Passage over the Barrens, or Meadows.—Plantations upon the Road.—The View they present.—Plants discovered there.—Arrival at Nasheville.
About ten miles from Green River flows the Little Barren, a small river, from thirty to forty feet in breadth; the ground in the environs is dry and barren, and produces nothing but a few Virginia cedars, two-leaved pines, and black oaks. A little beyond this commence the Barrens, or Kentucky Meadows. I went the first day thirteen miles across these meadows, and put up at the house of Mr. Williamson, near Bears-Wallow.
In the morning, before I left the place, I wanted to give my horse some water, upon which my host directed me to a spring about a quarter of a mile from the house, where his family was supplied; I wandered {145} about for the space of two hours in search of this, when I discovered a plantation in a low and narrow valley, where I learnt that I had mistaken the path, and was obliged to return to the place from whence I came. The mistress of the house told me that she had resided in the Barrens upwards of three years, and that for eighteen months prior to my going there she had not seen an individual; that, weary of living thus isolated, her husband had been more than two months from home in quest of another spot, towards the mouth of the Ohio. Such was the pretence for this removal, which made the third since the family left Virginia. A daughter about fourteen years of age, and two children considerably younger, were all the company she had; her house, on the other hand, was stocked abundantly with vegetables and corn.
This part of the Barrens that chance occasioned me to stroll over, was precisely similar to that I had traversed the day before. I found a spring in a cavity of an orbicular form, where it took me upwards of an hour to get half a pail of water for my horse. The time that I had thus employed, that which I had lost in wandering about, added to the intense heat, obliged {146} me to shorten my route: in consequence of which I put up at Dripping Spring, about ten miles from Bears-Wallow.
On the following day, the 26th, I went twenty-eight miles, and stopped at the house of Mr. Jacob Kesly, belonging to the Dunker sect, which I discovered by his long beard. About ten miles from Dripping Spring I forded Big-Barren River, which appeared to me one third broader than Green River, the plantation of one Macfiddit, who plies a ferry-boat when the waters are high; and another, belonging to one Chapman. About three miles farther are the two oldest settlements on the road, both of them having been built upwards of fourteen years. When I was at this place, a boat laden with salt arrived from St. Genevieve, a French village situated upon the right bank of the Mississippi, about a hundred miles beyond the mouth of the Ohio.
My landlord’s house was as miserably furnished as those I had lodged at for several days preceding, and I was again obliged to sleep on the floor. The major part of the inhabitants of Kentucky have been there too short a time to make any great improvements; they have a very indifferent supply of any thing except Indian corn and forage.
{147} On the 27th of August I set off very early in the morning; and about thirteen miles from Mr. Kesley’s I crossed the line that separates the State of Tennessea from that of Kentucky. There also terminates the Barrens; and to my great satisfaction I got into the woods.[46] Nothing can be more tiresome than the doleful uniformity of these immense meadows where there is nobody to be met with; and where, except a great number of partridges, we neither see nor hear any species of living beings, and are still more isolated than in the middle of the forests.
The first plantation that I reached on entering Tennessea belonged to a person of the name of Checks, of whom I entertained a very indifferent opinion, by the conversation that he was holding with seven or eight of his neighbours, with whom he was drinking whiskey. Fearing lest I should witness some murdering scene or other, which among the inhabitants of this part of the country is frequently the end of intoxication, produced by this kind of spirits, I quickly took my leave, and put up at an inn about three miles farther off, where I found every accommodation. The late Duke of Orleans’ son lodged at this house a few years before.[47] On the {148} day following I arrived at Nasheville, after having travelled twenty-seven miles.
The Barrens, or Kentucky Meadows, comprise an extent from sixty to seventy miles in length, by sixty miles in breadth. According to the signification of this word, I conceived I should have had to cross over a naked space, sown here and there with a few plants. I was confirmed in my opinion by that which some of the country people had given me of these meadows before I reached them. They told me that in this season I should perish with heat and thirst, and that I should not find the least shade the whole of the way, as the major part of the Americans who live in the woods have not the least idea that there is any part of the country entirely open, and still less that they could inhabit it. Instead of finding a country as it had been depicted to me, I was agreeably surprised to see a beautiful meadow, where the grass was from two to three feet high. Amidst these pasture lands I discovered a great variety of plants, among which were the gerardia flava, or gall of the earth; the gnaphalium dioicum, or white plantain; and the rudbekia purpurea. I observed that the roots of the latter plant participated in some degree with the sharp taste of the leaves of the spilanthus {149} oleracca. When I crossed these meadows the flower season was over with three parts of the plants, but the time for most of the seeds to ripen was still at a great distance; nevertheless I gathered about ninety different species of them which I took with me to France.
In some parts of the meadows we observed several species of the wild vine, and in particular that called by the inhabitants summer grapes, the bunches are as large, and the grapes of as good a quality as those in the vineyards round Paris, with this difference, that the berries are not quite so close together.
It seems to me that the attempts which have been made in Kentucky to establish the culture of the vine would have been more successful in the Barrens, the soil of which appears to me more adapted for this kind of culture than that on the banks of the Kentucky; the latter is richer it is true, at the same time the nature of the country, and the proximity of the forests render it much damper. This was also my father’s opinion; he thought that [of] the different parts of North America that he had travelled through, during a sojourn of twelve years, the States of Kentucky and Tennessea, and particularly the Barrens, were the parts in which the vine might {150} be cultivated with the greatest success. His opinion was founded in a great measure upon the certainty that the vegetable stratum in the above states lies upon a chalky mass.
The Barrens are circumscribed by a wood about three miles broad, which in some parts joins to surrounding forests. The trees are in general very straggling, and at a greater distance from each other as they approach the meadows. On the side of Tennessea this border is exclusively composed of post oaks, or quercus oblusiloba, the wood of which being very hard, and not liable to rot, is, in preference to any other, used for fences. This serviceable tree would be easy to naturalize in France, as it grows among the pines in the worst of soil. We observed again, here and there, in the meadow, several black oaks, or quercus nigra; and nut trees, or juglans hickery, which rise about twelve or fifteen feet. Sometimes they formed small arbours, but always far enough apart from each other so as not to intercept the surrounding view. With the exception of small willows, about two feet high, selix longirostris, and a few shumacs, there is not the least appearance of a shrub. The surface of these meadows is generally very even; towards Dripping Spring I observed {151} a lofty eminence, slightly adorned with trees, and bestrewed with enormous rocks, which hang jutting over the main road.
It appears there are a great number of subterraneous caverns in the Barrens, some of which are very near the surface. A short time before I was there, several pieces of the rocks that were decayed, fell with a tremendous crash into the road near Bears-Wallow, as a traveller was passing, who, by the greatest miracle escaped. We may easily conceive with what consequences such accidents must be attended in a country where the plantations are so distant from each other, and where, perhaps, a traveller does not pass for several days.
We remarked in these meadows several holes, widened at the top in the shape of funnels, the breadth of which varies according to their depth. In some of these holes, about five or six feet from the bottom, flows a small vein of water, which, in the same proportions as it fills, loses itself through another part. These kind of springs never fail; in consequence of which several of the inhabitants have been induced to settle in their vicinity; for, except the river Big-Barren, I did not see the smallest rivulet or creek; nor did I hear that they have ever attempted to dig {152} wells; but were they to make the essay, I have no doubt of their success. According to the observations we have just made, the want of water, and wood adapted to make fences, will be long an obstacle to the increase of settlements in this part of Kentucky. Notwithstanding, one of these two inconveniences might be obviated, by changing the present mode of enclosing land, and substituting hedges, upon which the gleditsia triacanthos, one of the most common trees in the country, might be used with success. The Barrens at present are very thinly populated, considering their extent; for on the road where the plantations are closest together we counted but eighteen in a space of sixty or seventy miles.
Some of the inhabitants divide land of the Barrens in Kentucky into three classes, according to its quality. That which I crossed, where the soil is yellowish and rather gravelly, appeared to me the best adapted for the culture of corn. That of Indian wheat is almost the only thing to which the inhabitants apply themselves; but as the settlements are of a fresh date, the land has not been able to acquire that degree of prosperity that is observed on this side Mulder Hill. Most of the inhabitants who go to settle in the country, incline upon the skirts, or along {153} the Little and Big Barren rivers, where they are attracted by the advantage that the meadows offer as pasture for the cattle, an advantage which, in a great measure, the inhabitants of the most fertile districts are deprived of, the country being so very woody, that there is scarcely any grass land to be seen.
Every year, in the course of the months of March or April, the inhabitants set fire to the grass, which at that time is dried up, and through its extreme length, would conceal from the cattle a fortnight or three weeks longer the new grass, which then begins to spring up. This custom is nevertheless generally censured; as being set on fire too early, the new grass is stripped of the covering that ought to shelter it from the spring and frosts, and in consequence of which its vegetation is retarded. The custom of burning the meadows was formerly practised by the natives, who came in this part of the country to hunt; in fact, they do it now in the other parts of North America, where there are savannas of an immense extent. Their aim in setting fire to it is to allure the stags, bisons, &c. into the parts which are burnt, where they can discern them at a greater distance. Unless a person has seen these dreadful conflagrations, it is impossible to form {154} the least idea of them. The flames that occupy generally an extent of several miles, are sometimes driven by the wind with such rapidity, that the inhabitants, even on horseback, have become a prey to them. The American sportsmen and the savages preserve themselves from this danger by a very ingenious method; they immediately set fire to the part of the meadow where they are, and then retire into the space that is burnt, where the flame that threatened them stops for the want of nourishment.