Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/374

 362 An Account of the Chikkafah Nation.

mountains ; it refemblcs Angelica, which in moft places is alfo plenty. Its leaves are of a darker green, and about a foot and half from the root; the ftalk fends out three equal branches, in the center of which a fmall berry grows, of a red colour, in Auguft. The feeds are a very ftrong and agreeable aromatic : it is plenty in Weft-Florida. The Indians ufe it on religious occafions. It is a great lofs to a valuable branch of trade, that our people neither gather it in a proper feafon, nor can cure it, fo as to give it a clear ftjining colour, like the Chinefe tea. I prefume it does not turn out well to our American traders ; for, up the Mohawk river, a gentleman who had purchafed a large quantity of ir, told me that a fkippel, or three bufhels, coft him only nine millings of New York currency : and in Charles-Town, an inhabitant of the upper Yadkin fettlements in North Carolina, who came down with me from viewing the Nahchee old fields on the Miflifippi, allured me he could not get from any of the South Carolina merchants, one milling fterling a pound for it, though his peo ple brought it from the Alehgany, and Apalahche mountains, two hundred miles to Charles-Town.

It would be a fervice, worthy of a public-fpirited gentleman, to inform us how to preferve the Ginfeng, fo as to give it a proper colour ; for could we once effect that, it muft become a valuable branch of trade. It is an exceeding good ftomachic, and greatly fupports nature againft hunger and thirft. It is likewife beneficial againft afthmatic complaints, and it may be faid to promote fertility in women, as much as the Eaft-India tea caufes fterility in proportion to the baneful ufe that is made of it. A learned phyfician and botanift aflured me, that the eaftern teas are flow, but fure poifon, in our American climates, and that he generally ufed the Gin feng very fuccefsfully in clyfters, to thofe who had deftroyed their health, by that dangerous habit. I advifed my friend to write a treatife on its me dical virtues, in the pofterior application, as it muft redound much to the public good. He told me, it would be needlefs ; for quacks could gain nothing from the beft directions, and that already feveral of his ac quaintance of the faculty moftly purfued his practice in curing their patients. The eaftern tea is as much inferior to our American teas, in its nouriming quality, as their album graecum is to our pure venifon, from which we here fometimes colled it-, let us, therefore, like frugal and wife people, ufe our own valuable aromatic tea, and thus induce our Bri-

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