CHAF. XXIV.] MACON, ALABAMA. 65 



comforts, considerably cheaper. We never made any 

 bargains, and observed that the bill was always 

 equitably adjusted according to the accommodation 

 provided. 



From Claiborne we crossed the Alabama river, 

 and were hospitably received by Mr. Blount, to 

 whom I had a letter of introduction from Mr. 

 Hamilton Couper. While my wife stayed with 

 Mrs. Blount at Woodlands, he took me in his 

 carriage through the forest, to the county town of 

 Macon, where he had business as a magistrate. 

 Macon (Alabama) happened to lie directly in my 

 way to Clarkesville, where I wished to examine the 

 geology of the region where the fossil skeletons of the 

 gigantic zeuglodon had been procured. The district 

 we passed through was situated in the fork of the 

 Alabama and Tombeckbee rivers, where the abo 

 riginal forest was only broken here and there by a 

 few clearings. To travel with an accomplished and 

 agreeable resident proprietor, who could entirely 

 sympathise with my feelings and opinions in a district 

 so recently deserted by the Indians, was no small ad 

 vantage. When I got to Macon, my attention was 

 forcibly called to the newness of things, by my 

 friend s pointing out to me the ground where there 

 had been a bloody fight with the Chocktaws and 

 Chickasaws, and I was told how many Indians had 

 been slaughtered there, and how the present clerk of 

 the Circuit Court was the last survivor of those who 

 had won the battle. The memory of General Jackson 

 is quite idolized here. It was enough for him to give 

 public notice in the papers that he should have great 



