How exactly truthful Captain Smyth is it is not possible to say. By his account after a few days at the fort he procured a guide and set out for the mountains, regardless of the Indians. He had heard of the Wart Mountain[C] and climbed that eminence for the view which, as he describes it, was an amazing prospect. Doubtless with a map before him he was able to include in his description more than the eye fell upon. “Language fails in attempting to describe this most astonishing and almost unbounded perspective. On the east you could perceive the deep and broken chasms, where the rivers Dan, Mayo, Smith’s, Bannister’s and Stanton direct their courses; some raging in vast torrents and some gliding in silent, gentle meanders. On the north you see the Black Water, a branch of the Stanton; and the break in the mountains where the Fluvannah, a vast branch of the James, passes through. On the northwest you will observe with great astonishment and pleasure the tremendous and abrupt break in the Alegany Mountains, through which the mighty waters of the New River and the Great Kanhawah pass. On the west you can very plainly discover the three forks or branches of the Holston, where they break through the Great Alegany Mountains, and still beyond them you may observe Clinch’s River or Pelisippi. On the south you can see the Dan, the Catawba, the Yadkin and the Haw, breaking through the mighty mountains that appear in confused heaps and piled on each other in every direction.” It is safe to say that Smyth did not see all this. But the description is interesting. Many voyagers to the West must have beheld scenes comparable, with thoughts more or less defined that here was a land for the possessing and a new world indeed. From the Wart Mountain Captain Smyth continued, by way of New River, the branches of the Holston (Stahlnaker’s Settlement on the middle fork), Clinch River and the Warrior’s branch to the Kentucky River. “In five more easy days’ journeys, the particulars of which are not worth relating, we at length arrived at the famed settlement near the mouth of the Kentucky on the 8th day of June, after having traveled at least 490 miles, from the fort on Smith’s River, in nineteen days. I was soon directed to the house of Mr. Henderson, where I found a most hospitable and kind reception.” From that outpost of Virginia Captain Smyth passed down the Ohio to the territories of Spain, along the Gulf coast by water to East Florida, and so to Charleston.[D] _II._ _THOMAS ANBUREY, AND THE CONVENTION ARMY IN VIRGINIA._ _1779._ _Lieutenant Anburey--Progress of the Convention Army--Winter Roads--Charlottesville--Colonel Harvey--The Piedmont Plantation--Roundabout Directions--The Quarter-Race--Richmond--Forest Fire--Barrack Cats._