[From _The History of Kentucky_ (Frankfort, Kentucky, 1824, v. i)]
The country, once seen, held out abundant inducements to be re-visited,
and better known. Among the circumstances best adapted to engage the
attention, and impress the feelings of the adventurous hunters of North
Carolina, may be selected the uncommon fertility of the soil, and the
great abundance of wild game, so conspicuous at that time. And we are
assured that the effect lost nothing of the cause. Forests those hunters
had seen--mountains they had ascended--valleys they had traversed--deer
they had killed--and bears they had successfully hunted. They had heard
the howl of the wolf; the whine of the panther; and the heart-rending
yell of the savage man; with correspondent sensations of delight, or
horror. But these were all lost to memory, in the contemplation of
Kentucky; animated with all the enchanting variety, and adorned with all
the majestic grace and boldness of nature's creative energy. To nature's
children, she herself is eloquent, and affecting. Never before had the
feelings of these rude hunters experienced so much of the pathetic, the
sublime, or the marvellous. Their arrival on the plains of Elkhorn was
in the dawn of summer; when the forests, composed of oaks of various
kinds, of ash, of walnut, cherry, buck-eye, hackberry, sugar trees,
locust, sycamore, coffee tree, and an indefinite number of other trees,
towering aloft to the clouds, overspread the luxuriant undergrowth, with
their daily shade; while beneath, the class of trees--the shrubs, the
cane, the herbage, and the different kinds of grass, and clover,
interspersed with flowers, filled the eye, and overlaid the soil, with
the forest's richest carpet. The soil itself, more unctuous and fertile
than Egypt's boasted Delta, from her maternal bosom, gave copious
nutriment; and in rich exuberance sustained the whole, in matchless
verdure.
Here it was, if Pan ever existed, that without the aid of fiction, he
held his sole dominion, and Sylvan empire, unmolested by Ceres, or
Lucina, for centuries.
The proud face of creation here presented itself, without the disguise
of art. No wood had been felled; no field cleared; no human habitation
raised: even the red man of the forest had not put up his wigwam of
poles and bark for habitation. But that mysterious Being, whose
productive power we call Nature, ever bountiful, and ever great--had
not spread out this replete and luxurious pasture without stocking it
with numerous flocks and herds: nor were their ferocious attendants,
who prey upon them, wanting, to fill up the circle of created beings.
Here was seen the timid deer; the towering elk; the fleet stag; the
surly bear; the crafty fox; the ravenous wolf; the devouring panther;
the insidious wild-cat; and the haughty buffaloe: besides innumerable
other creatures, winged, fourfooted, or creeping. And here, at some
time unknown, had been, for his bones are yet here, the leviathan of
the forest, the monstrous mammoth; whose trunk, like that of the
famous Trojan horse, would have held an host of men; and whose teeth,
nine feet in length, inflicted death and destruction, on both animals
and vegetable substances--until exhausting all within its range,
itself became extinct. Nor is it known, although the race must have
abounded in the country, from the great number of bones belonging to
the species, found in different places, that there is one of the kind
living on the American continent, if in the universe.