and his log-house was divided into two rooms.
Around the house were growing some magnificent apple-trees: these,
although produced from pips, bore fruit of extraordinary size and
excellent flavour, a circumstance which proves how well this country is
adapted for the culture of fruit-trees. At this house there were two
emigrant families, consisting of ten or twelve persons, who were going
to settle in Tenessee. Their clothes were ragged, and their children
were barefooted and in their shirts.

Beyond this place the road divided into two branches, both of which led
to Jonesborough; and, as M. Michaux was desirous of surveying the banks
of the _river Nolachuky_, renowned for their fertility, he took the
branch which led him in that direction. As he proceeded he found many
small rock crystals, two or three inches long, and beautifully
transparent. They were loose, and disseminated upon the road, in a
reddish kind of earth.

On the twenty-first he arrived at _Greenville_, a town which contained
scarcely forty houses, constructed with square beams, and somewhat in
the manner of log-houses. The distance between this place and
Jonesborough, is about twenty-five miles: the country was slightly
mountainous, the soil was more adapted to the culture of corn than that
of Indian wheat; and the plantations were situated near the road, two or
three miles distant from each other.

_Jonesborough_, the last town in Tenessee, consisted, at this time, of
about a hundred and fifty houses, built of wood, and disposed on both
sides of the road. Four or five respectable shops were established
there, and the tradespeople, who kept them, received their goods from
Richmond and Baltimore.

On the twenty-first of September, M. Michaux set out from Jonesborough
to cross the _Alleghany Mountains_, for North Carolina. In some places
the road, or rather the path, was scarcely distinguishable, in
consequence of the plants of various kinds that covered its surface. It
was also encumbered by forests of rhododendron: shrubs, from eighteen to
twenty feet in height, the branches of which, twisted and interwoven
with each other, greatly impeded his progress. He had also to cross
numerous streams; particularly a large torrent, called Rocky Creek, the
winding course of which cut the path in twelve or fifteen directions.

On the twenty-third this gentleman proceeded twenty-two miles, through a
hilly country; and, in the evening, arrived at the house of a pe