cxlii 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
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 ap- 
peared, in which there is usually 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 coun- 
try. Between this and Red river the country had a bare and de- 
solate 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 Red river, and belongs to a person of the 
name of , a man of notoriously bad character, and strongly 
suspected, even by his neighbours, of having committed a foul mur- 
der of this kind, which was related to me with all its minutiae of 
hoiTors. As this man’s house stands by the road side, I was in- 
duced by motives of curiosity to stop and take a peep of him. On 
my arrival I found two persons in conversation under the piazza, 
one of whom informed me that he was the landlord. He was a 
dark mulatfo, rather above the common size, inclining to corpu- 
lency, with legs small in proportion to his size, and w^alUed 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 immediately 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 be- 
fore with the lights, 1 followed with my hand on my pistol, recon- 
noitei’ing on every side, and listening to his description of its length 
