160 GAME ON THE OHIO 150 YEARS AGO, 



hedge them in like a wall on either side; and as an 

 instance of the luxuriant wealth and bounty which 

 Nature used sometimes to exhibit, in the early colonial 

 days, before the wondering eyes of travellers, as they 

 floated along the stream of some of the great rivers 

 which flowed through the American forest, we may just 

 quote a description given by the explorer Gist, of his 

 journey along the valley of the Ohio in 1751 : 



" The land beyond the Scioto, except the first twenty 

 miles, is rich and level bearing walnut trees of huge size, 

 the maple, the wild cherry, and the ash; full of little streams 

 and rivulets; variegated by beautiful natural prairies, covered 

 with wild rye, blue grass, and white clover. Turkeys abounded, 

 and deer and elks, and most sorts of game ; of buifalbs thirty 

 or forty were frequently seen feeding in one meadow." * 



It is clear from the park-like character of this coun- 

 try, and from the fact that buffalos included it within 

 their feeding grounds, that the explorer was then probably 

 approaching the limits of the forest region at that point ; 

 and although there is no such sportsman's paradise to 

 be met with in America nowadays, there are still to 

 be found many equally perfect scenes of placid beauty, 

 fresh from Nature's hand, where the lover of the angle 

 may find ample occupation for the exercise of his skill, 

 and be rewarded by sport of exceptional excellence. 

 Also perhaps, it may be as well to mention, that the 

 above passage extracted from Gist's Journal, f is im- 

 portant, as disproving the allegation sometimes made, 

 that the range of the buffalo never passed far, if at 

 all, to the eastward of the Mississippi river. 



The numerous tribes of forest Indians who at that 



* History of the United States, by Geo. Bancroft, i8th edition, 

 Boston, 1862, vol. iv, ch. iii , p. 78, "The Exploration of Ohio." 



y Gist's Journal in Pownall's Appendix, p. ii. (Quoted by Bancroft). 



