KENTUCKY SPORTS. 291 



and reposing at night on the bare ground. Numberless streams they 

 had to cross on rafts, with their wives and children, their cattle and their 

 luggage, often drifting to considerable distances before they could effect 

 a landing on the opposite shores. Their cattle would often stray amid 

 the rice pasturage of these shores, and occasion a delay of several days. 

 To these troubles add the constantly impending danger of being mur- 

 dered, while asleep in their encampments, by the prowling and ruthless 

 Indians ; while they had before them a distance of hundreds of miles to 

 be traversed, before they could reach certain places of rendezvous called 

 Stations. To encounter difficulties Like these must have required ener- 

 gies of no ordinary kind ; and the reward which these veteran settlers 

 enjoy was doubtless well merited. 



Some removed from the Atlantic shores to those of the Ohio in more 

 comfort and security. They had their waggons, their Negroes, and their 

 families. Their way was cut through the woods by their own axemen, 

 the day before their advance, and when night overtook them, the hunters 

 attached to the party came to the place pitched upon for encamping, 

 loaded with the dainties of which the forest yielded an abundant supply, 

 the blazing light of a huge fire guiding their steps as they approached, 

 and the sounds of merriment that saluted their ears assuring them that all 

 was well. The flesh of the buffalo, the bear, and the deer, soon hung in 

 large and delicious steaks, in front of the embers ; the cakes already pre- 

 pared were deposited in their proper places, and under the rich drippings 

 of the juicy roasts, were quickly baked. The waggons contained the 

 bedding, and whilst the horses which had drawn them were turned loose 

 to feed on the luxuriant undergrowth of the woods, some perhaps hop- 

 pled, but the greater number, merely with a hght bell hung to their 

 neck, to guide their owners in the morning to the spot where they might 

 have rambled; the party were enjoying themselves after the fatigues of 

 the day. 



In anticipation all is pleasure ; and these migrating bands feasted in 

 joyous sociality, unapprehensive of any greater difficulties than those to 

 be encountered in forcing their way through the pathless woods to the 

 land of abundance ; and although it took months to accomplish the jour- 

 ney, and a skirmish now and then took place between them and the In- 

 dians, who sometimes crept unperceived into their very camp, still did 

 the Virginians cheerfully proceed towards the western horizon, until the 



various groups all reached the Ohio, when, struck with the beauty of that 



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