however, are often preferred. Imperious necessity alone commands extraordinary exertion. Yesterday, a settler passed our door with a bushel of corn-meal on his back, for which he had travelled twenty miles, on foot, to the nearest horse-mill, and carried it ten miles, paying 75 cents for it. This said corn is invaluable to both man and beast; black and white men both profess to think they should starve on wheat meal without corn.
The everlasting sound of falling trees, which, being undermined by the fires, are falling around almost every hour, night and day, produces a sound loud and jarring as the discharge of ordnance, and is a relief to the dreary silence of these wilds, only broken by the axe, the gun, or the howlings of wild beasts.
Retrograding and barbarizing is an easy process. Far from the laws and restraints of society, and having no servants to do that for us which {241} was once daily done, we become too idle in time to do any thing, but that which nature and necessity require; pride and all stimuli forsake us, for we find ourselves surrounded only by men of similar manners; hence, the face is seldom shaved, or washed, or the linen changed except on washing-days. The shoes are cleaned, perhaps, never; for if, indeed, a servant, from England, is kept, he, or she, is on a happy equality, rising up last and lying down first, and eating freely at the same time and table. None here permit themselves to have a master, but negroes.
A voyage in the stinking steerage of a ship, and then a journey over the mountains in waggons, sometimes camping out all night, or sleeping, like pigs, as did Mrs. Ingle and six children and maid, on the dirty floor of a bar-room, amongst blackguards, and then floating in a little stinking ark, full of unclean things, will prepare the mind
