In the Current of the Revolution 315 



of Transylvania, addressed them, much as a crown 

 governor would have done. The portion of his ad- 

 dress dealing with the destruction of game is worth 

 noting. Buffalo, elk, and deer had abounded im- 

 mediately round Boonesborough when the settlers 

 first arrived, but the slaughter had been so great 

 that even after the first six weeks the hunters began 

 to find some difficulty in getting anything without 

 going off some fifteen or twenty miles. However, 

 stray buffaloes were still killed near the fort once or 

 twice a week. 21 Calk in his journal quoted above, 

 in the midst of entries about his domestic work 

 such as, on April 29th, "we git our house kivered 

 with bark and move our things into it at Night and 

 Begin housekeeping," and on May 2d, "went and 

 sot in to cleaning for corn," mentions occasionally 

 killing deer and turkey ; and once, while looking for 

 a strayed mare, he saw four "bofelos." He wound- 

 ed one, but failed to get it, with the luck that gen- 

 erally attended backwoods hunters when they for 

 the first time tried their small-bore rifles against 

 these huge, shaggy-maned wild cattle. 



As Henderson pointed out, the game was the sole 

 dependence of the first settlers, who, most of the 

 time, lived solely on wild meat, even the parched 

 corn having been exhausted; and without game the 

 new-comers could not have stayed in the land a 

 week. 22 Accordingly he advised the enactment of 



81 Henderson's Journal. 



22 "Our game, the only support of life among many of us, 

 and without which the country would be abandoned ere to- 

 morrow." Henderson's address. 



