FROM PHILADELPHIA 133 



wide-lying plain, known by the name of the Great 

 Swamp, which covered the whole region once, but the 

 greatest part of it is now made into good meadow- 

 land. However the low situation causes overflowings 

 in the fall and the spring, and the inhabitants therefore 

 find it more profitable to cultivate summer crops than 

 winter crops, winter seedings often being heaved out 

 of the soil and ruined. 



Quaker-town ; a small place, probably twelve houses 

 standing together which are inhabited for the most part 

 by English and German Quakers, like the whole neigh- 

 borhood. Here the host paid for tavern license, and 

 perhaps five acres of land, 12 Pd. taxes Pensylv. Current. 

 He had very little to give and so much the more to 

 ask. We were not a moment free of his curiosity ; 

 unceasingly busy he inquired now of us, now of our 

 servants, what our designs were in going this journey. 

 It so happened that from all the answers he received he 

 could make nothing whatever, and we were the less 

 inclined to satisfy his curiosity, since he himself from 

 ignorance let all our questions go unanswered which 

 we put regarding the state of affairs in his region. 



From this Quaker colony we came again (August 8th) 

 into a rough, hilly country, full of fragments of the 

 hard, blue stone already mentioned, and rode for a good 

 many miles through untilled land and wild forest. 

 Here and there in the midst of woods (but very rarely) 

 we came upon little spots of ploughed ground, the 

 settlers mainly Germans. Thus without knowing it we 

 passed through Philipps-thal and Richards-town, 

 there being no such places and these designations to be 

 referred either to districts or to cabins. Six miles from 

 Quaker-town we arrived at a little village of 10-12 



