Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/135

 bags; the jolting over stones, and through miry holes, is excessively disagreeable: and the traveller's head is sometimes knocked against the roof with much violence. A large piece of leather is let down over each side, to keep out the mud thrown up by the wheels. The front was the only opening, but as the driver and two other persons occupied it, those behind them were almost in total darkness. A peep at the country was not to be obtained.

Millersburg is a very small town, with several large grist-mills and a bank.

To-day I have seen a number of young women on horseback, with packages of wool, going to, or returning from, the carding machine. At some of the houses the loom stands under a small porch by the door. Although Miss does not wear the produce of her own hands, it is pleasant to see such abundant evidence of family manufacture.

I lodged at Paris, the head town of Bourbon county. A cotton-mill, and some grist-mills, are the manufactories of the place. The population is considerable. Several of the taverns are large, and, like many of the others in the western country, {105} have bells on the house-tops, which are rung at meals.

A traveller has just returned from attending the sales of public lands in the Missouri country.—They are exposed by auction, in quarter sections of 160 acres each. A considerable part of them sold at from three to six dollars per acre. Lots, not sold at auction, may be subsequently bought at the land-office for two dollars per acre, on paying half a dollar in ready money, and the remainder within five years. Land dealers are very vigilant in securing for themselves great quantities of the best land. It is not uncommon for reconnoitring parties