236 
APPENDIX. 
Provisions will also be furnished here of as good a quality and, 
as cheap as in any other seaport: the country between the Pearl 
and Mississippi rivers is extremely favorable to the growth of 
hogs: and cattle are reared to as great perfection, and perhaps 
to as great an extent, on the waters of Pearl river, and particu¬ 
larly in the Choctaw nation of Indians, as in any part of the U. 
States. 
Why, it may be asked, have not the singular advantages of 
this place sooner manifested themselves? The French were 
the first, and for many years the only civilized inhabitants in the 
vicinity of Tchefonta Enterprise is not one of the characteristic 
traits of the Louisiana French. A few small fields and mud wall 
houses, are the most of their improvements in this neighbor¬ 
hood. The burning of shell lime and charcoal, making tar and 
raising cattle, and carrying the product of their labor to the Or¬ 
leans market, were generally the exient of their pursuits. At¬ 
tempts at commerce must have proved futile, as there were no 
country settlements to support them; the neighboring country 
Was still within a few years past inhabited only by Choctaw In¬ 
dians. 
The country back of Madisonville now sustains a very consi¬ 
derable population ; but there being no roads to accommodate 
an intercourse, its trade is diverted into other and unnatural 
channels. The capitalist will not place his stock on a coast 
where there arc no roads to facilitate trade; and th« inhabitants 
of the country have little inducement to make roads towards a 
pjace where they have little or no advantages of commerce.— 
The only measure necessary to insure an influx of capital to Ma¬ 
disonville, and to make it gradually assume the rank of a re¬ 
spectable seaport town, is the making of two or three good 
roads in proper directions through the flat woods, to the high 
and hard lands of the adjacent country. And with a capital to 
invite it, the natural advantages of this place would insure it the 
trading seaport of a country larger in extent tnan the state of 
Connecticut, and capable of sustaining an equal or greater agri¬ 
cultural population. 
The land in the vicinity of Madisonville, with very fe w ex¬ 
ceptions in favor, of old Spanish and French titles, belongs to the 
