hey
knew not where. Of the magnitude of this distant river, the Mississippi,
its source, rise and termination, they could give no intelligible
account. They endeavored to give some idea of the amount of game to be
found in those remote realms, by pointing to the leaves of the forest
and the stars in the sky.

The settlers were deeply interested and often much excited by the
glowing descriptions thus given them of a terrestrial Eden, where life
would seem to be but one uninterrupted holiday. Occasionally an
adventurous French or Spanish trader would cross the towering mountains
and penetrate the vales beyond. They vied with the Indians in their
account of the salubrity of the climate, the brilliance of the skies,
the grandeur of the forests, the magnificence of the rivers, the
marvelous fertility of the soil and the abundance of game.

As early as the year 1690 a trader from Virginia, by the name of
Doherty, crossed the mountains, visited the friendly Cherokee nation,
within the present bounds of Georgia, and resided with the natives
several years. In the year 1730 an enterprising and intelligent man from
South Carolina, by the name of Adair, took quite an extensive tour
through most of the villages of the Cherokees, and also visited several
tribes south and west of them. He wrote an exceedingly valuable and
interesting account of his travels which was published in London.

Influenced by these examples several traders, in the year 1740, went
from Virginia to the country of the Cherokees. They carried on pack
horses goods which the Indians valued, and which they exchanged for
furs, which were sold in Europe at an enormous profit.

A hatchet, a knife, a trap, a string of beads, which could be bought for
a very small sum in the Atlantic towns, when exhibited beyond the
mountains to admiring groups in the wigwam of the Indian, could be
exchanged for furs which were of almost priceless value in the
metropolitan cities of the Old World. This traffic was mutually
advantageous, and so long as peaceful relations existed between the
white man and the Indian, was prosecuted with great and ever increasing
vigor. The Indians thus obtained the steel trap, the keenly cutting ax,
and the rifle, which he soon learned to use with unerring aim. He was
thus able in a day to obtain more game than with his arrows and his
clumsy snares he could secure in a month.

This friendly intercourse was in all respects very desirable; and but
for