Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/268

 consequence of the surrounding country being more opened, bilious complaints ceased to be so frequent, and it is now considered by the inhabitants as healthy as any town on the river. There is a market house, where is a very good market every Wednesday and Saturday. The court house is a plain two story stone building, with a square roof and small belfry. There are bells here on the roofs of the taverns as in Lexington, to summon the guests to their meals. Great retail business is done here, and much produce is shipped to New Orleans.

May 11.—At four P. M. Mr. Nelson, a pilot, came on board and conducted the boats through the falls, by the Kentucky schute, and in forty-five minutes we moored at Shippingport, where we found commodore Peters's boat and officers, and captain Nevitt's gun boat, all bound to New Orleans in a few days.

{236} Shippingport is a fine harbour, there being no current in it, but the banks are rather low, so as to be inundated at very high floods.

Mr. Berthoud, who has a handsome house here, is connected with Mr. Tarascon of Louisville in one of the finest rope walks in the United States. It is twelve hundred feet long, of which seven hundred and fifty are covered.[171]

A little above the port is a mill wrought by the Ohio, the race being formed by a small bank, which has been cut through purposely.