In 1759 the Indians that had adopted Smith journeyed to Canada; and as Canada then belonged to the French, and as the French and Indians were fighting the English, who then owned Pennsylvania, Smith slipped away. Joining the prisoners that were to be sent back to Pennsylvania in exchange for some French the English held, he soon rejoined his family. He was a leader of the "Black Boys," served as lieutenant in General Henry Bouquet's expedition, and witnessed the Indian cruelties to the unfortunate British captives. In July, 1766, he learned that the king's agent, Sir William Johnson, had purchased from the Indians all the land west of the Appalachian Mountains, and between the Ohio and Cherokee (Tennessee) rivers. Having heard the red men tell of this rich land, Colonel James Smith, accompanied by Joshua Horton, Uriah Stone, William Baker, and a mulatto slave of Horton's named Jamie, passed through Cumberland Gap, explored the country south of the Kentucky River, and, striking the Cumberland, passed down its entire length to its junction with the Ohio. They were the first white men to explore southern and southwestern Kentucky, although not the first to visit it, for in 1730 John Salling of Virginia was brought a prisoner by the Cherokee Indians to the Tennessee. After reaching the mouth of the Cumberland, the others separated from Colonel Smith and the mulatto boy. These two were for a long time alone in the wilderness. When they again reached civilization they wore nothing that had been woven; and when they told of their experiences, people could hardly believe that any one could make that journey and live to return. A short distance below the mouth of the Cumberland the town of "Old Smithland" was named in honor of this first white man to explore that region, and later the town was built just at the junction of the Cumberland and Ohio and is now the capital of Livingston County. Smith spent the latter part of his life in Bourbon County, where he was as useful in state councils as he had been in Indian conflicts. THE GRAVEYARD OF THE MAMMOTHS There are many places within the present bounds of Kentucky where animals used to go to lick the ground, in order to secure the salt therein, and these places were therefore called "licks." The most noted of these is in Boone County, and is called Big Bone Lick from the many gigantic bones that have been found there. In 1773, while leading a surveying party, a man by the name of James Douglas, of Virginia, camped for several days at this point. There he found a surface of ten acres entirely without trees or vegetable life of any kind, while scattered around were many bones both of the mastodon and the arctic elephant. The size of these gigantic, prehistoric animals may be conjectured from the descriptions given of the remains.