JOURNAL 



936. July i4th. Hot again ; 90 degrees. Arrive at Blue Licks, 

 close by the fine Licking Creek, 22 miles from Paris. Here is a 

 sulphur and salt spring like that at French Lick in Indiana, which 

 makes this a place of great resort in summer for the fashionable 

 swallowers of mineral waters ; the three or four taverns are at this 

 time completely crowded. Salt was made till latterly at this 

 spring, by an old Scotsman ; he now attends the ferry across the 

 Creek. Not much to be said for the country round here ; it is 

 stony and barren, what I have not seen before in Kentucky. 



937. July I5th. To Maysville, or Limestone, 24 miles. This 

 is a place on the banks of the Ohio, and is a sort of port for shipping 

 down the river to a great part of that district of the state for which 

 Louisville is the shipping port to and from New Orleans. Still 

 hot ; 90 degrees again. This is the fifth day ; rather unusual, 

 this continuance of heat. The hot spells as well as the cold spells, 

 seldom last more than three days, pretty generally in America. 



938.^/3; i6th. Hot still, but a fine breeze blowing up the river. 

 Not a bit too hot for me, but the natives say it is the hottest weather 

 they recollect in this country ; a proof to me that this is a mild 

 climate, as to heat, at any rate. Saw a cat-fish in the market, 

 just caught out of the river by a hook and line, 4 feet long and 

 eighty pounds weight, offered for 2 dollars. Price of flour, 6 

 dollars a barrel ; fresh beef, 6 cents, and butter 20 cents per Ib. 



939. July i^th. Set out again, crossing the Ohio into the state 

 of that name, and take the road to Chillicothe, 74 miles from 

 Maysville. Stop about mid-way for the night, travelling over a 

 country generally hilly, and not of good soil, and passing through 

 West Union, a place situated as a town ought to be, upon high and 

 unlevel lands ; the inhabitants have fine air to breathe, and plenty 

 of food to eat and drink, and, if they keep their houses and streets 

 and themselves clean, I will ensure them long lives. Some pretty 

 good farms in view of the road, but many abandoned for the richer 

 lands of Indiana and Illinois. Travelling expences much less, 

 hitherto, than in Indiana and some parts of Kentucky ; we had 

 plenty of good butter-milk at the farm houses all along the road, 

 free of expence, and the tavern-keepers do not set before us bread 

 made of Indian corn, which we have not yet learned to like very 

 cordially. 



223 



