Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/144

 *served the quercus banisteri. From Carlisle to Shippensburgh the country continues mountainous, and is not much inhabited, being also barren and uncultivated.

We found but very few huts upon the road, and those, from their miserable picture, clearly announced that their inhabitants were in but a wretched state; as from every appearance of their approaching {34} harvest it could only afford them a scanty subsistence.

The coach stopped at an inn called the General Washington, at Shippensburgh, kept by one Colonel Ripey, whose character is that of being very obliging to all travellers that may happen to stop at his house on their tour to the western countries. Shippensburgh has scarcely seventy houses in it. The chief of its trade is dealing in corn and flour. When I left this place, a barrel of flour, weighing ninety-six pounds, was worth five piastres.

From Shippensburgh to Pittsburgh the distance is about an hundred and seventy miles.[12] The stages going no farther, a person must either travel the remainder of the road on foot, or purchase horses. There are always some to be disposed of; but the natives, taking advantage of travellers thus situated, make them pay more than double their value; and when you arrive at Pittsburgh, on your return, you can only sell them for one half of what they cost. I could have wished, for the sake of economy, to travel the rest of the way on foot, but from the obser-*