SCARCITY OF PROVISIONS.
It froze so very hard now, that in a few minutes our portmanteaus, and such of our garments as had been wetted, were covered with a coat of ice, and our limbs were quite benumbed, in consequence of our having waded so often through the river. Desirous, however, as we were to get to a house, we determined, in the first instance, to dispose of our baggage in a safe place, lest it might be pillaged. A deep hollow that appeared under some fallen trees seemed well adapted for the purpose, and having stowed it there, and covered it with leaves, we advanced forward. There were no traces whatsoever of a path in the woods where we landed, and for upwards of a mile we had to force our way through the bushes along the banks of the river; but at the end of that distance, we hit upon one, which in a short time brought us to a miserable little log house. At this house no accommodation whatsoever was to be had, but we were told, that if we followed the path through the woods for about a mile farther, we should come to a waggon road, upon which we should find another house, where probably we might gain admittance. We reached this house according to the directions we had received; we readily gained admittance into it, and the blaze of an immense wood fire, piled half way up the chimney, soon made us amends for what we had suffered from the inclemency of the weather. The coldness of the air, together with the fatigue which we had gone through in the course of the day, had by this time given a keen edge to our appetites; no sooner therefore had we warmed ourselves than we began to make enquiries about what we could get to satisfy the calls of hunger; but had we asked for a sheep or an ox for supper at an inn in England, the man of the house could not, I verily believe, have been more amazed than was our American landlord at these enquiries: “The women were in bed”—“He knew not where to find the keys”—“He did not believe there was any thing in the pantry”—“Provisions were very scarce in the country”—“If he gave us any there would not be enough for the family in the morning”—Such were his answers to us. However we plied him so closely, and gave him such a pitiable description of our sufferings, that at length he was moved; the keys were found, the pantry opened, and to satisfy the hunger of five hungry young men, two little flour cakes, scarcely as big as a man’s hand each, and about a pint and a half of milk, were brought forth. He vowed he could give us nothing more; his wife would never pardon him if he did not leave enough for their breakfasts in the morning; obliged therefore to remain satisfied, we eat our little pittance, and then laid ourselves down to rest on our skins, which we had brought with us on our shoulders.
SCARCITY OF PROVISIONS.
In the morning we found that the man had really made an accurate report of the state of his pantry. There was barely enough in it for the family, and unable to get a single morsel to eat, we set out for the little house where we had first stopped the preceding night, which was the only one within two or three miles, there hoping to find the inhabitants better provided for: not a bit of bread however was to be had here; but the woman of the house told us, that she had some Indian corn meal, and that if we could wait for an hour or two she would bake a loaf for us. This was most grateful intelligence: we only begged of her to make it large enough, and then set off to search in the interim for our canoes and baggage. At several other places, in going down the Susquehannah, we afterwards found an equal scarcity of provisions with what we did in this neighbourhood. One morning in particular, after having proceeded for about four or five miles in our canoe, we stopped to breakfast; but nothing eatable was there to be had at the first house we went to, except a few potatoes that were roasting before the fire. The people very cheerfully gave us two or three, and told us at the same time, that if we went to some houses at the opposite side of the river we should most probably find better fare: we did so; but here the inhabitants were still more destitute. On asking them where we should be likely to get any thing to eat, an old woman answered, that if we went to a village about four miles lower down the river, we should find a house, she believed, where “they did keep victuals,” an expression so remarkable that I could not help noting it down immediately. We reached this house, and finding it well stocked with provisions of every kind, took care to provide ourselves, not only with what we wanted for immediate use, but also with what we might want on a future occasion, in case we came to any place equally destitute of provisions as those which we had before stopped at; a precaution that was far from proving unnecessary.
But to return. We found our canoes and baggage just as we had left them, and having embarked once more, we made the best of our way down to the house where we had bespoke breakfast, which stood on the banks of the river. The people here were extremely civil; they assisted us in making fresh paddles in lieu of those which we had lost the night before; and for the trifle which we gave them above what they asked us for our breakfasts they were very thankful, a most unusual circumstance in the United States.
SUSQUEHANNAH.
After breakfast we pursued our way for about seven miles down the river, but in the course of this distance we were obliged to get into the water more than a dozen different times, I believe, to drag the canoes over the shoals; in short, by the time we arrived at a house in the afternoon, we were so completely disgusted with our water conveyance, that had we not been able to procure two men, as we did in the neighbourhood, to conduct our canoes to the mouth of Tyoga River, where there was reason to imagine that the water would be found deeper, we should certainly have left them behind us. The men set out at an early hour in the morning, and we proceeded some time afterwards on foot along the banks, but so difficult was the navigation, that we reached Tyoga Point or Lochartzburg, a small town built at the mouth of the river, several hours before them.
On arriving at this place, we heard to our disappointment, that the Susquehannah, although generally at this season of the year navigable for boats drawing four feet water, was now nearly as low as the Tyoga River, so that in many places, particularly at the rapids, there was scarcely sufficient water to float a canoe over the sharp rocks with which the bed of the river abounds; in fine, we were informed that the channel was now intricate and dangerous, and that no person unacquainted with the river could attempt to proceed down it without great risk; we found no difficulty, however, in hiring from amongst the watermen accustomed to ply on the river, a man that was perfectly well acquainted with it; and having exchanged our two canoes, pursuant to his advice, for one of a very large size, capable of holding us all conveniently, we renewed our voyage.
SUSQUEHANNAH.
From Lochartzburgh to Wilkes-barré, or Wyoming, situated on the south-east side of the Susquehannah, the distance is about ninety miles, and when the river is full, and the current of course strong, as is usually the case in the fall and spring of the year, you may go down the whole of this distance in one day; but owing to the lowness of the water we were no less than four days performing the voyage, though we made the utmost expedition possible. In many parts of the river, indeed, we found the current very rapid; at the Falls of Wyalusing, for instance, we were carried down three or four miles in about a quarter of an hour; but in other places, where the river was deep, scarcely any current was perceptible in it, and we were obliged to work our way with paddles. The bed of the river abounds with rock and gravel, and the water is so transparent, that in many parts, where it must have been at least twenty feet deep, the smallest pebble was distinguishable at the bottom. The width of the river varies from fifty to three hundred yards, and scarcely any stream in America has a more irregular course; in some places it runs in a direction diametrically opposite to what it does in others. The country through which this (the eastern) branch of the Susquehannah passes, is extremely uneven and rugged; indeed, from Lochartzburgh till within a short distance of Wilkes-barré, it is bounded the entire way by steep mountains either on the one side or the other. The mountains are never to be met with at both sides of the same part of the river, except it be at places where the river takes a very sudden bend; but wherever you perceive a range of mountains on one side, you are sure to find an extensive plain on the opposite one; scarcely in any part do the mountains extend for more than one mile together on the same side of the river, and in many instances, during the course of one mile, you will perceive more than a dozen different changes of the mountains from one side to the other. It may readily be imagined, from this description of the eastern branch of the Susquehannah, that the scenery along it must be very fine; and, indeed, I think there is no river in America that abounds with such a variety and number of picturesque views. At every bend the prospect varies, and there is scarcely a spot between Lochartzburg and Wilkes-barré where the painter would not find a subject well worthy of his pencil. The mountains, covered with bold rocks and woods, afford the finest foreground imaginable; the plains, adorned with cultivated fields and patches of wood, and watered by the noble river, of which you catch a glimpse here and there, fill up the middle part of the landscape; and the blue hills, peeping up at a distance, terminate the view in the most pleasing manner.