weeks. Having lost his wife amongst the rest, he has cleared out, and lives by his itinerant ministrations.
It is useless to fence much more land than is cleared, because, until the country is cleared round about, the autumnal fires would destroy the fences. The cattle, therefore, must range in the woods, until some small inclosures, for pasture, can be made. Through the summer, both night and day, but mostly in the night, the mosquitoes, both in Indiana and Illinois, but chiefly in the latter, were, in their attacks, almost sufficient to drive English settlers out. If a man had been lashed naked to a post, he must have been stung to death, or unto madness. At Sandersville, says J. Ingle, they blinded several persons.
The Cherokee nation[83] once wishing to war against the United States, sent their favourite chief, old Double-head, to Philadelphia, to sound parties, and return with his opinion either for or against it. "Oh," said he, on his return, "we must not war; I have seen more white men in one town, than would be sufficient to eat all the Indians, if made into a pie." They have never since thought of war, but what few remain, are friendly and civilized, and fight for Uncle Sam. Some cultivate their land, and possess negroes.
20th.—At nine this morning, after a fortnight's {263} stay at Sandersville, I mounted the neck of an ill mi-*shapen, dull, stumbling beast, called a horse, the best that friendship and good-will could procure, for conveying me, in company with J. Ingle, to the state of Illinois, by way of the far-famed Harmony. I rode, in fear, all day, through woods and wilds; sometimes almost trackless.
