills are sufficient. Sugar and coffee are also high priced articles, more particularly this year. In common, I suppose, sugar retails at 25 cents the pound, and coffee at 50. Competition will, however, regulate and reduce the prices of these and other articles, which, but a few years ago, were sold at such an exorbitant rate, as to be almost proscribed from general use. There is a maple in this country, or rather, I believe, on the banks of White river, which has not come under my notice, called the sugar-tree (though not, as they say, the Acer saccharinum), that would, no doubt, by a little attention afford sugar at a low rate; and the decoctions of the wood of the sassafras and spice bush (Laurus benzoin), which abound in this country, are certainly very palatable substitutes for tea.

It is to be regretted that the widely scattered state of the population in this territory, is but too favourable to the spread of ignorance and barbarism. The means of education are, at present, nearly proscribed, and the rising generation are growing up in mental darkness, like the French hunters who have preceded {114} them, and who have almost forgot that they appertain to the civilized