A Pilgrimage in Europe and America

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER XII. Confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, April 20tk, 1823. I Have made another very long and beautiful excursion, my dear Countess, since I wrote to you from Pittsburg. How much do I wish that I possessed the pencil of Claude or the pen of Delille, to place so enchanting a picture before your...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER XII. Confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, April 20tk, 1823. I Have made another very long and beautiful excursion, my dear Countess, since I wrote to you from Pittsburg. How much do I wish that I possessed the pencil of Claude or the pen of Delille, to place so enchanting a picture before your eyes; or that I were gifted with the sagacity of Anacharsis and the wisdom of Mentor; I could then select and appreciate whatever is calculated to arrest the attention of the present, or excite the hopes of future generations, in the country through which I have passed. I must entreat you to receive with indulgence the communications of a man, whose mind so PITTSBURG. 61 often wanders back to those scenes whither the love of country and of home are continually recalling him; where the admiration of the most extraordinary virtue, the consolations of the noblest friendship, so long and so delightfully occupied him; and whose eyes would fain rest only upon what are most difficult to describe, ? objects which interest his heart. But let us return to Pittsburg. Pittsburg, before the. war of independence, was only a small port, called by the name of du Qutsne, when these wilds belonged to the French; and by that of Pitt, when the English took possession of it under the ministry of that man whom Mr Nicoll, one of his coadjutors in parliament, has described better than fame did. This fort was at that time one of the bulwarks which defended the western frontier of the European colonies. At that time, the savages or aborigines inhabited all the vast regions which now constitute the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and a great part of those of Louisiana, Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Pittsburg is now a city, conta..