g is before me, the village where she lived is
still called "French Catharine's Town."]

[Footnote 16: Journal of Zinzendorf, quoted in Schweinitz, _Life of
David Zeisberger, 112, note_.]

After leaving Muskingum, Gist, Croghan, and Montour went together to a
village on White Woman's Creek,--so called from one Mary Harris, who
lived here. She was born in New England, was made prisoner when a child
forty years before, and had since dwelt among her captors, finding such
comfort as she might in an Indian husband and a family of young
half-breeds. "She still remembers," says Gist, "that they used to be
very religious in New England, and wonders how white men can be so
wicked as she has seen them in these woods." He and his companions now
journeyed southwestward to the Shawanoe town at the mouth of the
Scioto, where they found a reception very different from that which had
awaited Celoron. Thence they rode northwestward along the forest path
that led to Pickawillany, the Indian town on the upper waters of the
Great Miami. Gist was delighted with the country; and reported to his
employers that "it is fine, rich, level land, well timbered with large
walnut, ash, sugar trees and cherry trees; well watered with a great
number of little streams and rivulets; full of beautiful natural
meadows, with wild rye, blue-grass, and clover, and abounding with
turkeys, deer, elks, and most sorts of game, particularly buffaloes,
thirty or forty of which are frequently seen in one meadow." A little
farther west, on the plains of the Wabash and the Illinois, he would
have found them by thousands.

They crossed the Miami on a raft, their horses swimming after them; and
were met on landing by a crowd of warriors, who, after smoking with
them, escorted them to the neighboring town, where they were greeted by
a fusillade of welcome. "We entered with English colors before us, and
were kindly received by their king, who invited us into his own house
and set our colors upon the top of it; then all the white men and
traders that were there came and welcomed us." This "king" was Old
Britain, or La Demoiselle. Great were the changes here since Celeron, a
year and a half before, had vainly enticed him to change his abode, and
dwell in the shadow of the fleur-de-lis. The town had grown to four
hundred families, or about two thousand souls; and the English traders
had built for themselves and their hosts a fort of pickets, strengthened
with logs.

The