volume ix of our series, note 89.--ED.
18th. Passed the Little Sciota, a small stream of Ohio. At noon we reached the town of Portsmouth, in Ohio, at the mouth of the Big Sciota;[110] a considerable stream, said to be navigable upwards of two hundred miles towards the north. Portsmouth {90} is an improving place, containing a court-house, a bank, several good taverns and stores, with more than one hundred houses, many of them of brick: we could get but few provisions here. Alexandria is situated opposite, on the other side of the Sciota; it is a small place. We found change at these towns very scarce; what there was, was mostly cut-money; that is, when change is wanted they often cut dollars, half-dollars, and quarter-dollars, into smaller pieces, with an axe or chisel; and some of them are so expert and _honest_, as to make five quarters out of a dollar. We advanced twenty-two or three miles this day.
[110] For the early history connected with the Scioto River, see Croghan's _Journals_, volume i of our series, note 102.--ED.
19th. We passed a very swift riffle without any danger. About three miles farther on, we were in danger of losing our boat on Twin Riffle, by not going towards the Kentucky side soon enough; but by hard rowing, we got over with only five or six inches to spare. These riffles are occasioned by the water's running rapidly over {91} a rough hard bottom; they resemble the Falls, only they are much less. We saw many wild ducks while passing this riffle; I believe they often feed on these sharp runs, as I noticed they generally frequented them. A little below, we saw three hunters with several dogs; they had just killed a fine young deer in the river, and were skinning it on the bank. We bought a hind-quarter, it weighed fifteen or sixteen pounds, for 50 cents, (2_s._ 3_d._) sterling. The quarter was as much as we could consume while good, the weather being so extremely hot, or we might have had the whole deer for a dollar. In the afternoon we passed a bad riffle, called Bush Riffle, opposite a creek of the same name. This riffle was full of sunk logs, that made it difficult to pass, as the river was so low; at high water these riffles are not perceptible. We passed Salt Creek, Ohio. Some saline-works here; also a small town, of which I did not learn the name. As we floated after dark, the ark got stuck on a sand-bank, {92} in the middle of the river; but some of us getting out into the water, we pushed it off, and then anchored on the Ohio side.
This day we made about twenty-six miles, according to the "Pittsburg Navigator,"[111] also by our pilot's account; but I believe the Ohio has never been surveyed or measured, except that on the Ohio side the land has been surveyed and laid out into sections, from the upper part of the State of Ohio to the mouth of the Ohio river. But the lines running north and south, and east and west, make many small fractions on the edge of the river that have never been measured very correctly, so as to know the exact length of it. We often went in a very circular direction; much more so than the banks; and as the river is full half a mile wide, we sometimes stood nearly right across it, as an ark is difficult to keep out of the current, should it get too near it when the draught is strong. Thus the measurement of the {93} banks of this river cannot be accurate, in the distance it takes to navigate it.
[111] For the Pittsburg _Navigator_, see Cuming's _Tour_, volume iv of our series, note 43.--ED.
20th. Passed the Manchester Islands;[112] and a little below a town of the same name, a small place of about thirty houses. Two of our company landed, opposite the islands, on the Kentucky side. A woman, where they went for milk, gave them some peaches, nearly ripe; she told them they had only apples and peaches for their pigs, a hundred and forty in number. She said they did not get fat on this diet, nor did they expect them to thrive much till the beech-masts fell. Beech the prevailing timber, except on the banks of the river; there mostly sycamore, water-maple, and willows. In the afternoon we reached the town of Maysville, in Kentucky;[113] it is frequently called Limestones, from a small creek of that name that here empties itself into the Ohio. Maysville is a considerable place, and enjoys a good trade with the back country. It lies high; but part of it is subject to floods from the {94} creek. Much good building going forward. A large ferry-boat, worked by horses, plies between Maysville and a small town opposite; it takes over passengers, horses, carriages, and stock; as a road on the opposite side takes most of the land-travellers through the state of Ohio,[114] that cross so low down as this place. We sent a letter from here, that reached Godalming, in Surrey, in fifty-seven days; but letters from England are usually three months in reaching the Prairies, and sometimes much longer. This day twenty miles: the weather sultry, with much thunder, but no rain. The river falling very fast.
[112] In 1790, Nathaniel Massie, the surveyor of the Virginia military tract, who played so prominent a part in early Ohio history, contracted with twenty-one Kentuckians to settle a town which he would lay out on his land along the Ohio River. The following year a stockade was built on the mainland, ten miles above Maysville, and one of the three islands opposite was cleared and planted with corn. He called the settlement Manchester, but for years it was known in Kentucky and Ohio as Massie's Station.--ED.
[113] For the early history of Maysville, see A. Michaux's _Travels_,