It was in the month of March, in the year 1748, when George Washington, with an Indian guide and a few white attendants, commenced the survey. The crests of the mountains were still whitened with ice and snow. Chilling blasts swept the plains. The streams were swollen into torrents by the spring rains. The Indians, however, whose hunting parties ranged these forests, were at that time friendly. Still there were vagrant bands, wandering here and there, ever ready to kill and plunder. 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 uncounted 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. The heroic boy must have found, in these scenes of solitude, beauty, and grandeur, some hours of exquisite enjoyment. In a sunny spring morning he would glide down some placid river, in the birch canoe, through enchanting scenery, the banks fringed with bloom and verdure. There were towering mountains, from whose eminences, the eye embraced as magnificent a region of lake and forest, river and plain, as this globe can anywhere present. It was generally necessary to camp out at night, wherever darkness might overtake them. With their axes a rude cabin was easily constructed, roofed with bark, which afforded a comfortable shelter from wind and rain. The forest presented an ample supply of game. Delicious brook trout were easily taken from the streams. Exercise and fresh air gave appetite. With a roaring fire crackling before the camp, illumining the forest far and wide, the adventurers cooked their supper, and ate it with a relish which the pampered guests in lordly banqueting halls have seldom experienced. Their sleep was probably more sweet than was ever found on beds of down. Occasionally the party would find shelter for the night in the wigwam of the friendly Indian. Strange must have been the emotions which at times agitated the bosom of this pensive, reflective, heroic boy, as at midnight, far away from the haunts of civilization, in the wigwam of the savage, he listened to the wailings of the storm, interrupted only by the melancholy cry of the night bird, and the howl of wolves and other unknown beasts of prey. By the flickering light of the wigwam fire, he saw, sharing his couch, the dusky forms of the Indian hunter, his squaw, and his pappooses. Upon one or two occasions they found the lonely cabin of some bold frontiersmen, who had plunged into the wilderness, and who was living at but one remove above the condition of the savage. From the journal which he kept we make the following extract, under date of March 15, 1748. He is describing a night at an emigrant’s cabin.