The ADVENTURES of Col. DANIEL BOON;
Page: 6

affair scattered our cattle, brought us into extreme difficulty,
and so discouraged the whole company, that we retreated forty
miles, to the settlement on Clench river. We had passed over two
mountains, viz. Powel's and Walden's, and were approaching
Cumberland mountain when this adverse fortune overtook us. These
mountains are in the wilderness, as we pass from the old
settlements in Virginia to Kentucke, are ranged in a S. west and N.
east direction, are of a great length and breadth, and not far
distant from each other. Over these, nature hath formed passes,
that are less difficult than might be expected from a view of such
huge piles. The aspect of these cliffs is so wild and horrid, that
it is impossible to behold them without terror. The spectator is
apt to imagine that nature had formerly suffered some violent
convulsion; and that these are the dismembered remains of the
dreadful shock; the ruins, not of Persepolis or Palmyra, but of the
world!

I remained with my family on Clench until the sixth of June,
1774, when I and one Michael Stoner were solicited by Governor
Dunmore, of Virginia, to go to the Falls of the Ohio, to conduct
into the settlement a number of surveyors that had been sent
thither by him some months before; this country having about this
time drawn the attention of many adventurers. We immediately
complied with the Governor's request, and conducted in the
surveyors, compleating a tour of eight hundred miles, through many
difficulties, in sixty-two days.

Soon after I returned home, I was ordered to take the command of
three garrisons during the campaign, which Governor Dunmore carried
on against the Shawanese Indians: After the conclusion of which,
the Militia was discharged from each garrrison, and I being
relieved from my post, was solicited by a number of North-Carolina
gentlemen, that were about purchasing the lands lying on the S.
side of Kentucke River, from the Cherokee Indians, to attend their
treaty at Wataga, in March, 1775, to negotiate with them, and,
mention the boundaries of the purchase. This I accepted, and at the
request of the same gentlemen, undertook to mark out a road in the