- ing rich in a short time, a general desire in the United
States, where every man who exercises a profession or art wishes to get a great deal by it, and does not content himself with a moderate profit, as they do in Europe.
There is a newspaper printed at Knoxville[55] which comes out twice a week, and written and published by Mr. Roulstone, a fellow-countryman and friend of my travelling companion, Mr. Fisk. It is very remarkable that most of the emigrants from New England have an ascendancy over the others in point of morals, industry, and knowledge.
{223} On the 17th of September I took leave of Mr. Fisk, and proceeded towards Jonesborough, about a hundred miles from Knoxville, and situate at the foot of the lofty mountains that separate North Carolina from the state of Tennessea. On leaving Knoxville the soil is uneven, stony and very indifferent, of which it is an easy thing to judge by the quantity of pines, or pinus mitis, that are in the forests. We also found there an abundance of Chinquapin oaks, or quercus prinus Chinquapin, that seldom grow above three feet high, some of which were that year so loaded with acorns that they were bent to the ground. The sorel-tree, or andromeda arborea, is also very common. This tree, that rises about forty feet in the mountains, would be one of the most splendid ornaments for our gardens, on account of its opening clusters of white flowers. Its leaves are very acid, and many of the inhabitants prefer them to shumac for dyeing cottons.
I crossed the river Holston at Macby, about fifteen miles
