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house of public entertainment, a tavern, has long been wanted, as the Cadron lies in another of the leading routes through this territory. It is one of the resorts from St. Louis, and the settlements on White river, as well as to the hot springs of the Washita, 135 and the inhabitants of Red river. From Arkansas to this place, about 150 miles by land, there is a leading path which proceeds through the Great Prairie.

To those southern gentlemen who pass the summer in quest of health and recreation, this route to the hot springs of the Washita, which I believe is the most convenient, would afford a delightful and rational amusement.

In the course of the day I amused myself amongst the romantic cliffs of slaty sand-stone, which occupy the vicinity of the Cadron. Here I found vestiges of several new and curious plants, and among them an undescribed species of Eriogonum, with a considerable root, partly of the colour and taste of rhubarb. The Petalostemons, and several plants of the eastern states, which I had not seen below, here again make their appearance. The Cactus ferox of the Missouri, remarkably loaded with spines, appears to forebode the vicinity of the Mexican desert.

The dip of the strata is here south-east, and the mountains, generally destitute of organic remains, [113] pass off in chains from the north of west to the south of east.

28th.] The river still continued rising. This morning I walked out two or three miles over the hills, and found 135 Hot Springs, now the famous health resort in Garland County. The spot was widely known among the Indians, and De Soto, led on by their reports, probably visited it in 1542. Summer parties of wealthy planters began to frequent the region early in the nineteenth century, and to such visits were doubtless due the well-marked roads from Natchitoches, described above (see ante, note 126). The town of Hot Springs is of late growth; it was a mere village in 1860. A tract of four square miles surrounding the springs was purchased in 1877 by the government, and is now a national park.- ED.

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the land, except in the small depressions and alluvion of the creek, of an inferior quality, and chiefly timbered with oaks and hickories thinly scattered. Ages must elapse before this kind of land will be worth purchasing at any price. Still, in its present state, it will afford a good range of pasturage for cattle, producing abundance of herbage, but would be unfit for cotton or maize, though, perhaps, suited to the production of smaller grain; there is not, however, yet a grist-mill on the Arkansa, and flour commonly sells above the Post, at 12 dollars per barrel. For the preparation of maize, a wooden mortar, or different kinds of hand or horse-mills are sufficient. Sugar and coffee are also high priced articles, more particularly this year. In common, I suppose, sugar retails at 25 cents the pound, and coffee at 50. Competition will, however, regulate and reduce the prices of these and other articles, which, but a few years ago, were sold at such an exorbitant rate, as to be almost proscribed from general use. There is a maple in this country, or rather, I believe, on the banks of White river, which has not come under my notice, called the sugar-tree (though not, as they say, the Acer saccharinum), that would, no doubt, by a little attention afford sugar at a low rate; and the decoctions of the wood of the sassafras and spice bush (Laurus benzoin), which abound in this country, are certainly very palatable substitutes for tea.

It is to be regretted that the widely scattered state of the population in this territory, is but too favourable to the spread of ignorance and barbarism. The means of education are, at present, nearly proscribed, and the rising generation are growing up in mental darkness, like the French hunters who have preceded [114] them, and who have almost forgot that they appertain to the civilized

world. This barrier will, however, be effectually removed by the progressive accession of population, which, like a resistless tide, still continues to set towards the west.

Contiguous to the north-eastern, or opposite declivity of the chain of hills, which flank the settlement of Mr. M'Ilmery, I observed in my ramble, a considerable collection of aboriginal tumuli, towards the centre of which, disposed in a somewhat circular form, I thought I could still discern an area which had once been trodden by human feet; but, alas! both they and their history are buried in impenetrable oblivion! their existence is blotted out from the page of the living! and it is only the eye which has been accustomed to the survey of these relics, that can even distinguish them from the accidental operations of nature. How dreary is this eternal night which has overtaken so many of my fellow-mortals! — a race, perhaps brave, though neither civilized nor luxurious, and who, like the retreating Scythians pursued by Darius, made, perhaps, at last, an obstinate resistance around their luckless families, and the revered tombs of their ancestors!

***

Besides these tumuli scattered through the forests, there are others on the summits of the hills, formed of loose stones thrown up in piles. We have no reason to suppose, that these remains were left by the Arkansas; they themselves deny it, and attribute them to a people distinct and governed by a superior policy.

29th and 30th.] Still at Mr. M'Ilmery's, during which time the weather has been cold and stormy.

The United States have now ordered the survey of all the alluvial and other saleable lands of the Arkansa, which are to be ready for disposal in about two years from the

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