I crossed the Big Wabash, quarter of a mile wide, at La Valette's ferry,[95] where is beautiful land, fine young orchards, and two lonely families {302} of naked-legged French settlers, from whom I received two curious ears of poss corn. I thus quitted lonely Illinois, in which, this morning, I saw, for the first time, one running spring. The wild ducks on the river were very fat and fine, like our tame ones in England. One just shot floated dead to our flat. About eight miles from the river, we crossed a dismal swamp two miles wide, which, in winter, is ten feet deep of water from the river, and cuts off communication with Illinois, except by water. At the verge of this swamp, I stopped at a farmer's, sick and yellow with a bilious fever. My horse escaped from me, but was stopped by Judge Emberson.[96] I rode all day without dinner, but reached Princeton to a good supper at Brown's tavern, which, but for Mr. Birkbeck, had been annihilated.
Mr. Birkbeck seems to have no theory on the formation of the ancient mounds and fortifications in the western country, but thinks them to be the work of the present race of Indians. Nor has he any hypothesis on the subject of the immense prairies. Though but partially planted with timber, he does not think the soil unfriendly to the growth of it, but deems the cause to be in the annual fires which run over the surface, checking the young plants, or destroying the seeds, or rather in a want of seed; and the decaying, dwarfish appearance of the trees, he attrib-*
