Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/169

 miles from Pittsburgh. During those two seasons the water rises to such a height, that vessels of three hundred tons, piloted by men who are acquainted with the river, may go down in the greatest safety. The spring season begins at the end of February, and lasts three months; the autumn begins in October, and only lasts till the first of December. In the mean time these two epochs fall sooner or later, as the winter is more or less rainy, or the rivers are a shorter or a longer time thawing. Again, it so happens, that in the course of the summer heavy and incessant rains fall in the Alheghany Mountains, which suddenly swell the Ohio: at that time persons may go down it with the greatest safety; but such circumstances are not always to be depended on.

The banks of the Ohio are high and solid; its current is free from a thousand obstacles that render the navigation of the Mississippi difficult, and often dangerous, when they have not skilful conductors. On the Ohio persons may travel all night without the smallest danger; instead of which, on the Mississippi prudence requires them to stop every evening, at least from the mouth of the Ohio to Naches, a space of nearly seven hundred and fifty miles.

{71} The rapidity of the Ohio's current is extreme in spring; at the same time in this season there is no necessity for rowing. The excessive swiftness it would give, by that means, to the boat would be more dangerous than useful, by turning it out of the current, and running it upon some island or other, where it might get entangled among a heap of dead trees that are half under water, and from which it would be very difficult to extricate them; for which reason they generally go with the current, which is always strong enough to advance with great