Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/15



We devote the fourth volume of our series of Western Travels to the reprint of Fortescue Cuming's Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country—the tour having been made in 1807-1809, the publication itself issuing from a Pittsburg press in 1810.

Of Cuming himself, we have no information save such as is gleaned from his book. He appears to have been an Englishman of culture and refinement, who had travelled extensively in other lands—notably the West Indies, France, Switzerland, and Italy. It is certain that he journeyed to good purpose, with an intelligent, open mind, free from local prejudices, and with trained habits of observation. Cuming was what one may call a good traveller—he endured the inconveniences, annoyances, and vicissitudes of the road, especially in a new and rough country, with equanimity and philosophic patience, deliberately making the best of each day's happenings, thus proving himself an experienced and agreeable man of the world.

The journeys narrated were taken during two succeeding years. The first, in January, 1807, was a pedestrian tour from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. Arriving in the latter city on the second of February, after twenty-seven days upon the road, the remainder of the winter, the spring, and the early summer were passed at Pittsburg. On the eighteenth of July following, our traveller took boat from Pittsburg, and made his way down the Ohio to the Kentucky entrepôt at Maysville—where he arrived the thirtieth of the month. Mounting a horse, he made a brief trip through Kentucky as far as Lexington and Frankfort, returning to Maysville