On the morning of the 20th of September, I went to the Coach-Office in Philadelphia to take my seat. Such is the number of travellers that I found it necessary to take out a ticket two days previously.
The mail-coach is a large clumsy vehicle, carrying twelve passengers. It is greatly encumbered by large bags, which are enormously swollen by the bulk of newspapers. As a substitute for glass windows, a large roll of leather is let down on each side in bad weather.
During the greater part of the day our route was through a part of the country of a clayey soil, moderately fertile, and of a flat insipid surface. Late in the afternoon, we passed some land of a finer mould, and more elegant structure, with fruit trees bending under their load. The Indian {42} corn is nearly ripe, and is a great crop this year. The stalks are generally about eight feet high. The people have been picking the leaves off this sort of crop, and setting them up between the rows in conical bunches, to be preserved as winter food for the cattle.
We passed several family waggons moving westward. The young and the strong walking, the aged and infants riding. Waggons for removing families, and those fo carrying goods to Pittsburg, have a canvass cover, stretched over hoops that pass from one side of the waggon to the other, in the form of an arch. The front is left open, to give the passengers within the vehicle the benefit of a free circulation of cool air.
Lancaster is a large town, well known for the manufac-*
- [Footnote: *ton and Philadelphia to Pittsburg. John Melish's map in Morris Birkbeck,
Letters from Illinois (Philadelphia, 1818), does not give the Cumberland Road, although it outlines the old Northwestern turnpike from Cumberland to Parkersburg, West Virginia. Almost all English travelers passed westward over the Pennsylvania Road, which was two hundred and ninety-four miles in length, according to Melish, Traveller's Directory, p. 69.—Ed.]
