Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/33



8th January 1807, I left Philadelphia on foot, accompanying a wagon which carried my baggage. I preferred this mode of travelling for several reasons. Not being pressed for time I wished to see as much of the country as possible; the roads were in fine order, and I had no incentive to make me desirous of reaching any point of my intended journey before my baggage. With respect to expence, there was little difference in my travelling in this manner, or on horseback, or in the stage, had I been unincumbered with baggage; for the delay on the road, awaiting the slow pace of a loaded wagon, which is not quite three miles an hour, and not exceeding twenty-six miles on a winter's day, will occasion as great expence to a traveller in a distance exceeding two such days' journey, as the same distance performed otherwise in less than half the time, including the charge of horse or stage hire.

The first object which struck me on the road, was the new bridge over the Schuylkill which does honour to its inventor for its originality of architecture, and its excellence of mechanism. There are two piers, the westernmost of which is a work perhaps unexampled in hydraulick architecture, from the depth to which it is sunk; the rock on which it stands being forty-one feet nine inches below common [10] high tides. Both piers were built within cofferdams: the design