out a good guard the first part of the night. Our party being pretty strong, I imagine the Cherokees were afraid to attack us, and so ran off.
23d.—Decamped about five in the morning, and arrived at Big Guyondott, twenty miles from our last encampment: the country as of yesterday; from hence we proceeded down to Sandy River being twenty miles further; thence to the mouth of Scioto, about forty miles from the last mentioned river. The general course of the river from Great Conhawa to this place inclines to the south-west. The soil rich, the country level, and the banks of the river high. The soil on the banks of Scioto, for a vast distance up the country, is prodigious rich, the bottoms very wide, and in the spring of the year, many of them are flooded, so that the river appears to be two or three miles wide. Bears, deer, turkeys, and most sorts of wild game, are very plenty on the banks of this river. On the Ohio, just below the mouth of Scioto, on a high bank, near forty feet, formerly stood the Shawnesse town, called the Lower Town, which was all carried away, except three or four houses, by a great flood in the Scioto. I was in the town at the time, though the banks of the Ohio were so high, the water was nine feet on the top, which obliged the whole town to take to their canoes, and move with their effects to the hills. The Shawnesse afterwards built their town on the opposite side of the river, which, during the French war, they abandoned, for fear of the Virginians, and removed to the plains on Scioto. The Ohio is about one hundred yards wider here than at Fort Pitt, which is but a small augumentation, considering the great number of rivers and creeks, that fall into it during the course of four hundred and twenty miles; and as it deepens but very little, I imagine
