LIFE OF WILSON. Ixxvii 



ing to this hunter's own confession he had lost sixty pigs since Christmas last; 

 and all night long the distant howling of the wolves kept the dogs in a per- 

 petual uproar of barking. This man was one of those people called squatters, who 

 neither pay rent nor own land, but keep roving on the frontiers, advancing as 

 the tide of civilized population approaches. They are the immediate succes- 

 sors of the savages, and far below them in good sense and good manners, as 

 well as comfortable accommodations. An engraved representation of one of 

 their cabins would form a striking embellishment to the pages of the Port 

 Folio, as a specimen of the Jirst order of American Architecture. 



'' Nothing adds more to the savage grandeur, and picturesque effect, of the 

 scenery along the Ohio, than these miserable huts of human beings, lurking at 

 the bottom of a gigantic growth of timber, that I have not seen equalled in 

 any other part of the United States. And it is truly amusing to observe how 

 dear and how familiar habit has rendered those privations, which must have 

 been first the offspring of necessity. Yet none pride themselves more on their 

 possessions. The inhabitants of these forlorn sheds will talk to you with pride 

 of the richness of their soil, of the excellence and abundance of their country, 

 of the healthiness of their climate, and the purity of their waters ; while the 

 only bread you find among them is of Indian corn, coarsely ground in a horse- 

 mill, with half of the grains unbroken ; even their cattle are destitute of sta- 

 bles and hay, and look like moving skeletons ; their own houses worse than 

 pig-sties ; their clothes an assemblage of rags ; their faces yellow, and lank 

 with disease ; and their persons covered with filth, and frequently garnished 

 with the humors of the Scotch fiddle; from which dreadful disease, by the 

 mercy of Grod, I have been most miraculously preserved. All this is the 

 effect of laziness. The corn is thrown into the ground in the spring, and the 

 pigs turned into the woods, where they multiply like rabbits. The labor of 

 the squatter is now over till autumn, and he spends the winter in eating pork, 

 cabbage and hoe-cakes. What a contrast to the neat farm, and snug, cleanly 

 habitation, of the industrious settler, that opens hia green fields, his stately 

 barns, gardens and orchards, to the gladdened eye of the delighted stranger ! 



" At a place called Salt Lick, I went ashore to see the salt works, and to 

 learn whether the people had found any further remains of an animal of the 

 ox kind, one of whose horns, of a prodigious size, was discovered here some 

 years ago, and is in the possession of Mr. Peale. They make here about one 

 thousand bushels weekly, which sells at one dollar and seventy-five cents per 

 bushel. The wells are from thirty to fifty feet deep, but nothing curious has 

 lately been dug up. I landed at Maysville, or Limestone, where a considerable 

 deal of business is done in importation for the interior of Kentucky. It stands 

 on a high narrow plain between the mountains and the river, which is fist 

 devouring the bank, and encroaching on the town ; part of the front street is 

 gone already, and unless some effectual means are soon taken, the whole must 

 go by piecemeal. This town contains about one hundred houses, chiefly log 

 and frames. From this place I set out on foot for Washington. On the road, 

 at the height of several hundred feet above the present surface of the river, 

 I found prodigious quantities of petrified shells, of the small cockle and fan- 

 shaped kind, but whether marine remains or not am uncertain. I have since 



