228 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



After the capture and abandonment of Fort du Quesne 

 (now Fort Pitt) on the Ohio, these defences were 

 given over. But the establishment of this town was 

 seen to be necessary in order to the easier maintenance 

 of communication with the new conquered frontiers, 

 and particularly as an encouragement and convenience 

 to the people settled in these mountains. The place is 

 quite surrounded with hills and mountains. The ele- 

 vation of its site makes the weather often somewhat 

 cool, although the latitude is almost the same as that 

 of Philadelphia. The 2nd of September, the day after 

 our arrival, it was so cold that fires could not be dis- 

 pensed with. In the morning the thermometer stood 

 at 42 degrees Fahrenheit. Heavy hoar-frost these 

 mornings covered all low and shaded spots, and people 

 claimed to have seen ice and even snow on the mount- 

 ains. All cucumbers and melons were frozen in the 

 gardens. And yet the week before, the heat was so 

 excessive that clothes were burdensome. But the 

 country is healthy and supports no Doctor, because the 

 people are not often sick ; and they are sick less be- 

 cause they have no Doctor. Just now there prevails 

 an uneasy wonderment in the neighborhood. Two 

 young girls at a mill, in a spot made swampy by the 

 new mill-dam, were attacked with the cold fever or 

 ague, a malady hitherto unheard-of here. People came 

 from a distance to see this wonder. 



The town of Bedford and the country around do not 

 yet produce what is necessary to pay for their wants. 

 Hunting must supply the rest ; skins and furs, which 

 their guns bring in, are all they have to send to market. 

 And on account of the distance and the badness of 

 the roads the people are kept from taking up more 



