128

A HORSE-FERRY RAFT.

spouse some ten or twelve miles farther on to another house of entertainment.

I crossed to an island opposite to Wheeling, by a horse-ferry raft. The poor blinded animals walked on a horizontal tread-mill, which communicated with paddles. The steersman and driver were two of the most eye-gouging, whisky-drinking, nose-biting looking villains I ever beheld. After taking a survey of some farms, I embarked in a small steamer, the Swan, to go a few miles up the river to Wellsville: the banks became more picturesque as we advanced, and every thing combined to add a charm to the scene. It was the Indian summer, and the temperature was bland and the sky bright, except an occasional redness and haziness in the horizon. The noble sycamores and beeches threw their shadows into la belle riviere, and their polished stems were often entwined with the bright red leaves of a wild vine.

I was surprised to see that still so little wood had been cleared. For miles we sailed by varied hills and rich bottoms, without seeing a house. A few solitary taverns were pointed out which had been the scenes of deeds of violence and rapine. The keelmen, in descending the river, were enticed to land at these, a quarrel was got up, which ended in a fight. The boatmen were often stabbed and put out of the way, and their keel seized and carried down to New Orleans by the tavern gang, as I before mentioned as occur

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ring on the Mississippi. It was a saying, that a Virginian inn was not safe if the landlord had lost his ears in a fight, and it was therefore necessary always to examine mine host previous to taking up one's quarters with him.

On the banks of Ohio are found fanatics possessed with the wildest possible conceits; their leaders are as often rogues as fools, and impose on the weak and ignorant, in order to turn the delusions, which they originate, to their own pecuniary advantage. The Mormonists gave rise to a good deal of conversation in the West last year. The origin and progress of this new sect, were shortly this: some idle people had been mis-spending their time in digging up money, but in their re searches, they, as usual, stumbled on nothing more valuable than stones and earth. To them by invitation, Ringdon, a preacher of Ohio, joined himself, who pretended to dream of hidden treasures, and the party set to work with renewed hopes. To one of them it was revealed in a vision, that in a certain hill there was deposited an iron chest, containing golden leaves of a new Bible, called the Book of Mormon; and after a time, the rest gave out that they had discovered what was pointed out" in a vision of the night." A translation was forthwith made of the mysterious work, a rhapsody in scriptural language, and a multitude joined the Mormonists. Husbands forsook their wives, and parents their children, to become disciples. Farms were sold, and stores

130

RAPP'S SETTLEMENTS.

shut up to obtain the means of accompanying the elect into the wilderness. An island of the Mississippi received a number of these deluded people, where, in waiting to be fed like Elijah, with ravens, or with manna from heaven, they died of disease and hunger.

The settlements of Mr. Rapp (a German) on the Ohio, are well worthy of being visited. He is at present residing at Beaver. This gentleman understands colonization so thoroughly, that he will

go with his countrymen into a howling wilderness, and in five years the desert, under his directions, will be flourishing "like a green bay tree." Handsome houses will be found, elegant churches, stores filled with goods, hotels, museums, and, above all, fields in a high state of cultivation. How is this miracle brought about? simply by combination. Mr. Rapp's followers bind themselves to labour for a common interest, and on a particular plan, and after a certain time divide a common purse, they are then independent. As a contrast to this, the English settlement of Mr. Birkbeck, in Indiana, may be cited. He himself, poor man, is now dead, having been upset in a canoe, and drowned in a creek, and those who followed him to the New World, (many of them with considerable sums of money,) are now almost all ruined and scattered. The cause of all this was, that there was no combination among our countrymen, and, following the same system of agriculture as is usual in Eng

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land, each trying to act independently, they realised the fable of the bundle of sticks, and were broken separately.

I had a chronometer in South America, but I did not think it necessary to take it to the United States, to verify the positions of the junctions of streams, &c.; besides, from the way in which I travelled, alone, without a servant, and deprived of conveniences, it would have been impossible to carry with me a chronometer, or delicate instrument for taking observations. Tenant's maps seem to give the most correct positions of the junctions of streams and the situations of the towns and villages.

If the traveller turns off at Wheeling or Pittsburgh, and proceeds to the eastward, there is little except the passes of the Alleghany mountains that can be particularly recommended to his notice their height, direction, scenery, and flora, are all interesting. But it is better worth the traveller's while to push for Upper Canada in the first place, and take the Eastern States on his return. If he be on the Ohio in the fall, this plan will extend his limits considerably, render him independent of the winter, and lead him along a less beaten tract.

At Stubenville there was a fleet of "broad horns," floating shops, containing fruit and flour, and keel boats loaded with produce. On one of the latter there was a specimen of a boatman who afforded a good deal of amusement; in his hands

132

WELLSVILLE-A SCOTCH COLONY,

were two tin drinking cups, and ever and anon he went to a barrel of whisky in the stern-sheets of his craft, and took a dose with one tin, and dipped the other into the river, making what is called midshipman's grog in his stomach. He looked at us, and said, with a swaggering drunken air," I suppose you think I'm a hoeback (clown) because I'm on a keel, and have not got a good coat on; I'm a real tar, and by G-d I'll whip (thrash) any body with a good coat on ;" and then he took another horn. The Americans are not so particular about the make of the coat as the fineness of the cloth, and I remarked that they thought very little of those who did not "turn out" in superfine.

The captain of the Swan wanted to leave us at Stubenville, and there was a little fight in consequence; but we carried our point, and went on to Wellsville, and scrambled through the mud to the inn. Every bed was doubly full, and I slept on the floor at the door of a closet, out of which two young women came, and stepped over me in the morning.

In the neighbourhood of Wellsville, (as yet but a straggling village,) there is a numerous Scotch colony. I saw several of my countrymen, and was delighted to hear my native tongue in this far-off land, to answer eager enquiries regarding the happy state of old Caledonia, and to talk of scenes for ever dearly cherished, and held in fond remembrance by the self-exiled. It was impossible to listen without strong emotion to the