'138 TRAVELS THROUGH NORTH AMERICA l 
but it is now entirely out of repair ; the win¬ 
dows are all broken, and the road is carried 
through the church yard, over the graves, the 
paling that surrounded it having been torn 
down. Near the town is Mount Misery, to¬ 
wards the top of which is a medicinal spring, 
remarkable in summer for the coldness of the 
water. 
From Port Tobacco to Hoe's Ferry, on the 
Patowmac River, the country is flat and sandy, 
and wears a most dreary aspect. Nothing 
is to be seen here for miles together but ex¬ 
tensive plains, that have been worn out by 
the culture of tobacco, overgrown with yel¬ 
low sedge,* and interspersed with groves of 
pine and cedar trees, the dark green colour 
of which forms a curious contrast with the 
yellow of the sedge. In the midst of these 
plains are the remains of several good houses, 
which shew that the country was once very 
different to what it is now. These were the 
houses, most probably, of people who ori-, 
ginally settled in Maryland with Lord Bal¬ 
timore, but which have now been suffered 
* This sedge, as it is called, is a sort of coarse grass, so hard 
that cattle will not eat it, which springs up spontaneously, in 
this part of the country, on the ground that has been left 
Waste ; it commonly grows about two feet high 5 towards 
winter it turns yellow, and remains standing until the ensuing 
summer, when a new growth displaces that of the former 
yea$. At its first springing up it is of a bright gicen colour* 
