twelve miles above Skinner's, to a gap in the Blue mountains five miles below, through which the Conodogwinnet flows from its source at the upper end of the valley, which it waters in its whole length of seventeen miles, to join the Susquehannah near Harrisburgh, forty miles distant.
One Wagstaff, formerly an English soldier, who had been wounded and made a prisoner at the battle of Monmouth, and now a farmer near Pittsburgh, and a lad returning home to the same neighbourhood, after assisting to drive a herd of a hundred and fifty hogs to Philadelphia, which had employed him a month, put up here for the night, and I was much amused with the anecdotes of the old soldier and my host, who had also been a soldier on the patriotick side, during the revolutionary war. They had been opposed to each other in several battles, and reminded each other of many incidents which happened at them. My landlord was a politician, but his system of politicks and his general ideas were completely original. Amongst other topicks, Col. Burr's present situation and intentions were discussed, when our host gave it as his decided opinion, that he had secured {39} the friendship and assistance of a warlike and powerful nation of Indians, inhabiting a country on the banks of the Missouri about 1500 miles in circumference, where is the celebrated mountain of salt. That they fought on horseback and were armed with short Spanish caribines; and that with their aid he meant to conquer Mexico, and erect an empire independent of both Spaniards and Americans.
Mrs. Skinner was confined to her bed in an advanced stage of a consumption: I recommended her inhaling the steam of melted rosin and bees-wax, and wrote directions for her accordingly. When I retired to rest, I had once more the luxury of clean sheets and a good bed.
