Soon a sloop was met coming down the river. Again came the exclamation from John, "They are surely trying to run into us!" He had hardly spoken when the crash came; the packet struck the wheel box, tore it open, and then, sliding along the side of the steamboat, passed away down the river. On inquiry John ascertained that this was merely an illustration of the envy of the owners of packets, who feared that they would lose all their business. No serious damage was done, however, and the steamboat proceeded on its way. The _Clermont_ arrived at Albany at seven o'clock Thursday evening and the brothers spent the night at an inn. The next morning, after an early breakfast, a stage was taken which in a few hours carried them to Schenectady. This part of the journey was quickly made, as the road was one of the best in the country. On reaching Schenectady the travelers learned that they must wait till the next noon to take a boat up the Mohawk River. The hours slowly dragged along, another night was spent at an inn, and about three o'clock the next afternoon the slow trip up the Mohawk began. Two days later they reached Utica, and another stage took them, the next day, to Rome. From this village two days' sail carried them across the Oneida Lake, and down the Oswego River to Oswego on the banks of Lake Ontario. After a delay of thirty-six hours a lake packet was found ready for them, which in time arrived at Lewiston at the mouth of the Niagara River, and so on they went, by land to Buffalo, by water to Erie, by land again to one of the branches of the Alleghany River, and down this to Pittsburg. From Pittsburg one of the flat-bottomed Western river boats, borne along by the current, conveyed them to Louisville, at the Falls of the Ohio. Thus was made, in several weeks, a trip from New York to Louisville, which to-day requires scarcely more than twenty-four hours. Ten times had changes been made in the conveyances used. A steamboat, river rowboats, lake packets, Western flatboats and stages, were all needed, and nights and days even were spent at inns. Slow and cumbrous was travel in those days and very expensive. There was little traveling for pleasure, and only the most important business was worth the hardships and discomforts of such travel. If it was costly for passengers to travel, it was even more expensive to carry freight. Enormous charges were placed upon all transportation of goods. New and better roads were being built in all directions, but these did little to reduce the cost of transporting goods. The cheapest routes continued to be by the rivers, as the expense of building good roads and keeping them in repair added to freight charges. The charges for freight transportation were so great that it prevented entirely the moving of many goods.