I remember with pleasure the evening when I first saw the great fertile valley after we came through Ashby’s Gap in the Blue Ridge. The snows were still melting, and on this account the streams were high and the roads the worst that could ever be seen, even in Virginia. The greatness of the trees I remember, and my surprise that the Indians should have so much good invention in their names, as when they called the river of the valley the Shen-an-do-ah――that is, the Daughter of the Stars; but why so named I never knew. In this great vale were the best of Lord Fairfax’s lands. Near to where this stream joins the Potomac were many clearings, of which we had to make surveys and insist on his lordship’s ownership. Here were no hardships, and much pleasure in the pursuit of game, especially wild turkeys. I learned to cook, and how to make a bivouac comfortable, and many things which are part of the education of the woods. Only four nights did I sleep in a bed, and then had more small company than I liked to entertain. I copy here as it was wrote by me, a lad of sixteen, what we saw on a Wednesday. It might have been better spelled. At evening we were agreeably surprised by ye sight of thirty odd Indians coming from war with only one scalp. We gave them some liquor, which, elevating their spirits, put them in ye humour of dancing. They seat themselves around a great fire, and one leaps up as if out of a sleep, and runs and jumps about ye ring in a most comicle manner; afterward others. Then begins there musicians to play and to beat a pot half full of water, with a deer-skin tied tight over it, and a gourd with some shott in it to rattle, and piece of a horse tail tied to it to make it look fine. The Dutch, then of late come in from Pennsylvania, I found an uncouth people, who, having squatted, as we say, on lands not their own, hoped to acquire cheap titles. They were merry and full of antic tricks. I talked with some by an interpreter and heard them say they cared not who were the masters, French or English, if only they were let to farm their lands. This amazed me, who was brought up to despise the French as frog-eating folk, and, indeed, this indifference of the Dutch became a matter of concern when we had a war with the French. After one night in a Dutch cabin I liked better a bearskin and the open air, for it was not to my taste to lie down on straw――very populous――or on a skin with a man, wife, and squalling babies, like dogs and cats, and to cast lots who should be nearest the fire.