From this I pursued my way up the river for a mile or two, to where, at a pretty quiet spot, I observed a boat just leaving the bank for the north side. I hailed the ferryman, and he returned immediately, when, adding myself and nag to his freight, he again commenced pulling up the stream, assisted by a couple of curly-headed urchins, his sons, two out of twelve, as he laughingly told me; adding, that they were capital helps. We had a couple of market-waggons aboard the flat, each drawn by a pair of horses. The river, I fancied, was here about as wide as the Thames at Southwark, running clear and strong; the banks tolerably bold, very regular, and fringed by a luxuriant growth of various trees and water-loving shrubs. On the other side I fell on the Pennsylvania canal, and I for a mile followed the line by which it approaches the town of Alleghany, till, coming to a rough high hill, I was tempted to try the ascent, which, after a good deal of ducking and scrambling, I accomplished. The prospect from the summit amply repaid me: at my feet lay the growing town of Alleghany, which stands on a fine alluvial plain affording ample space for a city as large as Pekin; with two ports, one on the Alleghany, the other on the Ohio. I here traced the course of the canal to the aqueduct on which it crosses the river. Two fine steamers, with their galleried decks tier over tier, were stemming the current, each looking like the old wood-cut of Noah's Ark,--houses built upon rafts, of three stories high, with balconies running round them, the whole being covered by inclined roofs. Many of the picturesque-looking keels found here were also working up for the quays; and the waters just before the busy town presented a strange contrast to the view either up or down the rivers, where all was tranquil and solitary as when the light _pirogue_ of the adventurous _voyageur_ first timidly skimmed along by their rich shores, sending the startled deer to the mountain and drawing the watchful savage down. How to get back was now a consideration without retracing my steps, to do which I had neither the instinct nor the inclination. I pushed for a near wood, from which I perceived smoke stealthily curling over the tree tops; and, after a long threading of the thicket, stumbled upon a little colony of charcoal-burners, the blackest and the merriest devils I ever met: they might have been Iroquois, or negroes, from their colour; but the first reply I got to my hail rendered any inquiry as to country unnecessary. "Hola! my friend," shouted I at the top of my voice, as a tall, half-naked being stalked out of one of the huts, from which I was separated by a deep ravine; "pray step this way for one moment." The man did as I desired, without a word; a couple of attendant imps hanging on to the strings of his knees. "I'm sorry to trouble you," I added, as he drew within easy speaking-distance; "but the fact is, I have lost my road, and fear to lose my dinner."