Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 6).djvu/59

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THE FIRST EXPLORERS
59

a small distance on their right hand, until they came to Cumberland Gap. . . At the foot of this mountain they fell into an Indian path leading from the Cherokee towns on Tennessee River to the Shawnee Indian towns on the Ohio, which path they followed down Yellow Creek to the old ford of Cumberland River. . . Thence they went on the path down the river to the Flat Lick, eight miles; here they left the river, continued on the path, turning more north, crossing some of the head branches of the Kentucky River over a poor and hilly country, until they concluded there was no good country in the West. They then took an easterly course over the worst mountains and laurel thickets in the world. . . They crossed the Laurel or Cumberland Mountain and fell into the Greenbrier country, almost starved to death . . and reached home with life only to pay for all their trouble and suffering."

Regretting that this opinion of the final value of Walker's journey cannot be gainsaid, it is yet of interest to follow his footsteps and learn what were some of the