SOURCE OF §T. Peter's river. 25 



the traveller in the most favourable manner. The freshness 

 of the vegetation is peculiarly grateful to the eye in the com- 

 mencement of May, and contrasts beautifully with the 

 deep blue of the distant mountains. At times the road winds 

 along the valley; and again, it crosses the ridges, offering 

 the greatest variety of scenery and affording to the artist 

 many views worthy of his pencil ; for while the bottoms 

 abound in rich and smiling prospects, the mountainous 

 parts arrest the attention, by their bold and gigantic fea- 

 tures, and by the antique forests which cover them. 



The season in which we commenced our journey, was 

 not very favourable to the proper display of vegetation. 

 The frost had not yet subsided in the mountainous dis- 

 tricts, and the very heavy rains which had fallen in great 

 abundance this spring, had retarded all the products of the 

 earth to an unusual degree, but the fine blossoms of the dog- 

 wood tree, ( Cornus Jlorida,) which every where met the 

 eye, amply compensated for a want of other flowers. 



Art has done little to add to the charms of the natural 

 scenery, except in the construction of a road. The question 

 of the propriety of opening, at the national expense, a com- 

 munication between the Ohio and Potomac, had been so 

 much the subject of discussion, as to make us desirous of 

 observing the mode in which it had been executed, and the 

 too favourable idea, which we are, perhaps, always led to 

 form, of what carries with it a national character, together 

 with an account of the immense expenditure incurred in 

 the making of this road, had prepared us for a magnificent 

 work. We were therefore somewhat disappointed at the 

 state in which we found it, as it is very inferior in execu- 

 tion to the Maryland road, which connects with it. There is 

 in the whole of the national road but little to justify the high 

 eulogiums which have been passed upon it. The immense 



Vol. I. 4 



