Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/99

 that river, the country has become {75} populous, and many thriving towns have been erected throughout the whole country south of lake Erie, not only in Pennsylvania, but in the adjoining new state of Ohio, which latter has been settled in that tract, by emigrants from the state of Connecticut,[46] to whom Pittsburgh is indebted for a good supply of cheese[47] not inferior to English.

The navigation of the Allegheny is easy for boats called keels from fifty to seventy feet long, sharp at both ends, drawing little water, carrying a good burthen, and calculated to be set against the stream, so as to surmount it from eight to twenty miles a day in proportion to the strength of the current operating against them. The water of this river is uncommonly clear, occasioned by its gravelly bottom and the rapidity of its current; and the fish are harder, firmer, and more delicious, than those caught in the Monongahela, which rising in the Laurel mountain in Virginia, pursues a northern course about two hundred miles, (the last half of which is through a rich and populous country) until it unites with the Allegheny at Pittsburgh. Flowing generally through a more level country than the Allegheny, its current {76} is much more placid, but its waters are always muddy, from which circumstance it derives its name, which in the Indian dialect signifies muddy from the mouldering in of banks. Both it and the Alleghany abound in fish, of which