Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/70

 The travelling on these roads in every direction is truly astonishing, even at this inclement season, but in the spring and fall, I am informed that it is beyond all conception.

Apropos of travelling—A European, who had not experienced it, could form no proper idea of the manner of it in this country. The travellers are, wagonners, carrying produce to, and bringing back foreign goods from the different shipping ports on the shores of the Atlantick, particularly Philadelphia and Baltimore;—Packers with from one to twenty horses, selling or trucking their wares through the country;—Countrymen, sometimes alone, sometimes in large companies, carrying salt from M'Connelstown, and other points of navigation on the Potomack and Susquehannah, for the curing of their beef, pork, venison, &c.;—Families removing further back into the country, some with cows, oxen, horses, sheep, and hogs, and all their farming implements and domestick utensils, and some without; some with wagons, some with carts and some on foot, according to their abilities:—The residue, who made use of the best accommodations on the roads, are country merchants, {47} judges and lawyers attending the courts, members of the legislature, and the better class of settlers removing back. All the first four descriptions carry provisions for themselves and horses, live most miserably, and wrapped in blankets, occupy the floor of the bar rooms of the taverns where they stop each night, which the landlords give them the use of, with as much wood as they choose to burn, in consideration of the money they pay them for whiskey, of which they drink great quantities, expending foolishly, for that which poisons them, as much money as would render them comfortable otherwise.—So far do they carry this mania for whiskey, that to procure it, they in the most niggardly manner deny themselves even the necessaries of life; and, as I was informed by my landlord Fleming, an observing and rational