"Your letter gave me the more pleasure, as I received it among barbarians, and an uncouth set of people. Since you received my last letter I have not slept above three or four nights in a bed; but after walking a good deal all the day, I have lain down before the fire upon a little hay, straw, fodder, or a bear-skin--whichsoever was to be had--with man, wife, and children, like dogs and cats; and happy is he who gets the berth nearest the fire. Nothing would make it pass off tolerably but a good reward. A doubloon[A] is my constant gain every day that the weather will permit my going out, and sometimes six pistoles[B]. The coldness of the weather will not allow of my making a long stay, as the lodging is rather too cold for the time of year. I have never had my clothes off, but have lain and slept in them, except the few nights I have been in Fredericksburg." [A] $7 50. [B] A pistole was $3.50 The entry in his journal for the third day after he started, in March, 1748, was as follows: "Worked hard till night, and then returned. After supper we were lighted into a room; and I, not being so good a woodsman as the rest, stripped myself very orderly, and went into the bed, as they called it, when, to my surprise, I found it to be nothing but a little straw matted together, without sheet or anything else, but only one threadbare blanket, with double its weight of vermin. I was glad to get up and put on my clothes, and lie as my companions did. Had we not been very tired, I am sure that we should not have slept much that night. I made a promise to sleep so no more, choosing rather to sleep in the open air before a fire." George commenced operations for Lord Fairfax early in March, when the mountains were still white with snow, and wintry blasts swept over the plains. The heavy rains of spring had swollen the streams into torrents, so that it was perilous to ford them. Of course the hardships of such an expedition were largely increased by the rough, cold weather of the season. Abbot says: "The enterprise upon which Washington had entered was one full of romance, toil, and peril. It required the exercise of constant vigilance and sagacity. Though these wilds may be called pathless still there were here and there narrow trails, which the moccasined foot of the savage had trodden for centuries. They led in a narrow track, scarcely two feet in breadth, through dense thickets, over craggy hills, and along the banks of placid streams or foaming torrents."