The ADVENTURES of Col. DANIEL BOON;
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a long and fatiguing journey through a mountainous wilderness, in
a westward direction, on the seventh day 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 Kentucke. Here let me observe,
that for some time we had experienced the most uncomfortable
weather as a prelibation 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
every where abundance of wild beasts of all sorts, through this
vast forest. The buffaloes were more frequent than I have seen
cattle in the settlements, browzing on the leaves of the cane, or
croping 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 practised hunting with great success until the twenty-second day
of December following.

This day John Stewart 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,
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 coloured, elegantly
shaped, and charmingly flavoured; and we were diverted with
innumerable animals presenting themselves perpetually to our
view.--In the decline of the day, near Kentucke river, as we
ascended the brow of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed out
of a thick cane-brake 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