Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (Vol 1 1904).djvu/253

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
1758]
Post's Journals
247

evil reports, and only carried the agreeable news, which was pleasing to all that heard it. Now, brethren, I beg of you to do the same, and to drop all evil reports, which you may have heard of bad people, and only to observe and keep what you have heard of our rulers, and the wise people, so that all your young men, women and children, may rejoice at our coming to them, and may have the benefit of it."

They took it very kindly. After awhile they spoke in the following manner to us, and said, "Brethren, when you come to Kushkushking, you must not mind the prisoners, and have nothing to do with them. Mr. Post, when he was first there, listened too much to the prisoners; the Indians were almost mad with him for it, and would have confined him for it; for, they said, he had wrote something of them."

As we were hunting for our horses, we found Thomas Hickman's horse dead, which rolled yesterday down the hill. At one o'clock we came to the Alleghenny, to an old Shawano town, situated under a high hill on the east, opposite an island of about one hundred acres, very rich land, well timbered.[1] We looked for a place to cross the river, but in vain; we then went smartly to work, and made a raft; we cut the wood, and carried it to the water side, The wolves and owls made a great noise in the night.

13th.—We got up early, and boiled some chocolate
————

  1. When he parted from Captain Haslett, Post left the regular westward Indian trail to the Forks of the Ohio. In order to avoid Fort Duquesne, and to reach the Indian towns beyond the Allegheny, he followed a northward branch of the same that led down the Loyalhanna and Kiskiminitas creeks. The Indian town at the mouth of Kiskiminitas Creek had always been insignificant, lying between Kittanning on the north, and Shannopin's Town on the south.—Ed