[15] See note on Shippensburg in Post’s Journals, vol. i of this series, p. 238, note 76.—Ed.
[16] Chambersburgh is a thriving town, capital of Franklin co., Pennsylvania, 162 miles east of Pittsburgh, the mail route, and 11 beyond the Big Cove mountain. The Philadelphia and Baltimore mail stages meet here, the former three times a week, the latter twice a week, this circumstance, with other advantages, makes it a tolerable lively place. It contains about 250 houses, has two paper mills, a grist mill in the town, and several others within a short distance, all turned by a spring which heads about two miles from the town. An original bank has been lately established here, with a capital of a quarter of a million of dollars, Edward Crawford, president, A. Colhoun, cashier. Two weekly papers are published here, one of which is German. It has a number of mercantile houses, and taverns in plenty, some of which are well kept, and principally by Germans. The stage-master here is a Mr. Davis, formerly of M’Connellstown—He is well spoken of for his attention and politeness to passengers, a very necessary qualification for a stage-master.—Cramer.
[17] In the New York Medical Repository, vol. 5, page 343-4, we find the following curious facts concerning the mode of generation in the American bear.
“The singular departure from the common course of nature in the procreation of the opossum and the shark, are already known; but the manner in which the fœtus is matured by the female bear is not so generally understood. The following information was given to Mr. Franklin, senator of the United States from North Carolina, by the hunters. This animal hybernates, and, during the winter, retires to hollow trees and caverns, but does not become torpid, or sink into the sleeping state. Though found often in great numbers on the frontier settlements, and frequently killed and eaten by the inhabitants, there has never been an instance of a female killed in a pregnant condition, or big with young. The reason is, that almost immediately after conception, the fœtus, while shapeless, and resembling merely a small animated lump, is excluded from the womb. Thus born, and exposed to the open air, it has no connection with the teat like the opossum, nor with an egg like the shark. There is no trace of a placenta nor umbilical vessels. The growth of this rudiment of a future bear is supposed to be promoted by licking; and the saliva of the dam, or some other fluid from her mouth, appears to afford it nourishment. In the course of time, and under such management, the limbs and organs are evolved, the surface covered with hair, and the young cub at length rendered capable of attending its parent. Thus far the inquiries of the hunters have gone. The facts are so curious, that the subject is highly worthy of further investigation. And when the entire history of the process of generation in this animal shall be known, new light will be shed upon one of the most obscure parts of physiology. It is to be hoped that gentlemen whose opportunities are favourable to the prosecution of this inquiry, will furnish the learned world shortly with the whole of these mysterious phenomena.”—Cramer.
CHAPTER V
Another traveller—The middle mountain—Fannetsburgh—Good effect of hunger in destroying fastidiousness—Tuscarora mountain and fine view—Ramsey’s—Change my mode of travelling—Hull’s—Fall from my horse—Sideling hill—Coyle’s good tavern—Curious scene at another tavern—Ray’s hill—River Juniata—Bloody run—Bedford.
On the morning of the 27th January, I took leave of my friendly host Skinner, and passing his brothers about a mile distant, I was joined by another pedestrian traveller, who had left Strasburgh that morning, and had stopped here to rest previous to ascending the middle mountain. He walked on stoutly, and I limped after him, my foot paining me very much. He was a plain countryman from Downpatrick in the north of Ireland, who had formerly {40} resided near Carlisle, from whence he had removed to the western part of the state, where his health having suffered through a general debility, he had returned two hundred miles to his former residence for medical aid, had remained there since the fall under a course of medicine and diet, and his health being now re-established, he was again going to the western country.
When on the top of the middle mountain about two miles from Skinner’s, our eyes were regaled with a charming birds-eye view of some fine cultivated farms in Path valley just below us, with the village of Fannetsburgh of thirty houses in the midst, watered by a fine mill stream called the Conogocheaque in its southerly course towards the Potomack.
The scenery here reminded me of some of the vales of Switzerland, but appetite for breakfast urging me on towards the village below, I did not bestow much time in contemplating it.
I now proved that “hunger is a good sauce,” for I made a hearty meal at M’Callum’s, spite of a dirty room, a sickly woman, and bad tea, which last even when good, I disapprove of, especially for breakfast, but having always had coffee hitherto, without ordering it, I had neglected doing so now, and I was too hungry and too scrupulous of giving trouble to direct or await a change. This was the second sickly landlady I had seen amongst these mountains, which has impressed me with an idea, that the air is too keen and trying for delicate constitutions.