acquired a habit, of either not deigning an answer to the interrogatories of the numerous river travellers, or of giving them a short and boorish one, or of turning {81} their questions into ridicule; which proceeds from the impertinent manner in which they are generally hailed and addressed by the people in the boats.
Two miles lower we passed a good house and a saw-mill in a beautiful rural situation on the left bank, and here we met a decent looking man, polling a skiff against the current: He was going to Pittsburgh and had come upwards of twenty miles since morning.
At half past four in the afternoon we were abreast of Big Beaver creek or river on the right, five miles below the saw mill. It empties through a level, and is about fifty yards wide at its mouth, with a gentle current.
Some boys on the beach mischievously misinformed us respecting the proper landing, to the town of Beaver, which is but a little way beyond the creek, instead of which we rowed a mile lower down, and then had to set our skiff across a bar, which extends above a mile in front of the right bank. After landing, we had to climb a precipice to a log cabin, on the top and edge of the cliff, near two hundred feet above the surface of the river: Here we got directions for our path, and after a walk of half a mile, we reached the town of Beaver.
It stands on a stony plain on the top of the high cliff which conceals it from the river, and contains about thirty indifferent houses, much scattered, on three parallel streets. There is a stone gaol not quite finished, which was the only publick building we noticed.[55] The inhabitants not finding water at a convenient depth, have, in preference to digging very deep wells, led it by wooden pipes from a hill near a mile
