farther advanced in arts and civilization than the present Indian in that region,[1]—a people who, we may well suppose, were the ancestors of the Mexicans. Yet we see at this time little more than log-houses belonging to miserable tenants of white people. All the sugar used by the people here is obtained from the maple tree. Fossil coal is found along the banks. There is a creek pouring forth Petroleum, about one hundred miles from Pittsburg on the Alleghany, called Oil Creek, which will blaze on the application of a [20] match. This is not uncommon in countries abounding in bituminous coal. Nitre is found wherever there are suitable caves and caverns for its collection. The people here are rather boisterous in their manners, and intemperate in their habits, by what we saw and heard, more so than on the other side of the river where slavery is prohibited. Indeed slavery carries a black moral mark with it visible on those whose skins are naturally of a different colour; and Mr. Jefferson's opinion on the influence of slavery on the whites, justifies our remark.[2]
We stopped one day and night at the flourishing town of Cincinnati, the largest city in the Western country, although laid out so recently as 1788.[3] It is twenty miles above the mouth of the Great Miami, and four hundred and sixty-five miles below Pittsburg. It appears to great advantage from the river, the ground inclining gradually to the water. Three of us had an evidence of that by a mischievous trick for which we deserved punishment. We were staring about
- ↑ For a more extended description of Marietta and its antiquities, consult Cuming's Tour, in our volume iv, pp. 123-125. The mounds are now believed to be the work of North American Indians; consult Cyrus Thomas, "Mound Explorations," in U.S Bureau of Ethnology Report, 1890-91.—Ed
- ↑ Referring to Jefferson's account of the degradation of masters under the régime of slavery, in Notes on Virginia (original edition, 1784), pp. 298-301.—Ed.
- ↑ For the early history of this city, see Cuming's Tour, our volume iv, p. 256, note 166.—Ed.
