Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/219



Passage over the Barrens, or Meadows.—Plantations upon the Road.—The View they present.—Plants discovered there.—Arrival at Nasheville.

About ten miles from Green River flows the Little Barren, a small river, from thirty to forty feet in breadth; the ground in the environs is dry and barren, and produces nothing but a few Virginia cedars, two-leaved pines, and black oaks. A little beyond this commence the Barrens, or Kentucky Meadows. I went the first day thirteen miles across these meadows, and put up at the house of Mr. Williamson, near Bears-Wallow.

In the morning, before I left the place, I wanted to give my horse some water, upon which my host directed me to a spring about a quarter of a mile from the house, where his family was supplied; I wandered {145} about for the space of two hours in search of this, when I discovered a plantation in a low and narrow valley, where I learnt that I had mistaken the path, and was obliged to return to the place from whence I came. The mistress of the house told me that she had resided in the Barrens upwards of three years, and that for eighteen months prior to my going there she had not seen an individual; that, weary of living thus isolated, her husband had been more than two months from home in quest of another spot, towards the mouth of the Ohio. Such was the pretence for this removal, which made the third since the family left Virginia. A daughter about fourteen years of age, and two children considerably younger, were all the company she had; her house, on the other hand, was stocked abundantly with vegetables and corn.

This part of the Barrens that chance occasioned me to stroll over, was precisely similar to that I had traversed