480 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



able and ever ready pen of Dr. Phillips, hopes and be- 

 lieves that the farmers of the south will come up to his 

 aid and sustain the paper. I hope so, but I must own 

 that my hope is not strong. 



Raymond is the county seat of Hinds, 16 miles west of 

 Jackson, the seat of government, which is in the same 

 county. It has a court-house and very expensively built 

 jail, and several very humble looking churches. The 

 town does not wear a very flourishing look, and the sur- 

 rounding land, to my eye, looks decidedly poor; the soil, 

 sandy and white clay, and timber, pine and oak. The 

 surface of this county is, in comparison with the others I 

 have visited, pretty level. It has, upon Chittaloosa on the 

 west, and Pearl river on the east, some very rich bottom 

 land, but subject to inundation, and is yet covered with 

 timber. 



After spending two days of most pleasant sociability, 

 the Doctor and I started for Natchez, about one hundred 

 miles southwest. The day previous had been for a great 

 rarity a very rainy one, and during this day we had some 

 very fine sprinkles; so that I began to discover that if 

 they don't have any of our frozen weather, they are not 

 far behind in the mud line. 



After leaving Raymond, the land becomes quite hilly 

 in the course of the day, and a great portion of it still 

 bearing its native growth of pine, oak, and some hickory, 

 and upon the creeks, a good deal of sweet gum — the only 

 value of which is, and that ought to be universally known, 

 that a strong tea made of the bark will cure any kind of 

 bowel complaint. The splendid "magnolia grandiflora," 

 in places here is so abundant that it gives the woods a 

 cheerful aspect with its beautiful evergreen leaves. The 

 evergreen holly too, is abundant. 



This is the 2d day of March. The oat fields are looking 

 green, and corn begins to show its rows. As is the 

 fashion, we stopped at night with a planter in Claiborne 

 county, by the name of Gadi Gibson. It was dark and 

 showery, and as is also fashionable, we found the number 



