n-'i. 



206 



AUDUBON 



season, amply supplied with game. A Wild Turkey, a 

 Grouse, or a Blue-winged Teal, could be procured in a 

 few moments ; and we fared well, for, whenever we pleased 

 we landed, struck up a fire, and provided as we were with 

 the necessary utensils, procured a good repast. 



Several of these happy days passed, and we neared our 

 home, when, one evening, not far from Pigeon Creek (a 

 small stream which runs into the Ohio from the State of 

 Indiana), a loud and strange noise was heard, so like the 

 yells of Indian warfare, that we pulled at our oars, and 

 made for the opposite side as fast and as quietly a pos- 

 sible. The sounds increased, we imagined we heard cries 

 of "murder; " and as we knew that some depredations had 

 lately been committed in the country by dissatisfied par- 

 ties of aborigines, we felt for a while extremely uncom- 

 fortable. Ere long, however, our minds became more 

 calmed, and we plainly discovered that the singular up- 

 roar was produced by an enthusiastic set of Methodists, 

 who had wandered thus far out of the common way for 

 the purpose of holding one of their annual camp-meetings, 

 under the shade of a beech forest. Without meeting with 

 any other interruption, we reached Henderson, distant 

 from Shippingport, by water, about two hundred miles. 



When I think of these times,* and call back to my 

 mind the grandeur and beauty of those almost uninhab- 

 ited shores ; when I picture to myself the dense and lofty 

 summits of the forests, that everywhere spread along the 

 hills and overhung the margins of the stream, unmo- 

 lested by the axe of the settler ; when I know how dearly 

 purchased the safe navigation of that river has been, by 

 the blood of many worthy Virginians ; when I see that no 

 longer any aborigines are to be found there, and that the 

 vast herds of Elk, Deer, and Buffaloes which once pas- 

 tured on these hills, and in these valleys, making for them- 

 selves great roads to the several salt-springs, have ceased 



1 This was in 1810 or 1811. 



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