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Show THE CHOLERA-HORSE-RACES. 71 smaller portion are free in the state of Kentucky. The state of oppression in which the negro slaves live in North America, makes them corrupt and knavish, which travellers often have occasion to learn by their own experience. At Louisville, the cholera had already appeared. Five persons, most of them negroes, were carried off the day before our arrival, and a general panic had seized the inhabitants. Mr. Wenzel took us to a spot which was intended for horse-races, an institution quite new in the Western States. A society had purchased a beautiful level spot of ground, surrounded with woods, and about four miles in circumference. This place was surrounded with palisades, with several stands in the centre, and stables in the neighbourhood for the horses. The horses of Kentucky are considered to be the best in the country; the stallions which were to run, and some of which had come from a distance, seemed to be mostly of a very good breed, not large, but well built. The first races were to continue the whole of the next week. This institution will, doubtless, have a good effect in improving the breed of horses, and afford the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood both advantage and amusement. In the afternoon we left Louisville to embark at Portland, below the town, on account of the Falls of the Ohio, that now cannot be navigated past the town, and therefore a canal has been made, where, by the aid of five sluices, the boats are raised twenty-two feet. Those who land at Louisville embark again at Portland, where there is generally a great number of steamboats, among which we chose the Water-witch, bound to New Orleans. There were a great many passengers eager to embark, who drove in carriages into the river to reach the steam-boat, to which the baggage was conveyed in the same manner. The loading of the vessel not being completed, we did not set out till the 16th of October. At seven o'clock in the morning of that day, Reaumur's thermometer was at 5° above zero, while a thick fog covered the river. We put off at half-past ten, and had a fine view of the magnificent Ohio, with the large town of Louisville in Kentucky, and New Albany in Indiana, opposite, with numerous steam-boats on both banks. It was soon discovered that our engine was out of order, and we were forced to lie to, on the Indiana side, to repair it. As this required much time, we took the opportunity of exploring the first forest on this State. The bank was fifty feet high, and steep ; the upper part of the declivity was covered with Datura, the seeds of which were now ripe, but very few of the light purple flowers were to be seen. The beautiful blue flowering Eupatorium ccelestinum and the Lobelia sypMUtica bore their flowers amongst the thorn-apples. On the summit of the bank there was a noble forest of tall, thick beech, maple, oak, walnut trees, &c., in which there were some plantations of maize, with their block-houses. The underwood was everywhere the papaw tree, and on the skirts of the forest the yellow flowering Cassia Marylandica, with ripe seed. Old trunks lay rotting on the ground, which was partly covered with the falling leaves. At nightfall our engine was repaired, and we proceeded on our voyage, and on the morning |
