went down the western rivers at this time.]

Donelson's flotilla, after being joined by a number of other boats,
especially at the mouth of the Clinch, consisted of some thirty craft,
all told--flat-boats, dug-outs, and canoes. There were probably two or
three hundred people, perhaps many more, in the company; among them, as
the journal records, "James Robertson's lady and children," the latter
to the number of five. The chief boat, the flag-ship of the flotilla,
was the _Adventure_, a great scow, in which there were over thirty men,
besides the families of some of them.

They embarked at Holston, Long Island, on December 22d, but falling
water and heavy frosts detained them two months, and the voyage did not
really begin until they left Cloud Creek on February 27, 1780. The first
ten days were uneventful. The Adventure spent an afternoon and night on
a shoal, until the water fortunately rose, and, all the men getting out,
the clumsy scow was floated off. Another boat was driven on the point of
an island and sunk, her crew being nearly drowned; whereupon the rest of
the flotilla put to shore, the sunken boat was raised and bailed out,
and most of her cargo recovered. At one landing-place a man went out to
hunt, and got lost, not being taken up again for three days, though
"many guns were fired to fetch him in," and the four-pounder on the
Adventure was discharged for the same purpose. A negro became "much
frosted in his feet and legs, of which he died." Where the river was
wide a strong wind and high sea forced the whole flotilla to lay to, for
the sake of the smaller craft. This happened on March 7th, just before
coming to the uppermost Chickamauga town; and that night, the wife of
one Ephraim Peyton, who had himself gone with Robertson, overland, was
delivered of a child. She was in a boat whose owner was named Jonathan
Jennings.

The next morning they soon came to an Indian village on the south shore.
The Indians made signs of friendliness, and two men started toward them
in a canoe which the _Adventure_ had in tow, while the flotilla drew up
on the opposite side of the river. But a half-breed and some Indians
jumping into a pirogue paddled out to meet the two messengers and
advised them to return to their comrades, which they did. Several canoes
then came off from the shore to the flotilla. The Indians who were in
them seemed friendly and were pleased with the presents they received;
but while these were being di