THOMAS] THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 655 



section. As all the fiicts are easily explained upon the very natural 

 and reasonable supposition that the Indians were the authors of these 

 ^Yorks, it is incumbent upon those who hold a different theory to give 

 a satisfactory explanation thereof in accordance with such theory. 



At another point he found the ground covered with small tumuli, 

 which marked the burial places " of the Yamassees who were here slain 

 by the Creeks in the last decisive battle, the Creeks having driven them 

 into this point between the doubling of the river, where few of them 

 escaped the fury of the concjuerors. These graves occupied the whole 

 grove, consisting of 2 or 3 acres of ground ; there were near thirty of 

 these cemeteries of the dead, nearly of an equal size and form ; they 

 were oblong, 20 feet in length, 10 or 12 feet in width and 3 or 4 feet 

 high, now overgrown with orange trees, live oaks, laurel magnolias, red 

 bays, and other trees and shrubs." ' 



In the midst of his poetical description of the Cherokee country about 

 the sources of the Tennessee river, be pauses to record the following 

 observation (the italics arc ours) : 



On these towering hills ai)i)eare(l the ruius of the auoieut famous town of Sticoe. 

 Here was a vast Indian mount or tnmnlns and great terrace w/i which stood the cnuncit 

 house, with banks encompassing their circus; here were also olil ])each and jdum 

 orchards.^ 



The council house of the Cherokees at Cowe he describes as a "large 

 rotunda, cajiable of accommodating several hundred people; it stands 

 on the top of an ancient artificial mount of earth, of about twenty feet 

 perpendicular, and the rotunda on the top of it being above thirty feet 

 more gives the whole fabric an elevation of about sixty feet from the com- 

 mon surface of the ground. But it may be proper to observe that this 

 mount on which the rotunda stands is of a much ancienter date than 

 the building, and perhaps was raised for another purpose. The Chero- 

 kees themselves are as ignorant as we are by what people or for what 

 purpose these artificial hills were raised." "' 



He describes the ancient town of Apalachucla as follows: 



It had l)een situated on a peninsula formed by a doubling of the river, and indeed 

 appears to have been a very famous capital l)y the artificial mounds or terraces, and 

 a very populous settlement from its extent and expansive old fields stretching beyond 

 the scope of the sight along the low grounds of the river. We viewed the mounds or 

 terraces on which formerly stoo<l their town house or rotunda and square or areo|pa- 

 gus, and a little back of this on a level height or natural step .above the low grounds, 

 is a vast artificial terrace or four square mound, now seven or eight feet higher than 

 the common surface of the ground; in front of one square or side of this mound 

 adjoins a very extensive oblong square yard or artificial level plain, sunk a little 

 below the common surface, and surrounded with a bank or narrow terrace formed 

 with the earth thrown out of this yard at the time of its formation.^ 



In the following quotation he states expressly that the Choctaws 

 were in the habit of raising mounds over their communal graves : 



As soon as a person is dead they erect a scaftold eighteen or twenty feet high, in 

 a grove adjacent to the town, where they lay the corpse, lightly covered with a 



' P. 139. 2 P. 345. ' P. 367. « P. 390. 



