picked up one-quarter of a mile from the boat, in a corn field, every bone in his body was broken, and its fall to the earth made a hole in the ground, eighteen inches deep. How high he went in the air can only be conjectured, but we may safely say it was out of sight. Several were seen to fall in the middle of the river, who never reached the shore. The dead and dying were gathered up and carried to the houses nearest at hand. The inhabitants of the shore had gathered for three miles up and down the river—all classes and ages were seen pulling pieces of the wreck and struggling persons to the shore= Two girls or half-grown women passed by me walking slowly upon the pebbled shore, gazing into the water, when some distance from me, I saw one of them rush into the water up to her arm-pits and drag something to the shore. I hastened to the spot, and the girls passed on toward the wreck. Several men were carrying the apparently lifeless body of a man upon a board in the direction of the half-way castle, a place of deposit for the dead and dying. His identity was ascertained by some papers taken from his pocket, it was—Don Carlo—the "Hero of Shirt-Tail Bend."

SCENE THIRD—THE SEPARATED SISTERS.

On the stream of human nature's blood,

Are ups and downs in every shape and form,

Some sail gently on a rising flood,

And some are wrecked in a tearful storm.

Tom Fairfield was descended from one of the best families in Virginia. Yet he was animated by what we may call a restless spirit. He ran away from home at twelve years of age, and came to Kentucky with a family of emigrants, who settled near Boone Station, in 1791. Kentucky, until after Wayne's treaty, in 1795, was continually exposed to incursions from the Indians; yet, before Tom's day of manhood, the bloody contest between the white and the red men had terminated on the virgin soil of the new-born State—Kentucky was admitted into the Union in 1792. Yet the heroic struggles with the Indians by the early settlers were fresh in the memories of all. Prior to the settlement of Kentucky by white men, the Southern and Northwestern tribes of Indians were in the habit of hunting here as upon neutral ground. No wigwam had been erected, but it was claimed by all as a hunting ground. The frequent and fierce conflicts that occurred upon the meeting of the Indian tribes, together with conflicts with white men, caused the Indians first to call Kentucky "The dark and bloody ground." At no point on the American Continent had the hatred between the two races risen to a higher point. Long after the peace between England and America, and the close of the war of American Independence, the conflict between the white and red men in Kentucky was a war of extermination. The quiet cabin of the white man was frequently entered, under cover of night, by some roving band of Indians, and women and children tomahawked in cold blood. White men when taken by them, whether in the field at work, or behind a tree, watching their opportunity to shoot an Indian, were taken off to their towns in Ohio and burned at the stake, or tortured to death in a most cruel manner. No wonder the early settler in Kentucky swore eternal vengeance against the Indian who crossed his path, whether in peace or war. In a land where the white woman has cleaved the skull of the red warrior with an ax, who attempted to enter her cabin rifle in hand, from whence all but her had fled—who shall refuse to remember the heroines of the early settlers, and the historic name of the dark and bloody ground.

When Tom Fairfield arrived at manhood, the golden wing of peace was spread over the new-born State, from the Cumberland Mountains to the Ohio river.

A tract of land embracing a beautiful undulating surface, with a black and fertile soil, the forest growth of which is black walnut, cherry, honey locust, buckeye, pawpaw, sugar maple, elm, ash, hawthorn, coffee-tree and yellow poplar, entwined with grape vines of large size, which has been denominated the garden of Kentucky.

Many of the phrases, familiar to our grandfathers, have become obsolete, such as latch-string, bee-crossing, hunting-shirt, log-rolling, hominy-block, pack-horse and pack-saddle.

While many of their customs have been entirely forgotten, or never known, by the present generation, a history of some of the events of the time cannot fail to be interesting.

Tom had learned to read and write in Virginia, and this accomplishment frequently gave him employment, for many of the early settlers were glad to pay him for his assistance in this line of business, and it suited Tom to change his place of abode and character of employment. He was industrious, but never firm in his purpose, frequently commencing an enterprise, but always ready to abandon it in the middle.

Socially he was a great favorite at all wedding-parties, and weddings were of frequent occurrence about this time.

For while Kentucky was over-run with Indians the female portion of families were slow to immigrate to the scene of such bloody strife, and many of the early planters were young men, who found themselves bachelors for the want of female association. But with the influx of population now taking place, females largely predominated.

A wedding in Kentucky at that time was a day of rejoicing, and the young men in hearing distance all considered themselves invited. A fine dinner or supper was always prepared; of wine they had none, but distilling corn whisky was among the first industries of Kentucky, and at every wedding there was a custom called running for the bottle, which was of course a bottle of whisky.

The father of the bride, or some male acquaintance at the house of the bride—about one hour previous to the time announced for the ceremony—would stand on the door-step with the bottle in his hand, ready to deliver it to the first young man that approached him. At the appointed time the young men of the neighborhood would rendezvous at a point agreed upon, and when all were ready and the word go given, the race for the bottle, on fine horses, to the number of fifteen or twenty, was amusing and highly exciting. Tom had the good fortune to be the owner of a fleet horse—to own a fine horse and saddle was ever the pride and ambition of the young Kentuckian—and he won many bottles; but the end proved that it was bad instead of good luck, for Tom subsequently became too fond of the bottle.

Tom was young and hopeful, far away from his kindred, and he also married the daughter of an Englishman, who was not so fortunate as to be the owner of any portion of the virgin soil, but distinguished himself as a fine gardener, and all the inheritance Tom received with his wife was a cart-load of gourds.

You laugh, but you must remember that a few pewter plates and cob-handle knives was all that adorned the cupboards of some of our fathers, and gourds of different size made useful vessels. Coffee was not much in use, and in the dawn of the Revolution a party of brave Americans had thrown a ship-load of tea into the sea.

Tom, like many of the young planters, built a cabin upon a tract of land, under the Henderson claim, as purchased from the Cherokee Indians, which claim was subsequently set aside by the State of Virginia.

Tom, as we have said, was of a restless disposition, and from a planter he turned to be a boatman. Leaving his family at home in their cabin, he engaged to make a trip to Fort Washington (Cincinnati, then a village) on a keel-boat, descending the Kentucky and ascending the Ohio rivers. On this trip he first beheld the stupendous precipices on the Kentucky river, where the banks in many places are three hundred feet high, of solid limestone, and the beautiful country at he mouth of the