two hundred acres in one field in cultivation. The soil seems very thin, as in the whole neighbourhood of Greenville, but the crop of cotton and corn now looked luxuriant, from the wetness of the season.
Two miles farther I passed on the right Parker Cardine's delightfully situated plantation, with an excellent dwelling house, and good apple and peach orchards, with the south branch of Cole's creek, winding round on the right below, and which I crossed soon after. The soil however is very light, and is soon washed off, and worn out, where it has been cultivated a few years, on the whole tract between Greenville and Natchez.
The country here is well opened and inhabited to a little beyond Uniontown, which is a small village of three or four houses in decay, about a mile beyond Cardine's.[203]
I stopped at Uniontown to feed my horse, (I make use of the active verb feed, instead of the passive one, to have my horse fed, as travellers in this country, who will not take the trouble of giving corn and fodder to their horses themselves, may expect to have them soon die of famine, although they pay extravagantly for food and attendance.) I was here joined by a trig looking young man mounted on a mule, who requested to accompany me on the road towards Natchez. {291} In riding along, he entertained me with his history. He said his name was Jackson—that he was born in London—was bred a painter, and was sent to a rich uncle in St. Vincents, when only fourteen years old. That aided by his uncle, he had traded among the West India
- [Footnote: *tucky. Finding the current of the Ohio difficult to stem, he floated down to Natchez,
secured a Spanish grant, and became a leading citizen of early Mississippi. Colonel West was secretary of the territory from 1802-09, and member of the Constitutional Convention in 1817.—Ed.]
