Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/229

 mode, their prisoners in the most cruel torments. This state of things lasted till 1783, at which time the American population having become too strong for them to penetrate to the centre of the establishment, they were reduced to the necessity of attacking the emigrants on their route; and, on the other hand, they were deserted by the English in Canada, who had abetted and supported them in the war.

In 1782 they began to open roads for carriages in the interior of the country; prior to this there were only paths practicable for persons on foot and horseback. Till 1788 those who emigrated from the eastern states travelled by way of Virginia. In the first place, they went to Block House, situated in Holston, westward of the mountains; and as the government of the United States did not furnish them with an escort, they waited at this place till they were sufficiently numerous to pass in safety through the Wilderness, an uninhabited space of a hundred and thirty miles, which they had to travel over before they arrived at Crab Orchard, the first post occupied by the whites.[48] The enthusiasm for emigrating to Kentucky was at that time carried to {160} such a degree in the United States, that some years upwards of twenty thousand have been known to pass, and many of them had even deserted their estates, not having been able to dispose of them quick enough. This overflow of new colonists very soon raised the price of land in Kentucky, from two-pence and two-pence halfpenny per acre, it suddenly rose to seven or eight shillings. The stock-jobbers profited by this infatuation, and, not content with a moderate share of gain, practised the most illegal measures to dispose of the land to great advantage.