/ V 



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CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



Greensburg to Philadelphia. Crossing the Alleghany Mountains. Scenery. 

 Absence of Lakes. Harrisburg. African Slave-trade. Railway 

 Meeting at Philadelphia. Borrowing Money for Public Works. Negro 

 Episcopal Clergyman. Washington. National Fair and Protectionist 

 Doctrines. Dog-wood in Virginia. Excursion with Dr. Wyman. Nat 

 ural History. Musk-rats. Migration of Humming-birds to New Jersey. 



April 19, 1846. LEFT Greensburg, intending to cross the 

 Alleghariy Mountains to Harrisburg, and go thence to Philadel 

 phia. We started in the evening in a large stage coach, in which 

 were nine inside passengers, so that our night journey through 

 Youngstown, Stony town, and Shellsburg was fatiguing, and not 

 the less so by our having twice to turn out in the dark, while all 

 the luggage was shifted to a new vehicle. The last of these 

 broke down, one of the wheels having given way, and we had an 

 opportunity of witnessing the resources and ingenuity displayed on 

 such occasions by American travelers. A large bough of a tree 

 was cut off with an ax, and tied on to the axletree with ropes, 

 so as to support the body of the carriage, and in this way we 

 went several miles without inconvenience. During one of the 

 night transfers of our luggage a carpet bag of mine was left be 

 hind, and when I afterward missed it at Philadelphia I wrote to 

 three places to claim it. After five days I found it in my room 

 in the hotel, no one knowing whence it came, and nothing having 

 been paid for it. Before reaching 1 Philadelphia it must have been 

 transferred to three distinct conveyances, including two railways. 

 I may state here a fact highly creditable to the public convey 

 ances in the United States, that I never lost a package in either 

 of my tours, although I sent more than thirty boxes of geological 

 specimens from various places, often far south of the Potomac, 

 and west of the Alleghanies ; some by canals, some by river 

 steamers, others by coaches or railways. Every one of them 

 sooner or later found their way safely to my house in London. 



