which enters that river in 33° 27[']; this land, though fertile and healthy, cannot be compared with the alluvions of the Arkansa; notwithstanding which, I am informed, they were receiving accessions to their population from the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. The great road to the south-west, connected with that of St. Louis, already noticed, passing through this settlement, communicates downwards also with the post of Washita, with the remarkable thermal springs near its sources, about 50 miles distant, and then proceeding 250 miles to the settlement of Mount Prairie on Saline creek of Red river, and not far from the banks of the latter, continues to Natchitoches.[126] The whole of this country, except that of the hot-springs, which is mountainous, consists either of prairies or undulated lands thinly timbered, and possessed of considerable fertility.
- [Footnote: River, a tributary of the Red. The settlement here referred to was near the
point where the road to Hot Springs crossed the Saline. It was begun (1815) by William Lockert (or Lockhart), from North Carolina; other families came in 1817. See James, Expedition, volume xvii of our series, p. 300 (original pagination).—Ed.]
