leg, which from want of skill in the doctor, was not properly set; he is therefore now a cripple for life. This is an evil to which all are exposed. Many are now dying at Evansville of a {248} bilious disorder; the doctor employed has lost nearly all who applied.
River banks are here always unhealthy. A family from Lincolnshire, attracted by fine land, on one of the prairie creeks, where no American would live on any terms, all fell sick, one died, and the farmer and his wife both lay unable to help themselves, or get help, except from one of their little boys, who escaped the contagion. Birkbeck strongly remonstrated with them against settling there.
The farmers (Americans) indebted to the store-keepers, are now forced to sell all their corn at one dollar a barrel, and buy it again for their spring and summer use at five dollars, a fine profit for the monied merchant. Forty bushels per acre of corn pays better (says the old farmer) than wheat, with only twenty to twenty-five. The land here, though good, is not first rate, or of the most durable quality.
A pigeon roost is a singular sight in thinly settled states, particularly in Tenessee in the fall of the year, when the roost extends over either a portion of woodland or barrens, from four to six miles in circumference. The screaming noise they make when thus roosting is heard at a distance of six miles; and when the beech-nuts are ripe, they fly 200 miles to dinner, in immense flocks, hiding the sun and darkening the air like a thick passing cloud. They thus travel 400 miles daily. They {249} roost on the high forest trees, which they cover in the same manner as bees in swarms cover a bush, being piled one on the other, from the lowest to the topmost boughs, which so laden, are seen
