by an interval of several fathoms. This little town is bounded by a long hill, nearly two hundred fathoms high, the base of which is not more than two hundred fathoms from the river. In this space the houses are built, forming but one street, in the middle of which is the main road, which follows the windings of the river for a distance of more than two hundred miles. From fifteen to twenty large {81} shops, well stocked, supply the inhabitants twenty miles round with provisions. This little town also shares in the export trade that is carried on at Pittsburgh with the western country. Numbers of the merchants at Philadelphia prefer sending their goods there, although the journey is a day longer: but this trifling inconvenience is well compensated by the advantage gained in avoiding the long winding which the Ohio makes on leaving Pittsburgh, where the numerous shallows and the slow movement of the stream, in summer time, retard the navigation.
We passed the night at Wheeling with Captain Reymer, who keeps the sign of the Waggon, and takes in boarders at the rate of two piastres a-week. The accommodation, on the whole, is very comfortable, provisions in that part of the country being remarkably cheap. A dozen fowls could be bought for one piastre, and a hundred weight of flour was then only worth a piastre and a half.
{82} CHAP. IX
Departure from Wheeling for Marietta.—Aspect of the Banks of the Ohio.—Nature of the Forests.—Extraordinary size of several kinds of Trees.
On the 18th of July in the morning we purchased a canoe, twenty-four feet long, eighteen inches wide, and
