They built where the land
rose into a ridge of moderate and gradual elevation, commanding a long
reach of prospect; where a good spring threw out its crystal waters,
jetting, in winter and summer alike, from the hillside or the rock; or,
in its absence, where a fair branch, trickling over a bed of small and
yellow pebbles, kept up a perpetually clear and undiminishing current;
where the groves were thick and umbrageous; and lastly, but not less
important than either, where agues and fevers came not, bringing clouds
over the warm sunshine, and taking all the hue, and beauty, and odor
from the flower. Those considerations were at all times the most
important to the settler when the place of his abode was to be
determined upon; and, with these advantages at large, the company of
squatters, of whom Mark Forrester, made one, by no means the least
important among them, had regularly, for the purposes of gold-digging,
colonized the little precinct into which we have now ventured to
penetrate.
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