occasionally to be met with, which produces more quickly than the heavier
soil, but not so abundantly. I saw in my travels through these counties a
few persons who were ill of ague-fever, as it is here called. The
prevalence of this disease is not to be attributed to a general
unhealthiness of the climate, but can at all times be referred to
localities.

I next entered Crawford county, and crossed the Wyandot prairie, about
seven miles in length, to Upper Sandusky. This was the first of those
extensive meadows I had seen, and I was much pleased with its
appearance--although this prairie is comparatively but small, yet its
beauty cannot be surpassed; and the groves, and clusters of trees, _iles
de bois_, with which it is interspersed, make it much resemble a beautiful
domain.

Attached to the Wyandot reserve (nine miles by sixteen) is that of the
Delawares (three miles square). On reaching Little Sandusky--Kahama's
curse on the town baptizers of America!--there are often five or six
places named alike in one state: upper and lower, little and big, great
and small--and invariably the same names that are given to towns in one
State, are to be found in every other. Then their vile plagiarisms of
European names causes a Babelonish confusion of ideas, enough to disturb
the equanimity of a "grisly saint;" and, with all humility, I disclaim
having any pretensions to that character. I have frequently heard a
long-legged, sallow-looking backwoodsman talk of having come lately from
Paris, or Mecca, when instead of meaning the capital of _La grande
nation_, or the city of "the holy prophet," he spoke of some town
containing a few hundred inhabitants, situated in the backwoods of
Kentucky, or amidst the gloomy forests of Indiana. The Americans too speak
in prospective, when they talk of great places; no doubt "calculating"