Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/296

 284 An Account of the Choktah Nation.

it is two leagues broad. The fouthern fide of the river is fo full of great trees, that (loops and fchooners have confiderable difficulty in getting up abreaft : and for a confiderable diftance from the fea-coaft, the land is low, and generally unfit for planting, even on the banks of the river. About forty mites up, the French had a fmall fettlement of one plantation deep, from the bank of Mobille river. The reft of the land is fandy pine barrens, till within forty miles of the Choktah country, where the oak and the hic- cory-trees firft appear; from whence, it is generally very fertile, for the extenfive fpace of about fix hundred miles toward the north, and in fome places, two hundred and fifty, in others, two hundred and fixty in breadth, from the Miflifippi : This trad far exceeds the beft land I ever faw be- fides in the extenfive American world. It is not only capable of yielding the various produce of all our North- American colonies on the main conti nent, as it runs from the fouth, towards the north ; but, likewife, many other valuable commodities, which their fituation will never allow them to raife. From the fmall rivers, which run through this valuable large tract, the far-extending ramifications are innumerable ; each abounding with ever green canes and reeds, which are as good to raife cattle in winter, as the beft hay in the northern colonies. I need not mention the goodnefs of the fummer-ranges ; for, where the land is good, it always produces various forts of good timber, fuch as oak of different kinds ; hiccory, wall-nut, and poplar-trees. The grals is commonly as long and tender, as what the beft Englifh meadows yield ; and, if thofe vacant fertile lands of the Mif- fifippi were fettled by the remote inhabitants of Virginia, the Ohio, and North-Carolina,, they, from a fmall flock, could in a few years raife a prodigious number of horfes, horned cattle, flieep, and fwine, without any more trouble than branding, marking, and keeping them tame, and deftroying the beafts of prey, by hunting them with dogs, and mooting, them from the trees. Soon they might raife abundance of valuable produc tions, as would both enrich themfelves and their off-fpring, and, at the fame time,, add in a very high degree to the naval trade and manufactures, of Great-Britain.,

The Choktah flatten their foreheads with a bag of fand, which with*

great care they keep fattened on the fcull of the infant, while it is in its,

tender and imperfect ftate. Thus they quite deform their face, and give

themfelves an appearance, which is difagrceable to any but thofe of their own-

5 likenefs*

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