shut up; others are burnt down, and the few that are occupied do not strike the mind with an impression that they have long to last. The total number of habitable houses is reduced to nine, about seven more are occupied in the original purchase. Thus I account for sixteen families out of five hundred who came into the country a few years before, big with expectations of felicity, and dreaming of nothing less than perpetual comfort and continued happiness. The sixteen families which persist in remaining are of those who purchased a second time. They vainly imagine to make something of their improvements and await the operation of the ponds with more fortitude and determination than judgment and good sense. They are a most wretched looking people: the worst hospital in Europe could not turn out an equal number so capable of proving the great degree of humiliation that hu

man nature is capable of expresssing, when under the hands of neglect, disease, and indigence. So wretchedly poor is the place, that a barrel of flour is not to be had in the whole settlement, and in place of their being able to purchase some Indian meal, I have had applications to know whether I had any to exchange for fruit and small produce.

They cultivate, as I have observed, little more than fruit and vegetables, and they depend on the exchange of these for bread and other necessaries to be had of boats descending the river. The peaches thrive and multiply so well, that one of the old settlers has procured a still, and makes a brandy which, at a tolerable age, is of a very fine quality. He now contracts for all the peaches of the settlement; makes about four hundred gallons of peach-brandy each season, which he barters for flour, corn, &c. at the rate of one dollar per gallon for the liquor, and

then sells out his flour, &c. for chickens, young hogs, and garden produce, with which he supplies at a cheap rate, boats who may stand in need of such things on their passage down the river. I am very much of opinion that were it not for the prospect of bringing the peach-brandy trade into success and a profitable notority, Galliopolis town and settlement would be entirely abandoned.

Never was a place chosen, or rather approved of, with less judgment. In the rear of the buildings are a number of pestiferous ponds; the back country is composed of a series of barren ridges and internal lands of dangerous swamp; and the access to the town both by land and water, is so extremely difficult, that mere matter of choice will never conduct to it a visitor, trader, or resident. I am given to understand notwithstanding that some New Englanders have made purchases from the fugitive French at very reduced prices, and intend occupy

ing the farms they deserted. If they put this intention into execution, the settlement may again take an artificial rise, though it is difficult to conceive how the public can a second time be deceived in respect to a spot whose climate and properties have been so much condemned and exposed.

I am very happy to have authority to account for seventy more of the families who arrived from France, and which seventy were of those who left Galliopolis in disguise on the springing up of the new proprietor, who required them to make a new purchase or to quit the premises. Congress, much to its honor, made their case a national one, and has granted them lands lower down the river in lieu of those they had to abandon in this place. They report to their friends that their new grounds are excellent, but that sickness and excess of unaccustomed labor keeps thinning them by no very insensible degrees,

Various rivers and creeks-saw-mills—a fine salt-spring and an Indian pottery-Great Sandy Creek-central situation of its mouth —erroneous accounts of Kentuckey—corrected-extravagant price of lands-an excursion-vestiges of the remains of a Chief of uncommon size-game-wild hogs-remains of an Indian village—an alarm-explained— wolves hunting their prey.

Mouth of Great Sandy River, July, 1806.

I LEFT Galliopolis with all the sensibility which the fate of its poor inhabitants could inspire.

In my run to this place I passed a very beautiful island, several creeks, and the mouths of the Little and Big Guiandot. The latter river is sixty yards wide at its entrance into the Ohio; is very ra