Even where roads and bridges were encountered on the way, they were crude, and west of the confines of Georgia, the wilderness was untraversed save by the wild savage, whose slender paths wound the forests through. So far as these pathways were available, they were used, but oftener than otherwise these plucky pioneersmen would have to hack their way through the forests, opening paths as they slowly went. Regarded from this point of time, there was a ludicrousness in these primitive shifts, but men and women were never more serious than were these old-fashioned mothers and fathers. They were the rough germs from which sprang a civilization unsurpassed in its elements in history. Wives, mothers, and daughters, bare-headed or wearing the old fly bonnet, were mounted on poor horses, with children on their laps, or clinging on from behind, while dangling on either side of the burdened beast were packages which contained the most of that which they possessed in this world. In advance, men with axes would rapidly hew away the underbrush for a bare passage, while the bleating herd would follow, driven mostly by the larger boys. The smaller streams were waded, while in order to cross the larger streams, rafts were constructed, the timbers of which were held together by the native vines, while such of the animals as could swim were forced to do so. There was a flow of cheer and jocularity which served as a condiment to hard conditions, and when the camp fires were lighted, the stock fed on the native grasses, and supper was eaten, men chatted and smoked, sang and told jokes, while the industrious wives and daughters would ply their knitting needles. By turns the camp was guarded against possible contingencies for the night, and the next morning the same arduous march would be resumed.