I feel convinced that none but working farmers, like John Ingle, ought to come to this western land. Water is bad, white, or milky, at Princeton; but beds are good, with the bed-room doors next the street, unlocked all night, in order that ingress and egress may be free, which is the more necessary, as there are, as is very generally the case here, none of those accommodations, either within or without doors, which an Englishman looks upon as quite indispensable.
I met and talked with old Squire M'Intosh, who, although he has lived 35 years here, away from his dear native Scotland, still regrets it. "I now live," says the squire, "on the grand rapids of the big Wabash, a mile above the White River ferry; call and spend a night with me on your way to Birkbeck's settlement, which is the reverse of every thing which he has written of it, and described it to be. The neighbourhood, however, do not think he intended to misrepresent and deceive, but that he wrote too soon, and without knowing the real state of things, and understanding his subject, or knowing where to find the best land. He ought to have examined, in company with one of Uncle Sam's surveyors; he would not then have entered land in the lump, or mass, a great deal of which is not good, nor ever can be, being wet, swampy, cold prairies, something {226} like undrained marshes in England. Mr. Birkbeck entered much at the land-office, but sold little, only such half sections as he ought to have bought and kept for himself and friends. Mr. Phillips, on whom you have just called, say the gentlemen round me, is the slave of his own English notions and passions; he is, therefore, always hesitating and undecided; sometimes, when things run crossly and crooked, he is seen and heard heartily execrating this coun-
