LIFE OF WILSON. 
CXXXIX 
In the woods, a little beyond this, I met a soldier, on foot, from 
Neworleans, who had been robbed and plundered by the Choctaws 
as he passed through their nation. “ Thirteen or fourteen Indians,” 
said he, “ surrounded me before I was aware, cut away my canteen, 
tore off my hat, took the handkerchief from my neck, and the shoes 
from my feet, and all the money I had from me, which was about 
forty-five dollars.” Such was his story. He was going to Chilli- 
cothe, and seemed pretty nearly done up. In the afternoon I cross- 
ed another stream of about twenty-five yards in width, called Lit- 
tle Barren ; after which the country began to assume a new and 
very singular appearance. The woods, which had hitherto been 
stately, now degenerated into mere scrubby saplings, on which not 
a bud was beginning to unfold, and grew so open that I could see 
for a mile through them. No dead timber or rotting leaves were 
to be seen, but the whole face of the ground was covered with rich 
verdure, interspersed with a variety of very beautiful flowers alto- 
gether new to me. It seemed as if the whole country had once 
been one general level ; but that from some unknown cause the 
ground had been undermined^ and had fallen m, in innumerable 
places, forming regular funnel-shaped concavities of all dimensions, 
from twenty feet in diameter, and six feet in depth, to five hundred 
by fifty, the surface or verdure generally unbroken. In some ti acts 
the surface was entirely destitute of trees, and the eye was present- 
ed with nothing but one general neighbourhood of these concavi- 
ties, or, as they are usually called, sink-holes. At the centre, or 
bottom of some of these, openings had been made for water. In 
several places these holes had broken in, on the sides, and even 
middle of the road, to an unknown depth ; presenting their grim 
mouths as if to swallow up the unwary traveller. At the bottom 
of one of those declivities, at least fifty feet below the general level, 
a large rivulet of pure water issued at once from the mouth of a 
cave about twelve feet wide and seven high. A number of very 
singular sweet smelling lichens grew over the entrance, and a 
