Ixxxviii 
LIFE OF AVILSON. 
wheat I had ever before met with. But one great disadvantage is the want 
of water, for the whole running streams, with which the surface of this coun- 
try evidently once abounded, have been drained off to a great depth, and now 
murmur among these lower regions, secluded from the day. One forenoon I 
rode nineteen miles without seeing water; while my faithful horse looked 
round, but in vain, at every hollow, with a wishful and languishing eye, for 
that precious element. These barrens furnished me with excellent sport in 
shooting grouse, which abound here in great numbers ; and in the delightful 
groves that here and there rise majestically from these plains, I found many 
new subjects for my Ornithology. I observed all this day, far to the right, a 
range of high rocky detached hills, or knobs, as they are called, that skirt the 
barrens, as if they had been once the boundaries of the great lake that for- 
merly covered this vast plain. These, I was told, abound with stone coal and 
copperas. I crossed Big Barren river in a ferry boat, where it was about one 
hundred yards wide; and passed a small village called Bowling Green, near 
which I rode my horse up to the summit of one of these high insulated rocky 
hills, or knobs, which overlooked an immense circumference of country, 
spreading around bare'and leafless, except where the groves appeared, in which 
there is visually water. 
" Fifteen miles from this, induced by the novel character of the country, I 
put up for several days, at the house of a pious and worthy Presbyterian, 
whence I made excursions, in all directions, through the surrounding country. 
Between this and Red river the country had a bare and desolate appearance. 
Caves continued to be numerous; and report made some of them places of 
concealment for the dead bodies of certain strangers, who had disappeared 
there. One of these lies near the banks of the Bed river, and belongs to a 
person of the name of • — , a man of notoriously bad character, and 
strongly suspected, even by his neighbors, of having committed a foul murder 
of this kind, which was related to me with all its minutias of horrors. As this 
man's house stands by the road side, I was induced, by motives of curiosity, 
to stop and take a peep of him. On my arrival I found two persons in con- 
versation under the piazza, one of whom informed me that he was the land- 
lord. He was a dark mulatto, rather above the common size, inclining to cor- 
pulency, with legs small in proportion to his size, and walked lame. His 
countenance bespoke a soul capable of deeds of darkness. I had not been 
three minutes in company when he invited the other man (who I understood 
was a traveller), and myself, to walk back and see his cave, to which I imme- 
diately consented. The entrance is in the perpendicular front of a rock, 
behind the house ; has a door with a lock and key to it, and was crowded with 
pots of milk, placed near the running stream. The roof and sides of solid 
rock were wet and dropping with water. Desiring to walk before 
with the lights, I followed with my hand on my pistol, reconnoitering on every 
side, and listening to his description of its length and extent. After examin- 
ing this horrible vault for forty or fifty yards, he declined going any further, 
complaining of a rheumatism; and I now first perceived that the other person 
had stayed behind, and that we two were alone together. Confident in my 
means of self-defence^ whatever mischief the devil might suggest to him, I 
