266 Expedition to the 



A little before sunset we arrived at a settlement on the 

 stream called Short Mountain Bayou. The little cabin we 

 found occupied by two soldiers belonging to the garrison, 

 who were on their return from the settlement, at Cadron, 

 whither they had been sent with letters, on our arrival at 

 Fort Smith, Cadron being the nearest post town. We had 

 expected letters from our friends, by the return of the ex- 

 press, but Were disappointed. 



The soldiers informed us that the house, in which they had 

 quartered themselves for the night, had been for a week 

 or two deserted, since its proprietor had died, and his wife, 

 who was sick, had been removed to the nearest settlement. 

 The place is called the Short Mountain Settlement, from a 

 high ridge of sandstone, a little to the northwest, rising in 

 the form of a parallelogram to an elevation, according to our 

 estimate, of about twelve hundred feet; its sides are abrupt, 

 and in many places, particularly towards the summit, perpen- 

 dicular. The summit is broad and nearly tabular, being 

 covered with small trees, among which the red cedar, or 

 some other evergreen tree predominates. 



The plantation is somewhat elevated on a rocky eminence, 

 at a little distance from the creek, but it is surrounded on 

 all sides, save one, by the heavily wooded low grounds, in 

 which we are to look for the causes whose operation have 

 made it so soon desolate. Short Mountain Bayou, if we 

 may judge from the depth and width of its channel, and the 

 extent of its low grounds, is a large stream, or rather one 

 which drains an extensive surface, but at this time it exhi- 

 bited a succession of green and stagnant pools, connected by 

 a little brook, almost without any perceptible current. On 

 the surface of these pools, we saw the floating leaves of the 

 nymphsea, kalmiana, some utricularias, and other aquatic 

 plants. 



23d. After leaving the wide and fertile bottoms of the 

 Short Mountain Bayou, our path lay across high and 



