Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/473

 APPENDIX. 461

of the Eaft-India tea, and it grew extremely well. He laid, he had it cured in a copper kettle, well covered, and fixed in a common pot with water, which boiled three hours, was then taken out, and allowed to cool before they opened it; and that when the veflel was not rilled with the leaves, they curled in the fame manner as the Eaft-lndia weed imported at a great lofs of men and money, and better tafted.

I am well acquainted with near two thoufand miles along the American continent, and have frequently been in the remote woods j but the quantity of fertile lands, in all that vaft fpace, exclufive of what ought to be added to Eaft and Weft-Florida, feems to bear only a fmall proportion to thofe be tween the Mifiifippi and Mobille-river, with its N. W. branches, which run about thirty miles north of the ChiUkafah country, and intermix with jpleafant branches of the great Cheerake river. In fettling the two Floridas, and the Miflifippi-lands, adminiftration mould not fuffer them to be mono polized nor the people to be clafled and treated as flaves Let them have- a conftitutional form of government, the inhabitants will be cheerful, and every thing will be profperous. The country promifes to yield as plentiful harvefts of the mod valuable productions, as can be wifhed.

There is a number of extenlive and fertile Savannas, or naturally clear land, between the Mifiifippi and the weftern branches of Mobille river. They begin about two hundred and fifty miles above the low lands of the eoaft, and are interfperfed with the woods to a great diftance, probably three hundred miles. The inland parts are unknown to any but the Indians and the Englifh traders the warlike Chikkafah were fo dreadful to the French, that even their fleet of large trading boats avoided the eaftern fide of the Mifiifippi, or near this (bore under a high point of land, for the fpace of two hundred leagues : fo that, beyond what they barely faw from their boats, their accounts of the interior parts of this extenfive country,, are mere conjectures. The foil of the clear land, generally confifts of loofc rich mould to a confiderable depth, and either a kind of chalk, or marl, underneath. We frequently find the grafs with its feeded tops as high as our heads, when on horfe-back, and very, likely, it would bear mowing, three or four times in one feafon. As the Indians gather their wild hemp, in fome of thefe open fertile lands, both it and our hemp would grow to admi ration, with moderate tillage : and fo would tobacco, indigo, cotton, and flax, in perfejftion. If Great-Britain exerts herfelf in earnefl, with an helping-hand-

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