Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/85

 The dresses of the men consist of blanket capeaus, buckskin pantaloons, and mockasins.

25th.] Christmas-day. We left Point Pleasant,[58] and floated along without encountering any material obstacle, except glancing against an enormous moving log (or sawyer), which for the moment threw us into terror. Indeed the submerged trees become more and more numerous.

In the evening we arrived at the remains of the settlement called the Little Prairie, where there is now only a single house, all the rest, together with their foundations, having been swept away by the river, soon after the convulsion of the earthquake, in consequence (as the inhabitants say, and as they also affirm in New Madrid) of the land having sunk 10 feet or more below its former level.[59]

{48} 26th.] After continuing about 10 miles below the Little Prairie, we were detained for the remainder of the day by the commencement of a storm, which towards evening increased to violence, and continued so throughout the night. I felt under some apprehension that we should break our cable, and so be cast away upon some of the many snags and sawyers which obstruct the river.

27th.] Towards noon, the north-west wind moderating, we continued as usual, and proceeded about 12 miles through a portion of the river filled with islands and trunks of trees. No habitations whatever appeared since we left the Little Prairie.

28th.] Proceeded a few miles, to the head of the 25th