126 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



and was more obscured on the west slope. The road 

 lay over many ridges of hills, all running very nearly 

 northeast and southwest. And therefore it is all the 

 more to be wondered at how most of the brooks and 

 streams of any size go through and across these ridges, 

 having forcibly broken a way towards the sea from 

 West to East, not following the lay of the valleys. We 

 saw only a few smaller books running along the valleys 

 between the ridges. 



Somewhere near Spring-house Tavern, ten miles 

 from Germantown, we unwittingly got out of the 

 straight road to Bethlehem and into a by-road through 

 extensive woods. From time to time we saw farm- 

 houses standing at some distance from the road, and 

 inquiring after a tavern we were directed farther and 

 farther on until at last we had come 19 miles, a hot 

 day, having found no tavern on this unfrequented 

 cross-road. We were obliged finally to turn in at the 

 nearest farm so as to get our horses fed. The owner of 

 the farm, where we alighted without much ceremony, 

 was a German. Our arrival perturbed him no little. 

 There had been very recently several robberies in that 

 neighborhood, which there was every reason to believe 

 had been committed by some Tories scattered about 

 through that country ; for the perpetrators, untimely 

 zealous for the royal cause, had selected only tax- 

 gatherers for their prey, exacting from them, as they 

 said, in this unlawful manner what they had unlawfully 

 exacted from the inhabitants they harmed nobody 

 else. This royalist band of robbers appeared only in 

 disguise and well mounted, but one of them after a 

 pursuit was caught. Nothing could move him to dis- 

 cover his comrades, who by letters scattered about the 



