The settling of this region well deserves a place in history.
Most of the memorable events I have myself been exercised in; and,
for the satisfaction of the public, will briefly relate the
circumstances of my adventures, and scenes of life, from my first
movement to this country until this day.

It was on the first of May, in the year 1769, that I resigned my
domestic happiness for a time, and left my family and peaceable
habitation on the Yadkin River, in North-Carolina, to wander
through the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of
Kentucke, in company with John Finley, John Stewart, Joseph Holden,
James Monay, and William Cool. We proceeded successfully, and after
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