Travels Through North America 



if there is such a thing as happiness in this life, that 

 they enjoy it. Far from the bustle of the world, 

 they live in the most delightful climate, and richest 

 soil imaginable; they are everywhere surrounded 

 with beautiful prospects and sylvan scenes; lofty 

 mountains, transparent streams, falls of water, rich 

 valleys, and majestic woods; the whole interspersed 

 with an infinite variety of flowering shrubs, con- 

 stitute the landscape surrounding them: they are 

 subject to few diseases; are generally robust; and 

 live in perfect liberty: they are ignorant of want, 

 and acquainted with but few vices. Their inex- 

 perience of the elegancies of life precludes any regret 

 that they possess not the means of enjoying them: 

 but they possess what many princes would give half 

 their dominions for, health, content, and tranquillity 

 of mind. 



Winchester is a small town of about two hundred 

 houses. It is the place of general rendezvous of the 

 Virginian troops, which is the reason of its late rapid 

 increase, and present flourishing condition. The 

 country about it, before the reduction of Fort du 

 Quesne, was greatly exposed to the ravages of the 

 Indians, who daily committed most horrid cruelties: 

 even the town would have been in danger, had not 

 Colonel Washington, in order to cover and protect 

 it, erected a fort upon an eminence at one end of it, 

 which proved of the utmost utility; for although the 

 Indians were frequently in sight of the town, they 



[74] 



