Lancaster is a very respectable town, with a handsome court-house, &c. Slaymaker's inn or tavern excellent. A large manufactory of rifle barrels is carried on here, much cheaper than they can be produced in Europe; a very good rifle may be had complete for twelve or {38} fourteen dollars, clumsy in appearance, but throwing a ball with astonishing exactness. It was market day, and horses, carriages, &c., were among other things put up to auction; the auctioneer, riding or driving up and down the streets, with stentorian lungs proclaiming the qualities of the horse or carriage on sale, and receiving the biddings as he went on: a ranting preacher's exertions are nothing compared with this man's. [Illustration: Susquehannah River at Columbia] [Illustration: Place of Worship and Burial Ground at Ligonier Town, Pennsylvania] 29th. At Chambersburgh. From Lancaster, by Columbia passing over the beautiful Susquehannah by a close bridge of one mile and a quarter long, to this town the roads are at present wretched, even dangerous; and the settlers, German and Dutch boors, as abominable. Having broke a buckle of one of the traces, we applied to a blacksmith to mend it, which he refused to do. Night with a thunder-storm approaching, we tied up the harness as well as we could, wasting plenty of hearty bad wishes upon the cursed smith which some poor Irishmen working on the road joined us in, though they could not assist us; and proceeded some distance, the storm still lowering, to a tavern kept by one of the above wretches where we were absolutely refused admittance: obliged to drive on we just got to the door of another, when the thunder in tremendeous peals burst over us {39} accompanied with torrents of rain; here we bolted in determined to be received, and found ourselves in the midst of parties of ill-looking people drinking whiskey and smoking. It was the bar or tap-room, and as no offer was made of a better or safer place for ourselves and luggage, and a little disapprobation being consequently shewn by some of my party, the brute landlord, notwithstanding the storm, told us we had better drive on to the next town, if we disliked his accommodations.--Not chusing to be drenched in rain for his ill humour we were obliged to remain during pleasure; until at length I got mine host into better humour, and he gave us a tolerable good supper and beds, though with the usual company of bugs and fleas, and without water for washing, which they positively refused to let us have; observing, we might wash out of doors. This man boasted of being possessed of thirty-five thousand dollars in property, and said, that land now worth one hundred dollars per acre was bought by his father for four dollars. * * * * *