time a frontier settlement of the province, lying on the very edge of
the wilderness. Here he spent several days in procuring supplies for
the expedition, and raising a small party of hunters and pioneers to
guard and bear him company. After some delay, he succeeded in
procuring the services of seven men. Four of these were hardy
backwoodsmen of experience, whose business it was to take care of the
baggage and keep the party supplied with game. Mr. Davidson was to go
along as Indian interpreter, and Mr. Gist as guide. A bolder and more
enterprising pioneer than this Gist, by the by, was not to be found
in all the Western wilds; and he is supposed by some historians to
have been the first white man that ever brought down an elk or a
buffalo in that paradise of hunters, green Kentucky. In addition to
these, Washington took with him as French interpreter his old Dutch
fencing-master, Capt. Van Braam. The worthy captain, however, seems to
have been a far more expert master of sword-play than of the
languages; for the jargon he was pleased to call an interpretation was
often such a medley of half-learned English, half-remembered French,
and half-forgotten Dutch, that they who listened would be nearly as
much perplexed to see what he would be driving at, as if he were
sputtering Cherokee into their ears.

All things being at last in readiness, the gallant little party,
headed by our young Virginian, turned their faces towards the great
North-west; and, plunging into the wilderness, were soon beyond all
traces of civilized man. The autumn was far advanced. The travelling
was rendered toilsome, and even dangerous, by the heavy rains of this
season, and early snows that had already fallen on the mountains,
which had changed the little rills into rushing torrents, and the low
bottom-lands into deep and miry swamps. Much delayed by these and the
like hinderances, Washington, upon reaching the banks of the
Monongahela, deemed it best to send two of the backwoodsmen with the
baggage in canoes down this river to its mouth, where, uniting its
waters with those of the Allegheny, it helped to form the great Ohio.
Promising to meet them at this point, he and the rest of the party
pushed thitherward by land on horseback. Reaching the Forks of the
Ohio two days before the canoe-men, he spent the time in exploring the
woods and hills and streams around, and was much struck with the
advantages the place held out as a site for a military po