I 
BLUE MOUNTAIN'S,, 211 
burghs there was no difficulty in riding across, 
yet when I got upon the opposite banks I ob-* 
served great quantities of weeds hanging upon 
the trees, considerably above my head though 
on horseback, evidently left there by a flood. 
^This flood happened in the preceding Septem¬ 
ber, when the waters rose fifteen feet above 
their usual level. 
A few miles from Lynchburgh, towards the 
Blue Mountains, is a small town called New 
London, in which there is a magazine, and also 
an armory erected during the war. About fif¬ 
teen men were here employed, as I passed 
through, repairing bid arms and furbishing up 
others; and indeed, from the slovenly manner 
in which they keep their arms, I should imagine 
that the same number must be constantly em¬ 
ployed all the year round. At one end of the 
room lay the musquets, to the amount of about 
five thousand, all together in a large heap, and 
at the opposite end lay a pile of leathern ac¬ 
coutrements, absolutely rotting for want of 
common attention. AH the armories through¬ 
out the United States are kept much in the same 
style. 
Between this place and the Blue Mountains 
the country is rough and hilly, and but very 
thinly inhabited. The few inhabitants, how¬ 
ever, met with here, are uncommonly robust 
and tall; it is rare to see a man amongst them 
