rejoined me, furnished us very obligingly with necessary provisions for the two days journey through the territory of the Cherokees. Notwithstanding the harmony that at present subsists between the whites and these Indians, it is always more prudent to travel five or six in a party. Nevertheless as we were at a considerable distance from the usual place of rendezvous, where the travellers put up, we resolved {213} to set out alone, and we arrived happily at West Point. This country is exceedingly mountainous, we could not make above forty-five miles the first day, although we travelled till midnight. We encamped near a small river, where there was an abundance of grass; and after having made a fire we slept in our rugs, keeping watch alternately in order to guard our horses, and make them feed close by us for fear of the natives, who sometimes steal them in spite of all the precaution a traveller can take, as their dexterity in that point exceeds all that a person can imagine. During this day's journey we saw nothing but wild turkies, thirty or forty in a flight.
The second day after our departure we met a party of eight or ten Indians, who were searching for grapes and chinquapins, a species of small chesnuts, superior in taste to those in Europe. As we had only twenty miles to go before we reached West Point, we gave them the remainder of our provisions, with which they were highly delighted. Bread is a great treat for them, their usual food consisting of nothing but venison and wild fowl.
The road that crosses this part of the Indian territory cuts through the mountains in Cumberland; it is as broad and commodious as those in the environs of Philadelphia, in consequence of the amazing number {214} of emigrants that travel through it to go and settle in the western country. It is, notwithstanding, in some places
