468 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



good dwellings. The cause, I have heretofore spoken of 

 — difficulty of getting lumber — mill streams are among 

 the things wanted. 



Vicksburgh is built on the face of a bluff that rises 

 from the river 200 or 300 feet high, and which is broken 

 into sundry other bluffs and ravines, and these are mul- 

 tiplied by lesser ones wherever the water can get a chance 

 to gully out the soft friable soil. The town contains a 

 very quiet and peaceable set of order-loving inhabitants 

 notwithstanding the bad name that they got a few years 

 ago, by a very summary way of ridding themselves of a 

 pack of gamblers, robbers, and murderers. It is a place 

 of considerable business, though not half as much as it 

 was. The railroad from here to Jackson cuts off a good 

 deal of trade. The town is situated at the bottom of a 

 great bend of the river, and as there is no high land 

 on the opposite side, fears have long been entertained that 

 the everchanging stream might make a "cut-off' across 

 the narrow part of the bend, and thus leave the town 

 "alone in its glory." Greater changes than this have 

 taken place. "The Walnut Hills" settlement and fort, 

 near which the present town is built, has an ancient and 

 historical name. It was settled by the old French ex- 

 plorers. 



About dark we left town with the intention of riding 

 out to a friend's house, about four or five miles — Missis- 

 sippi miles, and over Mississippi roads, and through, I 

 can't tell how many, Mississippi gates — more than we 

 were able to find by negro directions, in a dark night, 

 till near midnight. Late as it was, we were met at the 

 gate in southern style — a guest never thinking of enter- 

 ing the house without this little ceremony. 



Before pushing ourselves off in the morning, we took 

 a stroll over the farm, and the greatest curiosity wit- 

 nessed was the possibility of raising a crop upon such 

 a wonderful uneven surface. Among the small curiosi- 

 ties was an alder tree eight inches in diameter, and a 

 sumach fifteen inches in diameter. And I was assured 



