Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 12).djvu/83

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ON BRADDOCK'S ROAD
79

told that cattle were pasturing near by. We dined from delicate china, had good knives, good forks, spoons, and other utensils. Our hostess, a bright, handsome, healthy woman, waited upon us. After dinner, a charming feminine guest arrived on horseback; a young girl from the neighboring farm, of perhaps 15 years of age, with such bashful eyes and such rosy cheeks, so lovely and attractive in manner that even Coopley, our good mathematician, could not restrain his admiration.

"This is the 'backwoods' of America, which the Philadelphian is pleased to describe as a rough wilderness—while in many parts of Europe, in Westphalia, in the whole of Hungary and Poland, nowhere, is there a cottage to be found, which, taking all things together in consideration of the inhabitant, can be compared with the one of which I have just written.

"Four miles from this we reached the Glades, one of the most remarkable features of these mountains and this land. These are broad stretches of land of many thousand acres, covered with dense forests;