whose owners were by turns farmers, tavern-keepers, hunters, and Indian
fighters. Here they usually waited until a sufficient number had
gathered together to furnish a band of riflemen large enough to beat off
any prowling party of red marauders; and then set off to traverse by
slow stages the mountains and vast forests which lay between them and
the nearest Kentucky station. The time of the journey depended, of
course, upon the composition of the travelling party, and upon the
mishaps encountered; a party of young men on good horses might do it in
three days, while a large band of immigrants, who were hampered by
women, children, and cattle, and dogged by ill-luck, might take three
weeks. Ordinarily six or eight days were sufficient. Before starting
each man laid in a store of provisions for himself and his horse;
perhaps thirty pounds of flour, half a bushel of corn meal, and three
bushels of oats. There was no meat unless game was shot. Occasionally
several travellers clubbed together and carried a tent; otherwise they
slept in the open. The trail was very bad, especially at first, where it
climbed between the gloomy and forbidding cliffs that walled in
Cumberland Gap. Even when undisturbed by Indians, the trip was
accompanied by much fatigue and exposure; and, as always in frontier
travelling, one of the perpetual annoyances was the necessity for
hunting up strayed horses. [Footnote: Durrett MSS. Journal of Rev. James
Smith, 1785.]

The Travel down the Ohio.

The chief highway was the Ohio River; for to drift down stream in a scow
was easier and quicker, and no more dangerous, than to plod through
thick mountain forests. Moreover, it was much easier for the settler who
went by water to carry with him his household goods and implements of
husbandry; and even such cumbrous articles as wagons, or, if he was rich