3[ournep from ptulaoelpina to Charleston 



Pensgltmma 



^TjTT was towards the end of November when with 

 II the purpose of visiting the southern colonies, I 

 left Philadelphia for the second time. I had in- 

 tended making the journey thence by sea, in one of the 

 regular packet-boats to Charleston ; and it was not so 

 much the commonly disagreeable and often tedious 

 voyage at this late season of the year, as the advice of 

 several estimable men and their representations of the 

 manifold advantages, the great pleasure and instruction 

 to be had from a land- journey that determined me in 

 this course. I concluded therefore to take the so-called 

 1 back road ' from Philadelphia, by Lancaster and 

 thence along the mountains through Virginia to North 

 Carolina, on which route I could hope to find much that 

 was remarkable. But the roads of those parts getting 

 worse with the approach of winter, I was obliged to 

 leave them and travel along the coast. And unfortu- 

 nately, at this dead season, I did not find the hoped-for 

 compensation for the long way which, in the spring or 

 the summer, must have afforded at every step useful 

 and pleasant entertainment. 



Going from Philadelphia one passes the Schuylkill, 

 at the middle ferry, by a floating bridge consisting of 

 great logs joined together by cramp-irons. In order 

 that the bridge may rise and fall with the ebb and flow 

 of the water, there have been fixed at suitable distances 



