®8 0 TRAVELS THROUGH NORTH AMERICA 
of which having decayed,, great intervals are 
left, wherein the wheels of the carriage were 
sometimes locked so fast that the horses alone 
could not possibly extricate them. To have 
remained in the carriage over this part of the 
road would really have been a severe punish¬ 
ment; for although boasted of as being the 
very best in Albany; it had no sort of springs; 
and was in fact little better than a common 
waggon ; we therefore alighted; took our guns, 
and amused ourselves with shooting as we 
walked along through the woods. The woods 
here had a much more majestic appearance 
than any that we had before met with on our 
way from Philadelphia; this, however; was 
owing more to the great height than to the 
thickness. of the trees, for I could not see one 
that appeared more than thirty inches in. dia¬ 
meter ; indeed; in general; the girt of the trees 
i 
in the woods of America is but very small in 
proportion to their height, and trifling in com¬ 
parison of that of the forest trees in Great 
Britain. The thickest tree I ever saw in the 
country was a sycamore, which grew upon the 
bank of the Shenandoah River, just at its 
junction with the Patowmac, in a bed of rich 
earth, close to the water; yet this tree was no 
more than about four feet four inches in dia¬ 
meter. On the low grounds in Kentucky, 
and on some of the bottoms in the western 
