LIFE OF WILSON. 
cxxiii 
and well cultivated, peach and apple orchards numerous, and a 
considerable appearance of industry. One half of the original 
French settlers have removed to a tract of land opposite to the 
mouth of Sandy river. This town has one shop and two taverns ; 
the mountains press in to within a short distance of the town. I 
found here another Indian mound planted with peach trees. On 
Monday, March 5th, about ten miles below the mouth of the great 
Sciota, where I saw the first flock of paroquets, I encountered a vio- 
lent storm of wind and rain, which changed to hail and snow, 
blowing down trees and limbs in all directions, so that for imme- 
diate preservation I was obliged to steer out into the river, which' 
rolled and foamed like a sea, and filled my boat nearly half full 
of water, and it was with the greatest difl&culty I could make the 
least headway. It continued to snow violently until dusk, when I 
at length made good my landing at a place on the Kentucky shore, 
w'here I had perceived a cabin ; and here I spent the evening in 
learning the art and mystery of bear-treeing, wolf-trapping and 
wild-cat hunting, from an old professor. But notwithstanding the 
skill of this great master, the country here is swarming with wolves 
and wild-cats, black and brown ; according to this hunter’s own 
confession he had lost sixty pigs since Christmas last, and all night 
long the distant howling of the wolves kept the dogs in a perpetual 
uproar of barking. This man was one of those people called 
squatters, who neither pay rent nor own land, but keep roving on 
the frontiers, advancing as the tide of civilized population ap- 
proaches. They are the immediate successors of the savages, and 
far below them in good sense and good manners, as well as com- 
fortable accommodations. An engraved representation of one of 
their cabins would form a striking embellishment to the pages of 
The Port Folio, as a specimen of the order of Jimerican Jlrchi- 
tectiire. 
Nothing adds more to the savage grandeur and picturesque 
eflPect of the scenery along the Ohio than these miserable huts of 
