114 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 



extracts from the journal of John Donelson, respecting a voyage made hy 

 him from Fort Patrick Henry, on the Holston River to the French Salt 

 Springs on the Cumberland Kiver, in December, 1780. Donelson says that 

 In- ■ procured some buffalo meat on the Cumberland, near its mouth." and 

 two days further up this river, he says," We killed some more buffalo." The 

 next day, he writes: ; 'We are now without bread, and are compelled to hunt 

 the buffalo to preserve life."* Subsequently, in speaking of the salt or sul- 

 phur springs on the Cumberland, apparently near the present site of Nash- 

 ville, we find the following passages: "The open space around and near the 

 sulphur or salt springs, instead of being an 'old field,' as had been supposed 

 by Mr. Mauskcr, at his visit here in 1769, was thus freed from trees and 

 underbrush by the innumerable herds of buffalo and deer and elk that came 



to these waters Trails, or buffalo paths, were deeply worn in the 



earth from this to other springs All the rich lands were covered with 



cane-brakes; through these there were paths made by the buffalo and other 

 wild animals. " t 



Ramsey states that in 1700 anil 177<» an exploring party of ten persons 

 passed up the Cumberland, and that " where Nashville now stands they dis- 

 covered the French Lick, and found around it immense numbers of buffalo 

 and other wild game. The country was crowded with them. Their bellow- 

 inga sounded from the hills and forest." X According to the same authority, 

 the buffalo was at one time also numerous in the valleys of Last Tennessee. 

 lb- states that in L764 Daniel Boone hit his home on the Yadkin to explore, 

 in company with others, the then unknown country to the westward. "Cal- 

 laway," says Ramsey, "was at the side of Boone when, approaching the spurs 

 of the Cumberland .Mountain, ami in view of the vasf herds of buffalo grazing 



in the valleys between them, he exclaimed : ' 1 am richer than the man men- 

 tioned in Scripture, who owned the cattle on a thousand hills, — I own the 

 wild beasts of more than a thousand valleys!"^ Whether or not the buffalo 

 ranged formerly to the Tennessee River, I have been unable to determine, 



although, as already noticed, there is pretty g 1 evidence thai it did not 



extend beyond this boundary. The existence of a stream named Buffalo 

 River, near the Great Bend of the Tennessee, seems to render it probable 

 that it extended nearly or quite to the Tennessee itself. Gallatin gives the 



• Putnam*! Middle Tonne , pp. 74, 76. 



t Il.i'l., p Bl. 



\rin.il- ..i I. nil. to ill. End ..i the Eighteenth Century, ri. .. p. 105. 



