After a stay of six days in Cincinnati I departed; crossed the Ohio in the ferryboat, and landed in the state of Kentucky, at Newport, a small country town of Campbell county. It contains, besides the government arsenal for the western states, a court-house, and about 100 buildings, scattered irregularly upon the eminence. From thence to Bigbonelick, the distance is 23 miles; the country is more hilly than on the other side of the river; it is, however, fertile, the stratum being generally limestone. The growth of timber is very fine; the trees are beech, sugar-maple, and sycamore. The contrast between Ohio and Kentucky is striking, and the baneful influence of slavery is very soon discovered. Instead of elegant farms, orchards, meadows, corn and wheat fields carefully enclosed, you see patches planted with tobacco, the leaves neglected; and instead of well-looking houses, a sort of double cabins, like those inhabited in the north of Pennsylvania by the poorest classes. In one part lives the family, in the other is the kitchen; behind these, are the wretched cabins of the negroes, bearing a resemblance to pigsties, with half a dozen black children playing about them on the ground.
About three o'clock I arrived at Bigbonelick, well known for its Mammoth bones. The lands ten miles on this side of Bigbone are of an indifferent character, dreary and mountainous. The valley of Bigbone is about a mile long, and of equal breadth; it no doubt has been the scene of some great convulsion of nature. The water is seen oozing forth from the many bogs, and has a saltish taste, impregnated with saltpetre and sulphur. These quagmires are covered with a thin grass, which has the same taste. Their depth is said to be unfathomable. Whether the Mammoth bones which are found here, were brought into the valley by a convulsion of the earth, by an inundation, or whether the animals sunk down when in search of food, remains to be decided. The first two suppositions seem authorised by the circumstance, that bones were found, not on their carcases, but scattered, which could not be the case if they were swallowed up alive. The same revolution of nature which carried elephants and palm-trees to Siberia and Lapland, and the lions of Africa to the coast of Gibraltar, may, in like manner, have brought these animals to Bigbonelick. The tradition handed down to us by the Indians respecting them, is remarkable. "In ancient times, it is said, a herd of these tremendous animals came to the Bigbonelicks, and commenced an universal destruction among the buffaloes, bears, and elks, which had been created for the Indians. The Great Spirit looking down from above, became so enraged at the sight, that taking some of his thunderbolts he descended, seated himself on a neighbouring rock which still bears the print of his footsteps, and hurling down the bolts among the destroyers, killed them all with the exception of the big bull, which, turning its front to the bolts, shook them off; but being struck at last in the side, he turned round, and with a tremendous leap bounded over the Ohio, the Wabash, the Illinois, and the great lakes, beyond which he is still living at the present day."