THE JOURNAL 



872. PITTSBURGH, June 3. Arrived here with a friend as 

 travelling companion, by the mail stage from Philadelphia, after 

 a journey of six days ; having set out on the 28th May. We were 

 much pleased with the face of the country, the greatest part of 

 which was new to me. The route, as far as Lancaster, lay through 

 a rich and fertile country, well cultivated by good, settled pro 

 prietors ; the road excellent : smooth as the smoothest in England, 

 and hard as those made by the cruel corvtes in France. The 

 country finer, but the road not always so good, all the way from 

 Lancaster, by Little York, to Chambersburgh ; after which it 

 changes for mountains and poverty, except in timber. Chambers- 

 burgh is situated on the North West side of that fine valley which 

 lies between the South and North Mountains, and which extends 

 from beyond the North East boundary of Pennsylvania to nearly 

 the South West extremity of North Carolina, and which has 

 limestone for its bottom and rich and fertile soil, and beauty upon 

 the face of it, from one end to the other. The ridges of mountains 

 called the Allegany, and forming the highest land in North 

 America between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, begin here and 

 extend across our route nearly 100 miles, or, rather, three days, 

 for it was no less than half the journey to travel over them ; they 

 rise one above the other as we proceed Westward, till we reach 

 the Allegany, the last and most lofty of all, from which we have 

 a view to the West farther than the eye can carry. I can say 

 nothing in commendation of the road over these mountains, but 

 I must admire the drivers, and their excellent horses. The road 

 is every thing that is bad, but the skill of the drivers, and the well 

 constructed vehicles, and the capital old English horses, overcome 

 every thing. We were rather singularly fortunate in not breaking 

 down or upsetting ; I certainly should not have been surprized 

 if the whole thing, horses and all, had gone off the road and been 

 dashed to pieces. A new road is making, however, and when that 

 is completed, the journey will be shorter in point of time, just one 

 half. A fine even country we get into immediately on descending 

 the Allegany, with very little appearance of unevenness or of 

 barrenness all the way to Pittsburgh ; the evidence of good 

 land in the crops, and the country beautified by a various mixture 

 of woods and fields. 



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