“July 14th. We proceeded [from Albany] to Schenectady to breakfast, fifteen miles, Beale’s tavern; a good house. A new turnpike is making from Albany to this place; it is constructed in a very durable manner, with a pavement covered with hard gravel. That part which is completed is now an excellent road; the remainder will soon be equally good. It was not disagreeable to us to be informed that this road, and indeed all the other turnpikes, and most other recent works which we met with, which required uncommon ingenuity or labor, were constructed by Yankees.

“Schenectady seems not to be a word fitted to common organs of speech. We heard it pronounced Snacketady, Snackedy, Ksnackidy, Ksnactady, Snackendy, and Snackady, which last is much the most common. To Ballston, Bromeling’s, sixteen miles; a most excellent house. We found here about forty guests, but understood there were upwards of two hundred at Aldrich’s, McMasters’s, and the other boarding-houses near. Bromeling himself has accommodations in the first style for one hundred and thirty persons.

“We met with but few people here from Massachusetts. Mr. Henry Higginson and his wife, Mr. Bingham, the bookseller, and his family, were all we knew. The mineral water was not agreeable to us all upon the first experiment; but with others, and myself in particular, it was otherwise. It is remarkably clear and transparent; the fixed air, which is continually escaping from it, gives it a sparkling appearance, and a lively and full taste, not unlike to that of brisk porter or champagne wine, while one is actually drinking.... We slept at Beals’s. July 17th, we took the western stage in company with a Mr. Row, a gentleman from Virginia, who was about to engage in trade at Geneva, on the Seneca Lake. We crossed over to the north side of the Mohawk soon after setting out, to Schwartz’s (still in Schenectady), a poor house, seven miles; thence to Pride’s in Amsterdam, nine miles. Pride’s is a handsome limestone house, built about fifty years since, as we were informed, by Sir William Johnson, for his son-in-law, Guy Johnson.... To Abel’s in Amsterdam, situated on Trapp’s Hill, opposite to the mouth of Schoharie River and the old Fort Hunter, to dine. The prospect to the south-west is extensive and romantic, exhibits an agreeable mixture of hills and plains, diversified with extensive forests almost in a state of nature, and cultivated fields scarce less extensive, now covered with a rich harvest of ripening wheat. The prospect was the principal thing which we found in this place to recommend it. The tavern is a poor one, and our dinner of course was miserable. Four miles to Shepard’s, in Canajoharie, to sleep.... The Mohawk in many places was shoal, and interrupted with so many islands and sand-banks that we were often at a loss to conceive how loaded boats could pass, and yet we saw several going up-stream with heavy loads.... July 18th. To Carr’s at Little Falls, to breakfast, twenty miles; a very good house. In this stage, we passed the East Canada Creek. Observed for the very first time the cypress-tree. The gloomy, melancholy air of this tree, and the deep shade which it casts, resulting from the downward direction of its branches, as well as the form and color of its leaves, have very properly marked it out as emblematical of mourning.

“On approaching the Little Falls, we observed undoubted marks of the operation of the water on rocks, now far out of their reach, particularly the round holes worn out [by] pebbles kept in a rotatory motion by the current, so common at all falls. It is certain that heretofore the falls must have been some ways further down stream, and have been much greater than they now are, and that the German flats, and other low grounds near the river above, must have been the bed of a lake. The falls occupy about half a mile. In some spots, the river is so crowded between rocks, that one might almost pass across it; in most places, however, it is broken into a number of streams by irregular masses of limestone rock. There is here a commodious canal for the passage of boats cut round these falls. The whole fall is fifty-four feet; and there are five locks, in each of which the fall is ten feet, besides the guard-lock, where it is four. The locks are constructed of hewn stone, and are of excellent workmanship; they are almost exactly upon the construction of those at the head of Middlesex canal. Most of the buildings in the neighborhood, as well as two beautiful bridges over the canal here, are also of limestone. Carr and his wife are from Albany, and are agreeable and genteel people.

“To Trowbridge’s Hotel, in Utica, to dine. The house is of brick, large, commodious, and well attended. We found good fare here; in particular, excellent wine. From Little Falls to this is twenty-two miles. In this stage, we passed the German flats, an extensive and well-cultivated tract of internal land on both sides the Mohawk. The town of German Flats is on the south of the town of Herkimer, opposite thereto, on the north side of the river. Notwithstanding the celebrity of this spot for the excellence of its soil, we thought it not equal to that on Connecticut River. Having passed the West Canada Creek, the hills on both sides the river seem to subside, and open to the view an extensive and almost unbounded tract of level and fertile country, though of a much newer aspect than any we had seen before.

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“At Utica, we passed over to the southern side of the Mohawk. The river here is about the size of the Nashua, and from this place bends off to the north-west. We happened to pass the bridge as a batteau was coming up to a store at the end of it, to discharge its cargo. The water was so shoal that the batteau grounded before it could be brought to its proper place. A pair of horses were attached to its bows, and it was not without the assistance of several men, added to the strength of the horses, that it was got up to the landing-place at last.

“Morality and religion do not seem to have much hold of the minds of people in this region. Instances of rudeness and profanity are to be met with in almost every place, but the people engaged in unloading the batteau were much more extravagantly and unnecessarily profane than is common. Several persons also, whom I saw at Little Falls this morning, told me that they knew full well that Adam could not have been the first man, or that he must have lived much longer ago than the Scriptures declare, because they said it must be more than five thousand years for the Mohawk to have broken through the rocks, as it has done at those falls.