ALEXANDER WILSON. 
lxxxi 
starvation for their existence. The woods are swarming with 
pigs, pigeons, squirrels, and woodpeckers. The pigs are univer- 
sally fat, owing to the great quantity of mast this year. Walking 
here in wet weather is most execrable, and is like travelling on 
soft soap : a few days of warm weather hardens this again into a 
stone. Want of bridges is the greatest inconvenience to a foot 
traveller here. Between Shelbyville and Frankfort, having gone 
out of my way to see a Pigeon-roost, (which, by the by, is the 
greatest curiosity I have seen since leaving home,) I waded a deep 
creek, called Benson, nine or ten times. I spent several days in 
Frankfort, and in rambling among the stupendous cliffs of Kentucky 
river. On Thursday evening, I entered Lexington. But I cannot 
do justice to these subjects at the conclusion of a letter, which, in 
spite of all my abridgments, has far exceeded in length what I 
first intended. My next will be from Nashville. I shall then 
have seen a large range of Kentucky, and be more able to give 
you a correct delineation of the country and its inhabitants. In 
descending the Ohio, I amused myself with a poetical narrative of 
my expedition, which I have called the Pilgrim.” 
To Mr Alexander Lawson. 
“ Nashville, Tennessee, 
April 28, 1810. 
“ My dear Sir, — Before setting out on my journey through 
the wilderness to Natchez, I sit down to give you, according to 
promise, some account of Lexington, and of my adventures through 
the state of Kentucky. These I shall be obliged to sketch as 
rapidly as possible. Neither my time nor my situation enables me 
to detail particulars with any degree of regularity, and you must 
condescend to receive them in the same random manner in which 
they occur, altogether destitute of fanciful embellishment, with 
nothing but their novelty and the simplicity of truth to recommend 
them. 
“ I saw nothing of Lexington till I had approached within half 
a mile of the place, when, the woods opening, I beheld the town 
before me on an irregular plain, ornamented with a small white 
spire, and consisting of several parallel streets, crossed by some 
others. Many of the houses are built of brick, others of stone, 
