entirely open, or closed only with a stout blind, and glazed with thick paper saturated with bear’s grease to render it transparent; but the larger number of the cabins, if destitute of glazing, were furnished with blinds, which were necessary as a protection against intruders.  The roof was covered with large split shingles, held down by long weight-poles, and the floors were of puncheons,—­wide pieces of oak or poplar, two or three inches thick, split and hewn with an axe, and laid upon sleepers.  If the hewing is well done, such floors are as level and smooth as if fashioned of machine-made material.  The chimney was of sticks or stones, laid up in clay, and it went up on the outside in a pyramidal form, and of a size totally disproportioned to the dwelling, for these people were fond of a wide roaring fire in winter, and in summer the huge flue was the best of all ventilators.  If it is added that the roof of some of these cabins was extended in front so as to cover a wide veranda, that the bark and moss were left clinging to the logs, which by another season would be covered with honeysuckles and the Virginia creeper, we shall see that they must have presented no unpicturesque appearance.

The interiors need only a brief description.  There were generally but two rooms, one below, the other above, approached by a ladder in a corner.  The lower floor was parlor, kitchen, and often bedroom.  The fireplace was deep and wide, surmounted, perhaps, by a broad mantel of unpainted oak, on which were a few trinkets and the violin so precious to the backwoodsman.  In one corner was a spinning-jenny, in another an uncushioned settle, and opposite the fireplace a bureau or chest of drawers of native wood and home manufacture.  These, with a small table, a few chairs with rustic frames and deerskin coverings, also of home manufacture, and a couple of forked sticks nailed to one of the logs and supporting the trusty rifle, would probably complete the furniture of the apartment.

This is a description of the smaller houses.  Others, adapted to larger families, were what were termed “double-barrelled” cabins, having two rooms on the ground-floor, separated by an open passage-way, and a “lean-to” in the rear to serve as a kitchen.  Still others, it may be, were like the mansion of the elder Sevier,—­half a dozen single cabins tacked one upon the other and covering space enough to serve for the foundation of a cathedral.

From these details we can easily form for ourselves a picture of the first civilized settlement beyond the Alleghanies.  A score or more of these cabins were scattered here and there in the very heart of the forest, the great trees crowding so closely around them as often to overhang their very roofs.  Near them horses and cattle were grazing on the thick native grass that grows among the trees, or housed in rude sheds at the rear of the dwellings, while farther away, along the margin of the many streams, deer and elk and buffalo were browsing.  Glimpses of foot-paths leading from one widely-separated dwelling to another might be here and there seen; but there were no roads, for no wheeled vehicle had yet invaded the sylvan solitude.