would suppose it healthy, but my information respecting it was rather the reverse, particularly in the autumnal months, when it is subject to bilious disorders. Perhaps this may be owing to the excessive heat occasioned by the reflection of the sun from the sandy soil, as it is sufficiently elevated, and there is no stagnant pond, nor low marsh, near it to generate fevers. This is probably one cause of its being in a state of decay; another may be the difficulty of approaching it during floods in Cole's creek, which happen after every rain, and which in a manner insulate it while they last. It consists of one wide straight street nearly half a mile long, running N. by W. and S. by E. intersected by two small cross ones, containing in all forty tolerably good houses, many of which are now unoccupied, and offered for sale, at little more than a quarter of their cost in building. It has a small church for general use of all christian sects, a small court-house, a gaol and a pillory, a post-office, two stores, two taverns, {290} and an apothecary's shop. The town is well watered by wells dug to about thirty feet deep.[201]
Proceeding to the S. S. W. keeping to the right at the south end of the town, at one mile I crossed a deep ravine, with a spring well and a washing camp in it, overhung by a house on the projecting corner of a small plantation, on a hill on the left.
The road was well opened, but hilly, through the woods, for two miles farther, when on crossing a water course (now dry) and rising a hill, I had a view on the right, over the extensive plantation of colonel West,[202] who has upwards of*
