Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/119

 course of the day,—a great space, considering the lowness of the water.

On the 17th, we arrived at Portsmouth, a well built town. It has a county court house, a newspaper office, a woollen manufactory, a number of stores, (shops,) and several good taverns. Having resolved on travelling a little way inland from the river, I immediately put my baggage on board a boat for Limestone, in Kentucky, addressed to a commission merchant there. Limestone is fifty-one miles from this place, and four hundred and forty-one miles from Pittsburg, by the river.

It gives me much pleasure to be relieved from the company of boatmen. I have seen nothing in human form so profligate as they are. Accomplished in depravity, their habits and education seem to comprehend every vice. They make few pretensions to moral character; and their swearing is excessive, and perfectly disgusting. Although earning good wages, they are in the most abject poverty; many of them being without any thing like clean or comfortable clothing. I have seen several whose trousers formed the whole of their wardrobe, and whose bodies were scorched to a brown colour by the rays of the sun. They are extremely addicted to drinking. Indeed I have frequently seen them borrowing of one another a few cents to quench their insatiable thirst, and in several instances refusing to repay them. The Scotsman recently alluded to missed a knife. On his accusing them of the theft, a degraded wretch offered to buy the fork.

My next letter will contain the particulars of a journey in the States of Ohio and Kentucky.