Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/160

 who keeps a respectable inn. What pleased me most was my having accomplished my journey, as I began to be fatigued with travelling over so mountainous a country; for during an extent of about a hundred and eighty miles, which I had travelled almost entirely on foot, I do not think I walked fifty fathoms without either ascending or descending.

{58} CHAP. VI

Description of Pittsburgh.—Commerce of the Town and adjacent Countries with New Orleans.—Construction of large Vessels.—Description of the Rivers Monongahela and Alleghany.—Towns situated on their Banks.—Agriculture.—Maple Sugar.

Pittsburgh is situated at the conflux of the rivers Monongahela and Alleghany, the uniting of which forms the Ohio. The even soil upon which it is built is not more than forty or fifty acres in extent. It is in the form of an angle, the three sides of which are enclosed either by the bed of the two rivers or by stupendous mountains. The houses are principally brick, they are computed to be about four hundred, most of which are built upon the Monongahela; that side is considered the most commercial part of the town. As a great number of the houses are separated from each other by large spaces, the {59} whole surface of the angle is completely taken up. On the summit of the angle the French built Fort Duquesne, which is now entirely destroyed, and nothing more is seen than the vestige of the ditches that surrounded it.[20]