ALEXANDER WILSON. 
Ixvii 
ord you and my friends some amusement, I kept a 
particular account of the various occurrences, and shall 
transcribe some of the most interesting, omitting every 
relative to my ornithological excursions and disco- 
''enes, as more suitable for another occasion. Eleven 
es from Nashville I came to the Great Harpath, a 
stream of about fifty yards wide, which was running with 
|Teat violence. I could not discover the entrance of the 
j owing to the rains and inundations. There was 
^ time to he lost ; I plunged in, and almost imme- 
my horse was swimming. I set his head aslant 
the 
'Current, and, being strong, he soon landed me on the 
Q*.r ^ ' s ..... .... 
^1' side. As the weather was warm, I rode in my wet 
tnes without any ineonvenienee. The country to-day 
'^as a perpetual succession of steep hilhs and low bottoms ; 
grossed ten or twelve large creeks, one of which I swam 
"'■th my hor.se, where he was near being entangled among 
bad drift wood. Now and then a solitary farm 
h 'ned from the woods, where the negro ehildren were 
"ng naked about the yards. I also passed along the 
h side of a high hill, where the whole timber had been 
in ^*^*1^*^'* some terrible hurricane. I lodged this night 
Jio^ "'ho told me he had been engaged in forming 
'vho^** thirteen companies for hunting mines, all of 
om had left him. I advised him to follow hi.s farm, as 
da '’oiii of ore he could work. Next day ( Satnr- 
u Vi ob.scrved the cane growing, which increased 
w”' \ " hole woods were full of it. The road this day 
oided along the high ridges of mountains that divide the 
j of the Cumberland from those of the Tennesee. 
^ passed few houses to-day ; hut met several parties of 
batmen returning from Natchez and New Orleans, who 
gave 
th' 
such an account of the road, and the difllcnlties 
he^^ l>ad met with, as served to stiffen my resolution to 
^ Prepared for every thing. These men were as dirty 
“ tentots ; their dress, a shirt and trousers of canvass, 
