On the 5th of September I set out from Nasheville for Knoxville, with Mr. Fisk, sent by the state of Tennessea to determine in a more correct manner, in concert with the commissaries of Virginia, the boundaries between the two states. We did not arrive till the 9th at Fort Blount, built upon the river Cumberland, about sixty miles from Nasheville; we stopped on the road with different friends of Mr. Fisk, among others, at the house of General Smith, one of the oldest inhabitants in the country, where he has resided sixteen or seventeen years. It is to him they are indebted for the best map of this state, which is found in the Geographical Atlas, published by Matthew Carey, bookseller, at Philadelphia. He confessed to me, notwithstanding, that this map, {205} taken several years ago, was in many respects imperfect. The General has a beautiful plantation cultivated in Indian wheat and cotton; he has also a neat distillery for peach brandy, which he sells at five shillings per gallon. In his leisure hours he busies himself in chemistry. I have seen at his house English translations of the works of Lavoisier and Fourcroy.[54]

We likewise saw, en passant, General Winchester, who was at a stone house that was building for him on the road; this mansion, considering the country, bore the external marks of grandeur; it consisted of four large rooms on the ground floor, one story, and a garret. The workmen employed to finish the inside came from Baltimore, a distance of nearly seven hundred miles. The stones are of a chalky nature; there are no others in all that part of Tennessea except round flints, which are found in the beds of some of the rivers which come originally from the mountainous region, whence they have been hurried by the force of the torrents. On the other hand there are so very few of the inhabitants that build in this manner, on account of the price of workmanship, masons being still scarcer than carpenters and joiners.

Not far from the General’s house runs a river, {206} from forty to fifty feet wide, which we crossed dry-footed. Its banks in certain places are upwards of twenty-five feet high, the bottom of its bed is formed with flag stones, furrowed by small grooves, about three or four inches broad, and as many deep, through which the water flowed; but on the contrary the tide is so high in winter, that by means of a lock, they stop a sufficient quantity to turn a mill, situated more than thirty feet in height.

We had now passed several of these rivers that we could have strided over, but which, during the season, are crossed by means of ferry-boats.

A few miles from General Winchester’s plantation, and at a short distance from the road, is situated a small town, founded within these few years, and to which they have given the name of Cairo, in memory of the taking of Cairo by the French.

Between Nasheville and Fort Blount the plantations, although always isolated in the woods, are nevertheless, upon the road, within two or three miles of each other. The inhabitants live in comfortable log houses; the major part keep negroes, and appear to live happy and in abundance. For the whole of this space the soil is but slightly undulated at times very even, and in general excellent; in consequence of {207} which the forests look very beautiful. It is in particular, at Dixon’s Spring, fifty miles from Nasheville, and a few miles on this side Major Dixon’s, where I sojourned a day and a half, that we remarked this great fertility. We saw again in the environs a considerable mass of forests, filled with those canes or reeds I have before mentioned, and which grow so close to each other, that at the distance of ten or twelve feet a man could not be perceived was he concealed there. Their tufted foliage presents a mass of verdure that diverts the sight amid these still and gloomy forests. I have before remarked that, in proportion as new plantations are formed, these canes in a few years disappear, as the cattle prefer the leaves of them to any other kind of vegetables, and destroy them still more by breaking the body of the plant while browzing on the top of the stalks. The pigs contribute also to this destruction, by raking up the ground in order to search for the young roots.

Fort Blount was constructed about eighteen years ago, to protect the emigrants who came at that time to settle in Cumberland, against the attacks of the natives, who declared a perpetual war against them, in order to drive them out; but peace having been concluded with them, and the population being {208} much increased, they have been reduced to the impossibility of doing them farther harm, and the Fort has been destroyed. There now exists on this spot a beautiful plantation, belonging to Captain William Samson, with whom Mr. Fisk usually resides. During the two days that we stopped at his house, I went in a canoe up the river Cumberland for several miles. This mode of reconnoitring the natural productions still more various upon the bank of the rivers, is preferable to any other, especially when the rivers are like the latter, bounded by enormous rocks, which are so very steep, that scarcely any person ventures to ascend their lofty heights. In these excursions I enriched my collections with several seeds of trees and plants peculiar to the country, and divers other objects of natural history.