Travels in America Performed in 1806: For the Purpose of Exploring the Rivers Alleghany, Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi, and Ascertaining the Produce and Condition of Their Banks and Vicinity, Volume 1

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Page 3 - Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts With unaffected grace, or walk the plain With innocence and meditation join'd In soft assemblage, listen to my song, Which thy own Season paints ; when Nature all Is blooming and benevolent, like thee.
Page 103 - I have heard another ask for a rifle-gun, and be answered that there were no rifles, but that he could be accommodated with the best Dutch looking-glasses and German flutes in the western country. Another was directed by his wife to bring her a warming-pan, smoothingirons, and scrubbing-brushes : but these were denied ; and a wooden cuckoo-clock, which the children would not take a week to demolish, was sent home in their stead. I could not help smiling at these absurdities...
Page 91 - ... bodies exposed to the sun and air ; but they soon had reason to repent of this, for the remaining droves, as they came up in succession, stopped, gazed on the mangled and putrid bodies, sorrowfully moaned or furiously lowed aloud, and returned instantly to the wilderness in an...
Page 215 - ... attitude among panthers and wolves. The shock received by the Kentuckian, and the want of breath, brought him instantly to the ground. The Virginian never lost his hold, like those bats of the South who never quit the subject on which they fasten till they taste blood, he kept his knees in his enemy's body; fixing his claws in his hair, and his thumbs on his eyes, gave them an instantaneous start from their sockets. The sufferer roared aloud, but uttered no complaint. The citizens again shouted...
Page 76 - ... on river sides,) and by a tradition, said to be handed down from the aboriginal Indians, that when they settled in a town, the first person who died was placed erect, and earth put about him, so as to cover and support him; and that when another died, a narrow passage was dug to the first, the second reclined against him, and the cover of earth replaced, and so on.
Page 90 - At that period he supposed there could not have been less than ten thousand in the neighborhood of the spring. They sought for no manner of food ; but only bathed and drank three or four times a day. and rolled in the earth ; or reposed, with their flanks distended, in the adjacent shades; and on the fifth...
Page 136 - beyond all competition, the most beautiful river in the universe, whether we consider it for its meandering course through an immense region of forests, for its clean and elegant banks, which afford innumerable delightful situations for cities, villages and improved farms: or for those many other advantages, which truly entitle it to the name originally given it by the French, of La Belle Riviere.
Page 100 - These storekeepers are obliged to keep every article which it is possible that the farmer and manufacturer may want. Each of their shops exhibits a complete medley; a magazine where are to be had both a needle and...
Page 32 - Ohio, and on the point of land formed by the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers.
Page 9 - The heavenly vault appeared to be all on fire :. not exhibiting the stream or character of the aurora-borealis ; but an immensity vivid and clear, through which the stars, detached from' the firmament, traversed in eccentric directions, followed by trains of light of diversified magnitude and brightness, Many meteors rose majestically out of the horizon : and having gradually attained an elevation of thirty degrees, suddenly burst; and descended to the earth in a shower of brilliant sparks, or glittering...

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