Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/142

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streams. Some of them do not extend above five or six acres at most, and still they are as lofty as the surrounding hills. Their irregularity, and the singular forms that they present, render this situation picturesque and truly remarkable, more especially at that season of the year, when the trees were in full vegetation.

About a mile from Susquehannah I observed an annona triloba, the fruit of which is tolerably good, although insipid. When arrived at maturity it is nearly the size of a common egg. According to the testimony of Mr. Mulhenberg this shrub grows in the environs of Philadelphia.

About twelve miles from Columbia is a little town called York, the houses of which are not so straggling as many others, and are principally built with brick. The inhabitants are computed to be upward of eighteen hundred, most of them of German origin, and none speak English. About six miles from York we passed through Dover, composed of twenty or thirty log-houses, erected here and there. The stage stopped at the house of one M'Logan, who keeps a miserable inn fifteen miles from York.[10] That day we travelled only thirty or forty miles.

Inns are very numerous in the United States, and {32} especially in the little towns; yet almost everywhere, except in the principal towns, they are very bad, notwithstanding rum, brandy, and whiskey[11] are in plenty. In