Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/183

 *out a servant, he did not at first attract my attention. In the United States, those who are called by the wish of their fellow-citizens to exercise these important functions do not change their dress, continue dwelling in their own houses, {92} and live like private individuals, without showing more ostentation, or incurring more expense. The emoluments attached to this office varies in every state; that of South Carolina, one of the richest of the union, gives its governor 4280 piastres, while the Governor of Kentucky receives no more than twelve or fifteen hundred. The inhabitants of the State of Ohio are divided in opinion concerning the political conduct of General St. Clair. With respect to talents, he has the reputation of being a better lawyer than a soldier.

On the eve of my departure I met a Frenchman at Marietta, who is settled on the banks of the Great Muskingum, about twenty miles from the town. I regretted much my inability to accept the invitation that he gave me to go and see him at his plantation, which would have given me time to make more extensive observations in that part of the Western Country.

On the 21st of July we set out from Marietta for Gallipoli, which is a distance of about a hundred miles. We reached there after having been four days on the water. The inhabitants of the country, by putting off from the shore in the night time, would have made that passage in two days and a half {93} or three days. According to the calculation that we made, the mean force of the stream was about a mile and a half an hour; it is hardly to be perceived in those parts where the water is very deep; but as you get nearer the isles, which, as I have said before, are very numerous, the bed of the river diminishes in depth, so that frequently there is not a foot of water out of