lthy, is now suffering under malignant fevers.
I may here remark, that the two States, Illinois and Indiana, and the
western portions of Kentucky and Tennessee, are very unhealthy; not a
year passes without a great mortality from the bilious congestive fever,
a variety of the yellow fever, and the ague; more especially Illinois
and Indiana, with the western portion of Ohio, which is equally flat
with the other two States. The two States of Indiana and Illinois lie,
as it were, at the bottom of the western basin; the soil is wonderfully
rich, but the drainage is insufficient, as may be seen from the
sluggishness with which these rivers flow. Many and many thousands of
poor Irish emigrants, and settlers also, have been struck down by
disease, never to rise again, in these rich but unhealthy States; to
which, stimulated by the works published by land-speculators, thousands
and thousands every year repair, and, notwithstanding the annual
expenditure of life, rapidly increase the population. I had made up my
mind to travel by land-carriage to St Louis, Missouri, through the
States of Indiana and Illinois, but two American gentlemen, who had just
arrived by that route, succeeded in dissuading me. They had come over
on horseback. They described the disease and mortality as dreadful.
That sometimes, when they wished to put up their horses at seven or
eight o'clock in the evening, they were compelled to travel on till
twelve or one o'clock before they could gain admittance, some portion in
every house suffering under the bilious fever, tertian ague, or flux.
They described the scene as quite appalling. At some houses there was
not one person able to rise and attend upon the others; all were dying
or dead and to increase the misery of their situations, the springs had
dried up, and in many places they could not procure water except by
sending many miles. A friend of mine, who had been on a mission through
the portion of Kentucky and Tennessee bordering on them Mississippi,
made a very similar statement. He was not refused to remain where he
stopped, but he could procure no assistance, and everywhere ran the risk
of contagion. He said that some of the people were obliged to send
their negroes with a waggon upwards of fifteen miles to wash their
clothes.

That this has been a very unhealthy season is certain, but still, from
all the information I could obtain, there is a great mortality every
year in the districts I have p