cxv i LIFE OF WILSON. 



try. In the afternoon of the next day I returned to my boat, 

 replaced my baggage, and rowed twenty miles to the Swiss 

 settlement, where I spent the night. These hardy and indus- 

 trious people have now twelve acres closely and cleanly plant- 

 ed with vines from the Cape of Good Hope. They last year 

 made seven hundred gallons of wine, and expect to make three 

 times as much the ensuing season. Their houses are neat and 

 comfortable, they have orchards of peach and apple trees, be- 

 sides a great number of figs, cherries, and other fruit trees, of 

 which they are very curious. They are of opinion that this 

 part of the Indiana Territory is as well suited as any part of 

 France to the cultivation of the vine, but the vines they say 

 require different management here from what they were ac- 

 customed to in Switzerland. I purchased a bottle of their last 

 vintage, and drank to all your healths as long as it lasted, in 

 going down the river. Seven miles below this I passed the 

 mouth of Kentucky river, which has a formidable appearance. 

 I observed twenty or thirty scattered houses on its upper side, 

 and a few below, many of the former seemingly in a state of 

 decay. It rained on me almost the whole of this day, and I 

 was obliged to row hard and drink healths to keep myself com- 

 fortable. My birds' skins were wrapt up in my great coat, 

 and my own skin had to sustain a complete drenching, which, 

 however, had no bad effects. This evening I lodged at the 

 most wretched hovel I had yet seen. The owner, a meagre 

 diminutive wretch, soon began to let me know of how much 

 consequence he had formerly been; that he had gone through 

 all the war with general Washington had become one of his 

 life-guards, and had sent many a British soldier to his long 

 home. As I answered him with indifference, to interest me 

 the more he began to detail anecdotes of his wonderful exploits; 

 " One grenadier," said he, " had the impudence to get up on 

 the works, and to wave his cap in defiance; my commander 

 [general Washington I suppose] says to me, " Dick, says he, 

 can't you pepper that there fellow for me?" says he. " Please 

 your honour, says I, I'll try at it; so I took a fair, cool and 



