About ten miles beyond _Green River_ commence what are called the _Barrens_, or _Kentucky Meadows_. On the first day of his journey over them, M. Michaux travelled fifteen miles; and, on the ensuing morning, having wandered to some distance out of the road, in search of a spring, at which to water his horse, he discovered a plantation in a low and narrow valley. The mistress of the house told him that she had resided there upwards of three years, and that, for eighteen months, she had not seen any individual except of her own family: that, weary of living thus isolated, her husband had been more than two months from home in quest of another spot, towards the mouth of the Ohio. A daughter, about fourteen years of age, and two children, considerably younger, were all the company she had: her house was abundantly stocked with vegetables and corn. This part of the Barrens was precisely similar to that which M. Michaux had traversed the day before; and the same kind of country extends as far as the line which separates the state of Tenessee from that of Kentucky. Here, to the great satisfaction of M. Michaux, he once more entered the woods. Nothing, he says, can be more tiresome than the doleful uniformity of these immense meadows, where there is no human creature to be met with; and where, except a great number of partridges, no species of living beings are to be seen. The Barrens comprise a portion of country from sixty to seventy miles in length, by sixty miles in breadth. According to the signification of the name, M. Michaux had imagined that he should have to cross a naked space, scattered here and there with a few plants; but he was agreeably surprised to find a beautiful meadow, where the grass was from two to three feet high. He here discovered a great variety of interesting plants. In some parts he observed several species of wild vines, and, in particular, one which is called by the inhabitants "summer grapes:" the bunches of fruit were as large, and the grapes as good in quality, as those in the vineyards round Paris. And it appeared to M. Michaux that the attempts which had been made in Kentucky, to establish the culture of the vine, would have been more successful in the Barrens, the soil of which appeared to him better adapted for this kind of culture, than that on the banks of the Kentucky. The Barrens are very thinly populated; for, on the road where the plantations are closest together, M. Michaux counted but eighteen in a space of sixty or seventy miles. _Nasheville_, the principal and the oldest town in this part of Tenessee, is situated on the _river Cumberland_, the borders of which are here formed by a mass of chalky stone, upwards of sixty feet in height. Except seven or eight houses, built of brick, the rest, to the number of about a hundred and twenty, were constructed of wood, and were distributed over a surface of twenty-five or thirty acres, where the rock appeared almost naked in every part.