FROM CARLISLE TO THE OHIO 241 



Many deserted cabins stand by the way, the people not 

 yet returned, having fled from the Indians. The 

 country continues hilly and rough, but the hills are but 

 low and wavy ; the landscape somewhat more open and 

 not at all unpleasing; the soil almost everywhere very 

 good. The Laurel-hill passed, everything takes on a 

 better and more fertile aspect, in comparison with the 

 land on the east side of the mountains. An observa- 

 tion which strikes everyone coming thence. 



We took breakfast at a house where several children 

 lay very ill of a malignant pox ; this year the disease 

 has raged in these parts and carried off many young 

 people. Thence 10 miles along the ridge of a barren 

 hill, without seeing a cabin ; but there are several in 

 the valleys. On account of the dryness the road has 

 been carried along the ridges, and here, as often else- 

 where, is very tedious for being so dry and monoto- 

 nous ; scarcely a flower even is to be seen. Descending 

 a steep mountain we came to 



Turkey Creek Settlement, in a fine but narrow valley. 

 Our host here, as often happens in the mountains, gave 

 our horses unthreshed oats in bundles ; in this way 

 there is a saving of trouble, the horses indeed losing 

 a little but not the host. There are a good many houses 

 here. Again up a steep mountain, and seven miles 

 through nothing but woods. The last three miles the 

 country was a little more settled. Sundry brooks are 

 to be crossed, named according to their distance from 

 Fort Pitt, as Six-Mile, Four-Mile, and Two-Mile 

 Branch. From the last the road lay along the Alle- 

 ghany river. It was already dusk, but the sky was 

 clear, and the landscape open and charming ; to which 

 contributed no little the prospect of a beautiful stream, 

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