Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/162

 With candour towards the American name, I must state, that much of the credulity recently hinted at, appears to be chargeable on people from Germany and Ireland, and their descendants. Methodists are also said to be true believers. It is at least certain, that the journal of their great apostle, Lorenzo Dow, is replete with paragraphs not dictated by the strictest accuracy.[77]

{131} February 7. To-day I left Cincinnati, on my way for Jeffersonville, at the falls of the Ohio. The boat in which I proceeded is a flat ark, loaded with flour and pork, for New Orleans. There are five such boats in company, all belonging to the same owner, who accompanies them. The wind has been south-westerly, and the thermometer, exposed to the sunshine, (which is but dim) stood at 60°. The warm weather, of late, has been uniformly attended by wind blowing up the river, importing, as it were, the air of a more southern latitude.

The flower buds of the water-maple, the elm, and the leaves of the weeping willow, are burst out, and the grass has become green. Dr. Drake, the describer of this western country, has stated the usual time of the flowering of the water-maple at a month later. It is to be feared that this early vegetation will be checked by subsequent frosts. Fruit trees, in that event, may be rendered unproductive for the ensuing season.

We put ashore, at night, twenty-three miles from Cincinnati. Gusts of wind, and a dark, clouded atmosphere,