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way.  This is so well understood, that the inhabitants are generally their own physicians, & in this they succeed well.
But before proceeding further I will be a little more personal.  After making up my mind, not to settle at Rock Spring, I pretty much determined that I should settle somewhere in the northern part of the state.  And in travelling up the Illinois River through the counties of Green, Morgan, Sangamo, & Tazwell, I was much pleased with the country.  And I understood that in the direction of the Illinois River even to Michigan Lake, & that a considerable proportion of the large country between the Illinois & Missisippi Rivers, is remarkably fine.  I am however for the present settled in Kaskaskia, on account of a favorable offer of a school $550 for myself & Sophia 44 weeks.  The school is select & very pleasant & affords the best opportunity for the education of my younger children.  I have no lamentation that I removed to this state.  Were I back in New England, with my present knowledge of this country, my first object would be to remove yet it is not a paradise.
Monied capitital is greatly wanted, & can in various ways be employed to advantage.  Of this the rate of interest is a sufficient proof, which upon an average, I think is not less than 10 percent in the south part of the state, & from 10 to 25, & sometimes even 50 per cent in the North part of it.  Agricultural labor here is nominally somewhat lower than in the East, but perhaps really higher, as people do not labor nearly so hard as there.  Mechanical labor of almost all kinds is decidedly higher.  The morals of the countrey are not so unfavorable as I expected.  There is indeed a pretty strong tincture of the back woods character, open hearted free expressions of feeling.  This is manifest in religious meetings in which there is more noise than with you.  And it is as I understand, not from much that I have seen, on public occasions when whiskey gets into the head, noise, & among a small class of people quarrels.  Yet I see not but a sober strait forward man is as safe from violence & insults as in the East.  The electioneering spirit, as in all the southern states, is carried, as it seems to an Eastern man to a great extent.  Constant & excessive drinking, I think, does not prevail more in this state than in the East, probably not so much.  There is I am confident less drunked in private, but perhaps more in social [[?]], on public occasions.  There many drink freely, who drink almost no spirit in the interval between such occasions.
Religion is not in so favorable a state as in the East; neither is it so far behind as is sometimes represented.  The Methodists are the most numerous, next the Baptists then the Presbyterians.  Schools are low, as they always must be in a new countrey.  But they are rising, & it is a general opinion that the state of society is improving.  Water power is scarse from this point 150 miles North.  No streams afford a constant & even supply of water for turning which as a general characteristic in the dry season they are too small, & in very high water flood the wheel.  But few mills will run well more than nine months in a year.  But further north water powerer is said to be good.  Ox power & streams are much depended on for milling.  This you will understand is much more expensive then the New England streams.