* 
xc LIFE OF AVILSON. 
ney, and detain me at least a month ; and the season being already far ad- 
vanced, and no subscribers to be exi^ected there, I abandoned the idea, and 
prejiared 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 liobgublins were 
conjured up to dissuade me from going nhne. 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 my 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 sonjc 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 weatlier 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 Cumberlaud 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 
