LIFE OP WILSON. 
Cxvi 
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 
