Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 1).djvu/120

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116
PATHS OF GREAT GAME ANIMALS

highways of travel. They are thus described by some early writers:

"The roads opened by these animals may be reckoned among the national curiosities of the state [Kentucky], being generally wide enough for a carriage or waggon way, in which trees, shrubs, etc., are all trampled down, and destroyed by the irresistible impetus of the mighty phalanx."[1]

Croghan wrote in his Journal (1765): "We came to a large road which the buffaloes have beaten spacious enough for a wagon to go abreast, and leading straight into the Lick."[2]

In the MS. autobiography of General James Taylor of Newport, Kentucky, is found this statement "Big Bone Lick . . . has been a great resort of the buffalo, and the roads . . . were larger than any common ones now [1794] in the State, and in many places were worn five or six feet deep."[3]

  1. M'Murtrie's Sketches of Louisville, p. 58.
  2. First Explorations of Kentucky (Filson Club Pub. No. 13), p. 169.
  3. Id., p. 170.