"Sunday 12th.... After running until about 10 o'clock came in sight of the Muscle Shoals. Halted on the northern shore at the appearance of the shoals, in order to search for the signs Captain James Robertson was to make for us at that place...that it was practicable for us to go across by land...we can find none--from which we conclude that it would not be prudent to make the attempt and are determined, knowing ourselves in such imminent danger, to pursue our journey down the river....
When we approached them [the Shoals] they had a dreadful appearance.... The water being high made a terrible roaring, which could be heard at some distance, among the driftwood heaped frightfully upon the points of the islands, the current running in every. possible direction. Here we did not know how soon we should be dashed to pieces and all our troubles ended at once...
Our boats frequently dragged on the bottom and appeared constantly in danger of striking. They warped as much as in a rough sea. But by the hand of Providence we are now preserved from this danger also. I know not the length of this wonderful shoal; it had been represented to me to be twenty-five or thirty miles. If so, we must have descended very rapidly, as indeed we did, for we passed it in about three hours."
On the twentieth the little fleet arrived at the mouth of the Tennessee and the voyagers landed on the bank of the Ohio.
"Our situation here is truly disagreeable. The river is very high and the current rapid, our boats not constructed for the purpose of stemming a rapid stream, our provisions exhausted, the crews almost worn down with hunger and fatigue, and know not what distance we have to go or what time it will take us to our place of destination. The scene is rendered still more melancholy as several boats will not attempt to ascend the rapid current. Some intend to descend the Mississippi to Natchez; others are bound for the Illinois--among the rest my son-in-law and daughter. We now part, perhaps to meet no more, for I am determined to pursue my course, happen what will.
"Tuesday 21st. Set out and on this day labored very hard and got but little way.... Passed the two following days as the former, suffering much from hunger and fatigue.
"Friday 24th. About three o'clock came to the mouth of a river which I thought was the Cumberland. Some of the company declared it could not be--it was so much smaller than was expected....
We determined however to make the trial, pushed up some distance and encamped for the night.
"Saturday 25th. Today we are much encouraged; the river grows wider;...we are now convinced it is the Cumberland....
"Sunday 26th...procured some buffalo meat; though poor it was palatable.
"Friday 31st...met with Colonel Richard Henderson, who is running the line between Virginia and North Carolina. At this meeting we were much rejoiced. He gave us every information we wished, and further informed us that he had purchased a quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped at the Falls of Ohio for the use of the Cumberland settlement. We are now without bread and are compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve life....
"Monday, April 24th. This day we arrived at our journey's end at the Big Salt Lick, where we have the pleasure of finding Captain Robertson and his company. It is a source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to restore to him and others their families and friends, who were entrusted to our care, and who, sometime since, perhaps, despaired of ever meeting again...."
Past the camps of the Chickamaugans--who were retreating farther and farther down the twisting flood, seeking a last standing ground in the giant caves by the Tennessee--these white voyagers had steered their pirogues. Near Robertson's station, where they landed after having traversed the triangle of the three great rivers which enclose the larger part of western Tennessee, stood a crumbling trading house marking the defeat of a Frenchman who had, one time, sailed in from the Ohio to establish an outpost of his nation there. At a little distance were the ruins of a rude fort cast up by the Cherokees in the days when the redoubtable Chickasaws had driven them from the pleasant shores of the western waters. Under the towering forest growth lay vast burial mounds and the sunken foundations of walled towns, telling of a departed race which had once flashed its rude paddles and had its dream of permanence along the courses of these great waterways.
Now another tribe had come to dream that dream anew. Already its primitive keels had traced the opening lines of its history on the face of the immemorial rivers.
