Travels Through North America 



the country, towards the mountains, the value of the 

 land increases; for it grows more strong, and con- 

 sists of a deeper clay. 



Virginia, in its natural state, produces great 

 quantities of fruits and medicinal plants, with trees 

 and flowers of infinitely various kinds. Tobacco 

 and Indian corn are the original produce of the 

 country; likewise the pigeon-berry, and rattle-snake- 

 root so esteemed in all ulcerous and pleuritical com- 

 plaints: grapes, strawberries, hickory nuts, mul- 

 berries, chestnuts, and several other fruits, grow 

 wild and spontaneously. 



Besides trees and flowers of an ordinary nature, 

 the woods produce myrtles, cedars, cypresses, sugar- 

 trees, firs of different sorts, and no less than seven 

 or eight kinds of oak; they are likewise adorned and 

 beautified with red-flowering maples, sassafras-trees, 

 dog-woods, acacias, red-buds, scarlet-flowering chest- 

 nuts, fringe-trees, flowering poplars, umbrellas, mag- 

 nolias, yellow jasamines, chamcedaphnes, pacoons, 

 atamusco-lilies, May-apples, and innumerable other 

 sorts, so that one may reasonably assert that no coun- 

 try ever appeared with greater elegance or beauty.* 



Not to notice too the almost numberless creeks 

 and rivulets which every where abound, it is watered 

 by four large rivers of such safe navigation, and such 

 noble and majestic appearance, as cannot be ex- 

 ceeded, perhaps, in the whole known world. 



* See Appendix, No. i. 



[38] 



