Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/105

 the eye. A little below the point, a charmingly situated farm on the right exciting our inquiry, {80} we were informed that it was squire Ways. The squire however, was badly lodged, if he had no better house than the small log hovel we saw on the bank. Deadman's island a little below is small, covered with aquatick shrubs and plants, and so low, that it must always be inundated in moderate risings of the river, which is not here more than a hundred and fifty yards wide, and in general not exceeding two hundred. The banks on each side abound with partridges whose responsive calls are continually heard, interrupted by the buzz of multitudes of large horse flies, which probably attracted by the odour of our provisions, seemed much more pleased with our boat than we were with them.

Eight miles below Middletown, we passed Logstown on the left: This is a scattering hamlet, of four or five log cabins, in the neighbourhood of which, on the opposite side of the river, a considerable tribe of Indians resided, until after the reduction of Fort Du Quesne, now Pittsburgh, by general Forbes in 1758.[54]

From Logstown a mile and a half to Crow's island which is small, the banks are very pleasant, rising gradually from the water's edge, and having a fine bottom on the right. Here we met two large keel boats loaded with cotton in bales, from Nashville in Tennessee bound to Pittsburgh, out twenty-six days. They had nine men in each—one steering, six poling, and two resting.

Half a mile from hence on the right, is a good log house with a sign of a white horse, kept by James Knox; in passing, it, a young woman answered several questions we asked her very civilly; which I mention as a rare circumstance, as the inhabitants of the banks of the Ohio, have too generally