Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/64

 violence of the pertinacious south-west wind, accompanied by a haze, which made every object appear as if enveloped in smoke.

7th.] This evening, we passed the mouth of Big Sandy creek, the boundary of Kentucky. Near to this line commences the first appearance of the cane (Arundinaria macrosperma), which seems to indicate some difference in the climate and soil. The settlements are here remote, the people poor, and along the river not so characteristically hospitable as in the interior of Kentucky. Landing rather late, we took up our lodging where there happened to be a corn-husking, and were kept awake with idle merriment and riot till past midnight. Some of the party, or rather of the two national parties, got up and harangued to a judge, like so many lawyers, on some political argument, and other topics, in a boisterous and illiberal style, but without coming to blows. Is this a relic of Indian customs?

The corn-fields, at this season of the year, are so overrun with cuckold-burs (Xanthium strumarium), and the seeds of different species of Bidens or Spanish-needles, {30} as to prove extremely troublesome to woollen clothes, and to the domestic cattle, which are loaded with them in tormenting abundance. In consequence of these weeds, the fleece of the sheep is scarcely worth the trouble of shearing. The best remedy for checking the growth of these noxious plants, would be to plow them in about the time of flowering, which would exterminate them, and improve the crop of corn.

The people here, living upon exigencies, and given to rambling about instead of attending to their farms, are very poor and uncomfortable in every respect; but few of them possess the land on which they live. Having spent