addle, another upon it, and a pair of saddle-bags,
with a great coat and an umbrella strapped behind.

In this manner, says Mr. Birkbeck, even women, and those of advanced
age, often take long journeys without inconvenience. The day before he
left Pittsburgh, he was told of a lady who was coming from Tenessee to
Pittsburgh, twelve hundred miles; and, although she had with her an
infant, she preferred travelling on horseback to boating up the river.

Seventeen miles of the ride from Pittsburgh on to _Cannonsburg_, was
chiefly over clayey hills, well adapted for grass; but, in the present
circumstances of the country, too stiff for profitable cultivation under
the plough. From Cannonsburg to _Washington_, in Pennsylvania, eight
miles, is a very desirable tract, containing much excellent land, with
fine meadows.

Washington is a pretty, thriving town, which contains about two thousand
five hundred inhabitants. It has a college, with about a hundred
students; but, from the dirty condition of the schools, and the
loitering habits of the young men, Mr. Birkbeck suspected it to be an
ill-regulated institution.

From Washington, Mr. Birkbeck and his family proceeded still westward,
and, on entering the _State of Ohio_, they found themselves in a country
beautiful and fertile, and affording, to a plain, industrious, and
thriving population, all that nature has decreed for the comfort of man.
It contains rich land, good water, wholesome air; limestone, coal,
mills, and navigation. It is also fully appropriated, and thickly
settled; and land is worth from twenty to thirty dollars per acre: an
advance of a thousand per cent. in about ten years!

A heavy fall of wet had rendered the roads muddy and unpleasant. On the
10th of June, the party arrived at _Wheeling_, a considerable but
mean-looking town, of inns and stores, on the banks of the Ohio. Here
they baited their horses, and took a repast of bread and milk. At this
place the Ohio is divided into two channels, of five hundred yards each,
by an island of three hundred acres.

Between Wheeling and St. Clairsville, they had sundry foaming creeks to
ford; and sundry log-bridges to pass, which are a sort of commutation of
danger. They had also a very muddy road, over hills of clay; and thunder
and rain during nearly the whole of this their first stage: such
thunder, and such rain, as they had heard of, but had seldom witnessed
in England.

They were detained some days at _St.