About the knoll were out-houses for his numerous servants, black and white, with stables for saddle-horses and hunters, and kennels for his hounds, for his lordship retained his keen hunting propensities, and the neighborhood abounded in game. Indians, half-breeds, and leathern-clad woodsmen loitered about the place, and partook of the abundance of the kitchen. His lordship's table was plentiful but plain, and served in the English fashion.

Here Washington had full opportunity, in the proper seasons, of indulging his fondness for field sports, and once more accompanying his lordship in the chase. The conversation of Lord Fairfax, too, was full of interest and instruction to an inexperienced youth, from his cultivated talents, his literary taste, and his past intercourse with the best society of Europe, and its most distinguished authors. He had brought books, too, with him into the wilderness, and from Washington's diary we find that during his sojourn here he was diligently reading the history of England, and the essays of the Spectator.

Such was Greenway Court in these its palmy days. We visited it recently and found it tottering to its fall, mouldering in the midst of a magnificent country, where nature still flourishes in full luxuriance and beauty.

Three or four years were thus passed by Washington, the greater part of the time beyond the Blue Ridge, but occasionally with his brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon. His rugged and toilsome expeditions in the mountains, among rude scenes and rough people, inured him to hardships, and made him apt at expedients; while his intercourse with his cultivated brother, and with the various members of the Fairfax family, had a happy effect in toning up his mind and manners, and counteracting the careless and self-indulgent habitudes of the wilderness.

CHAPTER V.

ENGLISH AND FRENCH CLAIMS TO THE OHIO VALLEY--WILD STATE OF THE COUNTRY-- PROJECTS OF SETTLEMENTS--THE OHIO COMPANY--ENLIGHTENED VIEWS OF LAWRENCE WASHINGTON--FRENCH RIVALRY--CELERON DE BIENVILLE--HIS SIGNS OF OCCUPATION-- HUGH CRAWFORD--GEORGE CROGHAN, A VETERAN TRADER, AND MONTOUR, HIS INTERPRETER--THEIR MISSION FROM PENNSYLVANIA TO THE OHIO TRIBES-- CHRISTOPHER GIST, THE PIONEER OF THE YADKIN--AGENT OF THE OHIO COMPANY-- HIS EXPEDITION TO THE FRONTIER--REPROBATE TRADERS AT LOGSTOWN--NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE INDIANS--SCENES IN THE OHIO COUNTRY--DIPLOMACY AT PIQUA--KEGS OF BRANDY AND ROLLS OF TOBACCO--GIST'S RETURN ACROSS KENTUCKY--A DESERTED HOME--FRENCH SCHEMES--CAPTAIN JONCAIRE, A DIPLOMAT OF THE WILDERNESS--HIS SPEECH AT LOGSTOWN--THE INDIANS' LAND--"WHERE?"

During the time of Washington's surveying campaigns among the mountains, a grand colonizing scheme had been set on foot, destined to enlist him in hardy enterprises, and in some degree to shape the course of his future fortunes.

The treaty of peace concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle, which had put an end to the general war of Europe, had left undefined the boundaries between the British and French possessions in America; a singular remissness, considering that they had long been a subject in dispute, and a cause of frequent conflicts in the colonies. Immense regions were still claimed by both nations, and each was now eager to forestall the other by getting possession of them, and strengthening its claim by occupancy.