of Virginia suffered all the horrors of Indian war on its western
frontier--horrors from which even the ability, courage, and patriotism
of Washington were for a long time unable to protect them. The war was
virtually terminated by the campaign of 1759, when Quebec was taken.
The next year Canada was ceded to England; and a Cherokee war, which had
disturbed the border setters of North Carolina, was terminated. Daniel
Boone's biographers all agree that it was about this time when he first
began to make long excursions toward the West; but it is difficult to
fix exactly the date of his first long journey through the woods in
this direction. It is generally dated in 1771 or 1772, We now make a
quotation from Ramsay's Annals of Tennessee, which shows, beyond the
possibility of a doubt, that he hunted on the Wataga River in 1760, and
renders it probable that he was in the West at an earlier date. Our
readers will excuse the length of this quotation, as the first part of
it gives so graphic a picture of the hunter and pioneer life of the
times of Daniel Boone, and also shows what had been done by others in
western explorations before Boone's expeditions commenced.

"The Colonists of the Carolinas and of Virginia had been steadily
advancing to the West, and we have traced their approaches in the
direction of our eastern boundary,[8] to the base of the great
Appalachian range."

Of the country beyond it, little was positively known or accurately
understood. A wandering Indian would imperfectly delineate upon the
sand, a feeble outline of its more prominent physical features--its
magnificent rivers, with their numerous tributaries--its lofty
mountains, its dark forests, its extended plains and its vast extent.
A voyage in a canoe, from the source of the Hogohegee[9] to the
Wabash,[10] required for its performance, in their figurative language,