lxxii 
LIFE OF 
I slept on what I supposed to be corn stalks, or something worse ; 
so, preferring the smooth bosom of the Ohio to this brush heap, I 
got up long before day, and, being under no apprehension of losing 
my way, I again pushed out into the stream. The landscape on 
each side lay in one mass of shade ; but the grandeur of the pro- 
jecting headlands and vanishing points, or lines, was charmingly 
reflected in the smooth glassy surface below. I could only discover 
when 1 was passing a clearing by the crowing of cocks, and, now 
and then, in more solitary places, the Big Horned Owl made a 
most hideous hollowing, that echoed among the mountains. In this 
lonesome manner, with full leisure for observation and reflection, 
exposed to hardships all day, and hard berths all night, to storms 
of rain, hail, and snow, — for it froze severely almost every night, 
— I persevered, from the 24th of February to Sunday evening, 
March 17, when I moored my skiff safely in Bear Grass Creek, at 
the rapids of the Ohio, after a voyage of seven hundred and twenty 
miles. My hands suffered the most ; and it will be some weeks 
yet before they recover their former feeling and flexibility. It 
would be the task of a month to detail all the particulars of my 
numerous excursions, in every direction, from the river. In 
Stubenville, Charlestown, and Wheeling, I found some friends. At 
Marietta, I visited the celebrated remains of Indian fortifications, 
as they are improperly called, which cover a large space of ground 
on the banks of the Muskingum. Seventy miles above this, at a 
place called Big Grave Creek, I examined some extraordinary 
remains of the same kind there. The Big Grave is three hundred 
paces round at the base, seventy feet perpendicular, and the top, 
which is about fifty feet over, has sunk in, forming a regular 
concavity, three or four feet deep. This tumulus is in the form 
of a cone, and the whole, as well as its immediate neighbour- 
hood, is covered with a venerable growth of forest, four or five 
hundred years old, which gives it a most singular appearance. 
In clambering around its steep sides, I found a place where a 
large white oak had been lately blown down, and had torn up the 
earth to the depth of five or six feet. In this place I commenced 
digging, and continued to labour for about an hour, examining 
every handful of earth with great care ; but, except some shreds 
of earthenware, made of a coarse kind of gritty cla}^, and consi- 
derable pieces of charcoal, I found nothing else ; but a person of 
2 
