"13th. We went early to William Calloway's and supplied ourselves with Rum, Thread, and other necessaries & from thence took the main Waggon Road leading to Wood's or the New River. It is not well clear'd or beaten yet, but will be a very good one with proper management." Wood's River--or New River, as we know it today--was discovered in 1671 by Colonel Abraham Wood, who explored along the line which later became the boundary line between North Carolina and Virginia. He crossed the Alleghenies through "Wood's Gap" (now Flower Gap) and, going down Little River, found New River not far from Inglis Ferry, where Walker's party crossed three days later. This mention of the road Walker traversed is his first reference to the great road westward toward Cumberland Gap; he remarks its roughness, but before he returned to Virginia he learned new lessons on rough roads. "This night we lodged in Adam Beards low grounds. Beard is an ignorant, impudent, brutish fellow, and would have taken us up, had it not been for a reason, easily suggested." When thus brought in contrast with the hospitality usually tendered Walker's party, the deportment of this churlish mountaineer is conspicuous. Travelers on these first highways were ever in need--if for nothing more than a camping-place. The people who settled beside the frontier roads were trained by bitter experience to a generous hospitality. This hospitality was particularly marked, throughout the colonies, among those who could afford it, especially on the frontiers; and here it was often bestowed upon travelers when it could be ill-afforded. The modern hotel has in a large measure relieved the general public from the burden of continual and promiscuous hospitality, and it has been found that where hotels are least known this prime requisite of an expanding civilization may still be found. On the frontier, men were dependent on those who lived beside the road, not only in time of accident and sickness, but at all times--for little food and forage could be carried. At times travelers nearly perished when once beyond the frontier line. Walker's party, though they killed the large amount of game mentioned, were once compelled to kill and eat one of their dogs. Captain Estill, who lost his life in Kentucky in the engagement which bears his name, is said to have done a great service for emigrants from Virginia by killing game and leaving the meat beside the road, in order to "pass on and notify incoming trains where they might find a supply of meat." Instances of vile treatment of travelers are not often cited, but the few that exist are the exceptions that prove the rule of generosity which was common to the time.