LIFE OF WILSON. 
Ixxix 
the latter places I found numerous fragments of large bones lying scattered 
about. In pursuing a wounded duck across this quagmire, I had nearly depo- 
posited my carcass among the grand congregation of mammoths below, having 
sunk up to the middle, and had hard struggling to get out. As the proprietor 
intends to dig in various places this season fur brine, and is a gentleman of 
education and intelligence, I have strong hopes that a more complete skeleton 
of that animal called the mammoth, than has yet been found, will be procured. 
I laid the strongest injunctions on the manager to be on the lookout, and to 
preserve everything; I also left a letter for 3Ir. Colquhoun to the same pur- 
port, and am persuaded that these will not be neglected. In this neighbor- 
hood I found the Columbo plant in great abundance, and collected some of the 
seeds. ]\Iany of the old stalks were more than five feet high. I have since 
found it in various other parts of this country. 
" In the afternoon of the next day I returned to my boat, replaced my bag- 
gage, and rowed twenty miles to the Swiss settlement, where I spent the night. 
These hardy and industrious people have now twelve acres clusely and cleanly 
planted with vines from the Cape of Good Hope. They last year made seven 
hundred gallons of wine, and expect to make three times as much the ensuing 
season. Their houses are neat and comfortable, they have orchards of peach 
and apple trees, besides a great number of figs, cherries, and other fruit trees, 
of which they are veiy curious. They are of opinion that this part of the 
Indiana Territory is as well suited as any part of France to the cultivation of 
the vine, but tlie vines they say require diiferent management here from what 
they were accustomed to in Switzerland I purchased a bottle of their last 
vintage, and drank to all your healths as long as it lasted, in going down the 
river. Seven miles below this I passed the mouth of Kentucky river, which 
has a formidable appearance. I observed twenty or thirty scattered houses 
on its upper side, and a few below, many of the former seemingly in a state of 
decay. It rained on me almost the whole of this day, and I was obliged to 
row hard and drink healths to keep myself comfortable. ]\Iy birds' skins were 
wrapped up in my great coat, and my own skin had to sustain a complete drench- 
ing, which, however, had no bad eS'ects. 
" This evening I lodged at the most wretched hovel I had yet seen. The 
owner, a meagre diminutive wretch, soon began to let me know of how much 
consequence he had formerly been ; that he had gone through all the war with 
General Washington — had become one of his llfe-giianh, and had sent many a 
British soldier to his long home. As I answered him with indiff"erence, to inter- 
est me the more he began to detail anecdotes of his wonderful exploits; 'One 
grenadier,' said he, ' had the impudence to get up on the works, and to wave his 
cap in defiance; my commander (General Washington I suppose) says to me, 
' Dick, says he, can't you pepper that there fellow for me V says he. 'Please 
your honor,' says I, ' I'll try at it;' so I took a fair, cool and steady aim, and 
touched my trigger. Up went his heels like a turkey ! down he tumbled ! one 
buckshot had entered here and another here (laying a finger on each breast), 
and the bullet found the way to his brains right through his forehead. By God 
he was a noble-looking fellow !' 
Though I believed every word of this to be a lie, yet I could not but look 
