LIFE OF WILSON. cxix 



pigs are universally fat, owing to the great quantity of mast 

 this year. Walking here in wet weather is most execrable, 

 and is like travelling on soft soap ; a few days of warm weather 

 hardens this again almost into stone. Want of bridges is the 

 greatest inconvenience to a foot traveller here. Between Shel- 

 byville and Frankfort, having gone out of my way to see a 

 pigeon roost, (which by the by is the greatest curiosity I have 

 seen since leaving home) I waded a deep creek called Benson, 

 nine or ten times. I spent several days in Frankfort, and in 

 rambling among the stupendous cliffs of Kentucky river. On 

 Thursday evening I entered Lexington. But I cannot do 

 justice to these subjects at the conclusion of a letter, which, in 

 spite of all my abridgments, has far exceeded in length what I 

 first intended. My next will be from Nashville. I shall then 

 have seen a large range of Kentucky, and be more able to give 

 you a correct delineation of the country and its inhabitants. In 

 descending the Ohio, I amused myself with a poetical narrative 

 of my expedition, which I have called " The Pilgrim," an 

 extract from which shall close this long and I am afraid tire- 

 some letter." 



TO MR. ALEXANDER LAWSON. 



Nashville, Tennessee, April 28th, 1810. 

 " My dear Sir, 



" Before setting out on my journey through the wilderness 

 to Natchez, I sit down to give you, according to promise, some 

 account of Lexington, and of my adventures through the state 

 of Kentucky. These I shall be obliged to sketch as rapidly as 

 possible. Neither my time nor my situation enables me to de- 

 tail particulars with any degree of regularity; and you must 

 condescend to receive them in the same random manner in 

 which they occur, altogether destitute of fanciful embellish- 

 ment; with nothing but their novelty, and the simplicity of 

 truth, to recommend them. 



" I saw nothing of Lexington till I had approached within 

 half a mile of the place, when the woods opening, I beheld the 



