On the eve of his return to England [from SC], however, he [Alexander Cuming] decided to make a rapid excursion into the back-country and the mountains. With tourist enterprise he crowded this journey of nearly a thousand miles by rough trading-paths into a single month (March 13 to April 13, 1730). To the Congarees and beyond he was escorted by Colonel Chicken and the surveyor, George Hunter. 58 [Note 58 On this journey Hunter revised Herbert's map of the Cherokee country, and the route thither. This map, with itinerary, is in the Library of Congress.] But their pace was too slow, and the impatient Briton hurried on to Keowee and engaged a trader, Ludovick Grant, as his guide. Sir Alexander was a member of the Royal Society, and he seems to have set out as a scientific explorer rather than a political agent, searching for minerals, especially iron-stone, medicinal herbs, and the 'natural curiosities' of the land. Before he reached the first Cherokee town he had gathered so many specimens that his 'intent in going up to the Cherokee Mountains was more than answered by the Discoveries already made.'