xc LIFE OP WILSON. 



ney, and detain me at least a month ; and the season being already far ad- 

 vanced, and no subscribers to be expected there, I abandoned the idea, and 

 prepared for a journey through the wilderness. I was advised by many not 

 to attempt it alone ; that the Indians were dangerous, the swamps and rivers 

 almost impassable without assistance, and a thousand other hobgoblins were 

 conjured up to dissuade me from going alone. But I weighed all these mat- 

 ters in my own mind ; and attributing a great deal of this to vulgar fears and 

 exaggerated reports, I equipped myself for the attempt. I rode an excellent 

 horse, on which I could depend ; I had a loaded pistol in each pocket, a loaded 

 fowling piece belted across my shoulder,- a pound of gunpowder in my flask, 

 and five pounds of shot in Tny belt. I bought some biscuit and dried beef, and 

 on Friday morning. May 4th, I left Nashville. 'About half a mile from town 

 I observed a poor negro with two wooden legs, building himself a cabin in the 

 woods. Supposing that this journey might afford you and my friends some 

 amusement, I kept a particular account of the various occurrences, and shall 

 transcribe some of the most interesting, omitting everything relative to my 

 Ornithological excursions and discoveries, as more suitable for another 

 occasion. 



" Eleven miles from Nashville, I came to the Great Harpath, a stream of 

 about fifty yards wide, which was running with great violence. I could not 

 discover the entrance of the ford, owing to the rains and inundations. There 

 was no time to be lost, I plunged in, and almost immediately my horse was 

 swimming. I set his head aslant the current, and being strong, he soon landed 

 me on the other side. As the weather was warm, I rode in my wet clothes with- 

 out any inconvenience. The country to-day was a perpetual succession of steep 

 hills and low bottoms ; I crossed ten or twelve large creeks, one of which I swam 

 with my horse, where he was near being entangled among some bad driftwood. 

 Now and then a solitary farm opened from the woods, where the negro children 

 were running naked about the yards. I also passed along the north side of a 

 high hill, where the whole timber had been prostrated by some terrible hurri- 

 cane. I lodged this night in a miner's, who told me he had been engaged in 

 forming no less than thirteen companies for hunting mines, all of whom had 

 left him. I advised him to follow his farm, as the surest vein of ore he could 

 work. 



" Next day (Saturday) I first observed the cane growing, which increased 

 until the whole woods were full of it. The road this day winded along the 

 high ridges of mountains that divide the waters of the Cumberland from those 

 of the Tennessee. I passed few houses to-day ; but met several parties of boat- 

 men returning from Natchez and New Orleans ; who gave me such an account 

 of the road, and the difficulties they had met with, as served to stiffen my 

 resolution to be prepared for everything. These men were as dirty as Hotten- 

 tots ; their dress a shirt and trowsers of canvas, black, greasy, and sometimes 

 in tatters ; the skin burnt wherever exposed to the sun ; each with a budget, 

 wrapped up in an old blanket ; their beards, eighteen days old, added to the 

 singularity of their appearance, which was altogether savage. These people 

 came from the various tributary streams of the Ohio, hired at forty or fifty 

 dollars a trip, to return back on their own expenses. Some had upwards of 



