Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/257

 second rate quality. It is uneven, and intermixed with many deep ravines; in most of which the water is now dried up. The greatest natural disadvantage of this situation is, the difficulty of having roads over ground so much broken; but the industry displayed by the settlers may remedy this before the present generation passeth away. In the above enumeration of Scots, I used the term families for want of a better; but it deserves notice, that two of these establishments consist of two young men each, and one of them of three. Amongst the bachelor cultivators I recognised one of the passengers who came over with me in the ship Glenthorn. Another of them was lately a journeyman tailor in Edinburgh. He has thrown aside the tools of his former business, and taken up, in their stead, a more formidable {225} weapon. I had an opportunity of conversing with five of these people. The supposed horrors of a back-woods life, aggravated by a state of celibacy, has by no means shed a gloom over their countenances. Whatever their privations may be in the mean time, they have at least a reasonable prospect of having them speedily removed. The lands which they improve are their own. Whether they continue to cultivate or to sell them, their capital will increase: and even in the event of their taking wives, the probability of their children becoming paupers must be greatly lessened, in consequence of their emigrating to America. The excessive emigration of the men occasions a considerable paucity of females in all new settlements. While at Pittsburg, I saw a young widower with two infant children on his way for the military lands, in the State of Illinois. Some one hinted to him, that to marry again would be a prudential step on his part. He gave his assent to the truth of the remark, but expressed some doubts of his