they jump
about in the tall grass, appeasing their insectivorous appetites.

[Footnote A: Upon the Ohio and kindred rivers, the term "wharf"
applies to the river beach when graded and paved, ready for the
reception of steamers. Such a wharf must not be confounded with a lake
or seaside wharf, a staging projected into the water.]

[Footnote B: It was in this neighborhood, a mile or two above our
camp, where the bottom is narrower, that Capt. William Foreman and
twenty other Virginia militiamen were killed in an Indian ambuscade,
Sept. 27, 1777. An inscribed stone monument was erected on the spot in
1835, but we could not find it.]

CHAPTER VI.

The Big Grave--Washington, and Round Bottom--A lazy man's
Paradise--Captina Creek--George Rogers Clark at Fish
Creek--Southern types.

Near Fishing Creek, Friday, May 11th.--There had been rain during the
night, with fierce wind gusts, but during breakfast the atmosphere
quieted, and we had a genial, semi-cloudy morning.

Off at 8 o'clock, Pilgrim's crew were soon exploring Moundsville.
There are five thousand people in this old, faded, countrified town.
They show you with pride the State Penitentiary of West Virginia, a
solemn-looking pile of dark gray stone, with the feeble battlements
and towers common to American prison architecture. But the chief
feature of the place is the great Indian mound--the "Big Grave" of
early chroniclers. This earthwork is one of the largest now remaining
in the United States, being sixty-eight feet high and a hundred
in diameter at the base, and has for over a century attracted the
attention of travelers and archaeologists.

We found it at the end of a straggling street, on the edge of the
town, a quarter of a mile back from the river. Around the mound has
been left a narrow plat of ground, utilized as a cornfield; and the
stout picket fence which encloses it bears peremptory notice that
admission is forbidden. However, as the proprietor was not easily
accessible, we exercised the privilege of historical pilgrims, and,
letting ourselves in through the gate, picked our way through rows of
corn, and ascended the great cone. It is covered with a heavy growth
of white oaks, some of them three feet in diameter, among which the
path picturesquely zigzags. The summit is fifty-five feet in diameter,
and the center somewhat depressed, like a basin. From the middle of
this basin a shaft some twenty-five feet in diameter has been