The settling of this region well deserves a place in history.  Most of the memorable events I have myself been exercised in; and, for the satisfaction of the public, will briefly relate the circumstance of my adventures, and scenes of life from my first movement to this country until this day.

It was on the first of May, in the year 1769, that I resigned my domestic happiness for a time, and left my family and peaceable habitation on the Yadkin River, in North Carolina, to wander through the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of Kentucky, in company with John Finley, John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Monay, and William Cool.  We proceeded successfully, and after a long and fatiguing journey through a mountainous wilderness, in a westward direction.  On the 7th of June following we found ourselves on Red River, where John Finley had formerly been trading with the Indians, and, from the top of an eminence, saw with pleasure the beautiful level of Kentucky.  Here let me observe that for some time we had experienced the most uncomfortable weather, as a pre-libation of our future sufferings.  At this place we encamped, and made a shelter to defend us from the inclement season, and began to hunt and reconnoitre the country.  We found everywhere abundance of wild beasts of all sorts, through this vast forest.  The buffalo were more frequent than I have seen cattle in the settlements, browsing on the leaves of the cane, or cropping the herbage on those extensive plains, fearless, because ignorant of the violence of man.  Sometimes we saw hundreds in a drove, and the numbers about the salt springs were amazing.  In this forest, the habitation of beasts of every kind natural to America, we practiced hunting with great success until the 22d day of December following.

This day John Steward and I had a pleasing ramble, but fortune changed the scene in the close of it.  We had passed through a great forest, on which stood myriads of trees, some gay with blossoms, and others rich with fruits.  Nature was here a series of wonders, and a fund of delight.  Here she displayed her ingenuity and industry in a variety of flowers and fruits, beautifully colored, elegantly shaped, and charmingly flavored; and we were diverted with innumerable animals presenting themselves perpetually to our view.  In the decline of the day, near Kentucky River, as we ascended the brow of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed out of a thick canebrake upon us, and made us prisoners.  The time of our sorrow was now arrived, and the scene fully opened.  The Indians plundered us of what we had, and kept us in confinement seven days, treating us with common savage usage.  During this time we discovered no uneasiness or desire to escape, which made them less suspicious of us; but in the dead of night, as we lay in a thick canebrake by a large fire, when sleep had locked-up their senses, my situation not disposing me for rest, I touched my companion, and