This
delay enabled Ensminger to recruit his crew, and during the three
following days we ascended respectively six, seven, and ten miles, which
brought us to the commencement of Bois-brule bottom. This is a fertile,
and was then a comparatively populous, settlement. We ascended along it
about seven miles, the next day seven more, and the next eleven, which
completed the ascent to the antique town of St. Genevieve. About three
hundred houses were here clustered together, which, with their
inhabitants, had the looks which we may fancy to belong to the times of
Louis XIV. of France. It was the chief mart of the lead mines, situated
in the interior. I observed heavy stacks of pig lead piled up about the
warehouses. We remained here the next day, which was the 20th of July,
and then went forward twelve miles, the next day thirteen, and the next
five, which brought us, at noon, to the town of Herculaneum, containing
some thirty or forty buildings, excluding three picturesque-looking shot
towers on the top of the rocky cliffs of the river.
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