In passing through Ohio, the Derbyshire of the United States, we found in the sitting-rooms coal fires used almost generally in preference to wood; but from an extraordinary prejudice, which even exists at Philadelphia and other places, wood is still used for the purpose of cookery, and they will not believe that a dinner can be dressed properly at a coal fire.
Bridge at Zanesville, Ohio
We again slept at Wheeling, and again were much pleased with the situation. Old Major Sprigs[48] did us the honour to entertain us at his very good house, though it was very perceptible that he, in common with so many more, is not in charity with English blood: as a proof of the feeling, he was complaining of the rats about his premises, none of which vermin, he said, "were to be found in the country before the English brought them!"
This is the beginning of the season for Venison. A man came to the door with a horse-load which the Major bought for threepence sterling per lb., the price asked. Let not the reader long for American venison and fancy it to resemble a fine haunch fed in an English park; it is lean and more like horse-flesh, with very few exceptions.
Many families and other parties were still waiting [147] here, and at other places where we had crossed the Ohio, until the rising of its waters should enable them to pass down to the west: this did not happen, I was told, in the past year until the month of December; and to all appearance it may be as late this season; during the interval these poor people are exhausting their resources, losing their time, and at last will pass down the river at a most unpleasant and dangerous season of the year, if the ice should permit, a circumstance not probable: those travellers therefore, who intend such mode of conveyance, (a very pleasant one in summer,) should not start later than May; as the waters rapidly subside after June, when it frequently happens that none but light and nearly flat-bottomed boats can get down.[49]—[148] The rivers of North America it must be acknowledged are grand, but this annual loss of water will perhaps ever be a drawback to their utility which no art can remedy. I am more than half inclined, however, to withdraw this opinion, for American enterprise is alive to the object; and two works which I saw in progress, and which by this time may be finished, give promise that much may be accomplished;—one of these is at Louisville, where a canal cut at great expense will enable vessels to avoid the Falls of the Ohio, dangerous at all times, and often impassable;[50]—another on the Schuylkil, where the aim is to deepen the water sufficiently to render it at all times navigable.[51] Weirs are carried at certain distances nearly across the river, leaving a space for a short canal with two locks to pass vessels.
View at Fort Cumberland, Maryland