The 15th traveled 27 Miles and arrived at Nashville. Supper, bed and breakfast 2 shillings. The 16th started to go and visit Colonel Hays[170] a wealthy inhabitant to whom I had been recommended the previous year by Governor Blount, Governor of the Country known under the name of Western territories, South west of the Ohio. This Country, which is estimated to have 60 Thousand inhabitants, in consequence of the considerable annual immigration and of the rapid increase of population, has just been erected into a State governed by its own representatives under the new name of the _State of Tennesee_ from the name of a very large river that runs through the whole Houlston Country, the Cumberland Country, the Country of the Cheroquis Indians and other adjacent countries. This large river falls into the Ohio 9 Miles above fort Massac. It was known by the French, who were the first to discover the Countries in the interior of North America, under the name of Cheroquis River and it is so designated on the French Maps. I met at Colonel Hays’s several inhabitants of the neighborhood who came to confer upon current matters in connection with the election of new civil and military Officers. The 17th and 18th of February 1796 remained at Colonel Hays’ on account of bad weather. The 19th concluded the bargain for the purchase of a Horse to convey the baggage, Collections of Plants, Birds and other Things I had brought from Illinois and recently from Kentuckey. Returned the same day to sleep at Nashville. The 20th spent the entire day in getting my collections together and in packing them. Saw some French voyageurs who spend all their lives in the Trade with the Savages and asked the Terms on which I could obtain a Guide to go up the Missouri river. One of them named ... told me he would willingly engage for a year for the sum of 500 dollars in furs that is to say 1000 dollars in money; another asked me 2000 dollars in money. Sunday the 21st prepared for my journey. The 22nd had my two horses shod. The 23rd started and after making two Miles was obliged to return on account of.... The 25th started to return to Carolina and slept 10 Miles away at the house of Colonel Mansko, a declared enemy of the French because, he said, they have killed their King. Although I had not dined I would not accept his supper believing that a Republican should not be under obligations to a fanatical partisan of Royalty. I was greatly mortified that the night and the rain should compel me to remain in his House. But I slept on my Deer skin and paid for the Maize he supplied me with to cross the Wilderness. The 26th Sunday 28th of February 1796 stopped ten miles from the river on account of the Rain and because the Creeks had overflowed their banks.