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Travels Through North America 



During my stay at this place, I was almost in- 

 duced to make a tour for a fortnight to the south- 

 ward, in Augusta county, for the sake of seeing some 

 natural curiosities, which, the officers assured me, 

 were extremely well worth visiting: but as the Chero- 

 kees had been scalping in those parts only a few 

 days before; and as I feared, at the same time, that 

 it would detain me too long, and that I should lose 

 my passage to England, I judged it prudent to 

 decline it. 



The curiosities they mentioned to me, were chiefly 

 these: 



1. About forty miles westward of Augusta court- 

 house, a beautiful cascade, bursting out of the side 

 of a rock; and, after running some distance through 

 a meadow, rushing down a precipice 150 feet 

 perpendicular. 



2. To the southward of this about twenty miles, 

 two curious hot springs, one tasting like alum, the 

 other like the washings of a gun. 



3. A most extraordinary cave. 



4. A medicinal spring, specific in venereal cases. 

 A soldier in the Virginian regiment, whose case was 

 thought desperate, by drinking and bathing in these 

 waters, was, after a few days, entirely cured. This 

 fact was asserted very strongly by some officers, who 

 had been posted there: but Colonel Washington, of 

 whom I inquired more particularly concerning it, 

 informed me that he had never heard of it; that he 



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