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in their progrefs. This mode of adminiftering justice continued till 1785, when, by the unanimous exertions of the two upper districts, an act was paffed, establishing county courts in all the counties of the four districts of Camden, Ninety-Six, Cheraws, and Orangeburgh. The county courts are empowered to fit four times a year. Before the establishment of county courts, the lawyers all refided at Charleston, under the immediate eye of government; and the Carolina bar was as pure as any in the United States. Since this establishment, lawyers have flocked in from all quarters, and fettled in different parts of the country, and law-fuits in confequence have been multiplied beyond all former knowledge.

DAMAGE BY THE LATE WAR.

The damages which this State sustained in the late war are thus eftimated: the three entire crops of 1779, 1780, and 1781, all of which were used by the British; the crop of 1782, taken by the Americans; about twenty-five thousand negroes; many thousand pounds worth of plate, and houshold furniture in abundance; the villages of George-town and Camden burnt; the lofs to the citizens directly by the plunderings and devaftations of the British army, and indirectly by American impreffiments, and by the depreciation of the paper currency, together with the heavy debt of one million, two hundred thousand pounds fterling, incurred for the fupport of the war, in one aggregate view, make the price of independence to South-Carolina, exclufive of the blood of its citizens, upwards of three million pounds fterling.

INDIAN S.

The Catabaws are the only nation of Indians in this State. They have but one town, called Catabaw, fituated on Catabaw river, in latitude 34° 49′, on the boundary line between North and South Carolinas, and contains about four hundred and fifty inhabitants, of which about one hundred and fifty are fighting men.

It is worthy of remark, that this nation was long at war with the fix nations, into whofe country they often penetrated, which it is faid no other Indian nation from the fouth or weft ever did. The fix nations always confidered them as the braveft of their enemies, till they were furrounded by the settlements of white people, whofe neighbourhood, with other concurrent caufes, have rendered them corrupt and enervated.

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STATE

STATE OF

GEORG I A.

SITUATION, EXTENT, AND BOUNDARIES.

THIS State is fituated between 31° and 35° north latitude and 5o

and 16° weft longitude: its length is fix hundred miles, and its breadth two hundred and fifty. It is bounded on the east, by the Atlantic ocean; on the fouth, by Eaft and West Florida; on the weft, by the river Miffiffippi; and on the north and north-eaft, by SouthCarolina, and the lands ceded to the United States by North-Carolina, or the Tenneffee government.

CLIMATE, &c.

In fome parts of this State, at particular seasons of the year, the climate cannot be esteemed falubrious. In the low country near the rice fwamps, bilious complaints, and fevers of various kinds, are pretty univerfal during the months of July, August and September, which, for this reafon, are called the fickly months.

The diforders peculiar to this climate originate partly from the badnefs of the water, which in the low country, except in and about Savannah, and fome other places, where good springs are found, is generally brackish, and partly from the noxious putrid vapours which are exhaled from the ftagnant waters in the rice fwamps. Befides, the long continuance of warm weather produces a general relaxation of the nervous fyftem, and as a great proportion of the inhabitants have no neceffary labour to call them to exercise, a large share of indolence is the natural confequence; and indolence, especially amongst a luxurious people, is ever the parent or difeafe. The immense quantities of fpirituous liquors which are used to correct the brackishnefs of the water, form a fpecies of intemperance which too often proves ruinous to the constitution. Parents of infirm, fickly habits, often, in more fenfes than one, have children of their own likeness.

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A confiderable part of the difeafes of the prefent inhabitants may, therefore, be confidered as hereditary.

Before the fickly feafon commences, many of the rich planters remove with their families to the fea islands, or fome elevated healthy fituation, where they refide three or four months for the benefit of the fresh air. In the winter and fpring, pleurifies, peripneumonies, and other inflammatory diforders, occafioned by fudden and violent colds, are generally common and frequently fatal. Confumptions, epilepfies, cancers, palfies and apoplexies, are not so common among the inhabitants of the fouthern as northern climates.

The winters in Georgia are very mild and pleasant. Snow is feldom or never seen. Vegetation is not frequently prevented by fevere frofts. Cattle fubfift well through the winter, without any other food than what they obtain in the woods and favannahs, and are fatter in that feafon than in any other. In the hilly country, which begins about fifty, and in fome places one hundred miles from the fea, the air is pure and falubrious, and the water plenty and good. From June to September, the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer commonly fluctuates from 76° to 90°; in winter, from 40° to 60°. The most prevailing winds are fouth-west and east; in winter, north-weft. The east wind is warmest in winter, and cooleft in fummer. The fouth wind, in the fummer and fall particularly, is damp, fultry, unelaftic, and, of courfe, unhealthy.

In the fouth-eaft parts of this State, which lie within a few degrees of the torrid zone, the atmosphere is kept in motion by impreffions from the trade winds. This ferves to purify the air, and render it fit for refpiration; fo that it is found to have a very advantageous effect on perfons of confumptive habits.

FACE OF THE COUNTRY.

The eastern part of the State, between the mountains and the ocean, and the rivers Savannah and St. Mary's, a tract of country, more than one hundred and twenty miles from north to fouth, and forty or fifty from east to west, is entirely level, without a hill op stone. At the distance of about forty or fifty miles from the feaboard, or falt-marfli, the lands begin to be more or less uneven. The ridges gradually rise one above another into hills, and the hills fucceffively increafing in height, till they finally terminate in mountains. That vaft chain of mountains which commences with the Katt's Kill, near Hudfon river, in the State of New-York, known

by

by the names of the Allegany and Appalachian mountains, terminate in this State, about fixty miles fouth of its northern boundary. From the foot of this mountain fpreads a wide-extended plain, of the richeft foil, and in a latitude and climate well adapted to the cultiva tion of most of the Eaft-India productions.

The rivers in this State are numerous, and fome of them of the utmost importance.

Savannah river divides this State from South-Carolina: its courfe is nearly from north-weft to fouth-eaft. It is formed principally of two branches, known by the names of Tugulo and Keowee, which fpring from the mountains, and unite fifteen miles north-weft of the northern boundary of Wilkes county. It is navigable for large veffels up to Savannah, and for boats of one hundred feet keel as far as Augufta. After rifing a fall just above this place, it is paffable for boats to the mouth of Tugulo river. After it takes the name of Savannah, at the confluence of the Tugulo and Keowee, it receives a number of tributary streams from the Georgia fide, the principal of which is Broad river, which rifes in the county of Franklin, and runs fouth-east through part of Wilkes county, and mingles with the Savannah at the town of Peterfburgh, and might, with a trifling expenfe, be made boatable twenty-five or thirty miles through the beft fettlements in Wilkes county. Tybee bar, at the entrance of Savannah river, in lat. 31° 57', has fixteen feet water at half tide.

Ogeechee river, about eighteen miles fouth of the Savannah, is a fmaller river, and nearly parallel with it in its course.

Alatamaha,* about fixty miles fouth of Savannah river, has its fource in the Cherokee mountains, near the head of the Tugulo, the great weft branch of Savannah, and, before it leaves the mountains, is joined and augmented by innumerable rivulets; thence it defcends through the hilly country, with all its collateral branches, and winds rapidly amongst hills two hundred and fifty miles, and then enters the flat, plain country, by the name of the Oakmulge; thence meandering one hundred and fifty miles, it is joined on the eaft fide by the Ocone, which likewife heads in the lower ridges of mountains. After this confluence, having now gained a vaft acquifition of waters, it affumes the name of Alatamaha, when it becomes a large majestic river, flowing with gentle windings through a yaft foreft, near one hundred miles, and enters the Atlantic by

Pronounced Gltamawhaw.

feveral

feveral mouths. The north channel; or entrance, glides by the heights of Darien, on the east bank, about ten miles above the bar, and, running from thence with feveral turnings, enters the ocean between Sapello and Wolf iflands. The fouth channel, which is efteemed the largest and deepest, after its feparation from the north, defcends gently, winding by M'Intofh's and Broughton iflands; and lastly, by the west coast of St. Simon's ifland, enters the ocean, through St. Simon's found, between the fouth end of the island of that name, and the north end of Jekyl island. On the weft banks of the fouth channel, ten or twelve miles above its mouth, and nearly oppofite Darien, are to be seen the remains of an ancient fort, or fortification; it is now a regular tetragon terrace, about four feet high, with bastions at each angle; the area may contain about an acre of ground, but the foffe which furrounded it is nearly filled up. There are large live oaks, pines and other trees, growing upon it, and in the old fields adjoining. It is fuppofed to have been the work of the French or Spaniards. A large fwamp lies betwixt it and the river, and a confiderable creek runs close by the works, and enters the river through the swamp, a small distance above Broughton ifland. About feventy or eighty miles above the confluence of the Oakmulge and Ocone, the trading path from Augufta to the Creek nation croffes these fine rivers, which are there forty miles apart. On the east banks of the Oakmulge, this trading road runs nearly two miles through ancient Indian fields, which are called the Oakmulge fields; they are the rich low lands of the river. On the heights of these low grounds are yet vifible monuments or traces of an ancient town, fuch as artificial mounts or terraces, fquares and banks, encircling confiderable areas. Their old fields and planting land extend up and down the river, fifteen or twenty miles from this fite. And, if we are to give credit to the account the Creeks give of themselves, this place is remarkable for being the firft town or fettlement, when they fat down, as they term it, or established themselves after their emigration from the weft, beyond the Miffiffippi, their original native country.

Befides these, there is Turtle river, Little Sitilla, or St. Ille, Great Sitilla, Crooked river, and St. Mary's, which form a part of the fouthern boundary of the United States. St. Mary's river has its fource from a vaft lake, or rather marfh, called Ouaquaphenogaw, and flows through a vaft plain and pine forest, about one hundred and fifty miles to the ocean, with which it communicates between VOL. III, the

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