About the middle of October they began playing in Pittsburg, in a building so ruinous and dilapidated that on rainy nights the audience in the pit held up their umbrellas to screen themselves from the leakings through the roof. The first performance was Douglas, Forrest sustaining the part of Young Norval with much applause. In the course of the season here he played many characters, in tragedy, comedy, farce, and ballet. In grappling with these subordinate parts he afterwards said he could distinctly remember that he often felt ashamed to find how ignorant he was, and was almost appalled at the immense task before him in becoming the actor he wished to be. But the progress he felt he was making, combined with the unstinted praise he received, kept his spirits at a high point. The following letter, dated Pittsburg, October 10th, 1822, is the earliest letter from him to his mother found among his papers after his death: "DEAR MOTHER,--I arrived here yesterday at about eleven o'clock, and am much pleased with the place and its inhabitants. I was quite out of patience riding so long in the stage over such tremendous mountains, but was greatly delighted, on reaching the summit of them, to view the surrounding country,--so vast and varied a landscape. "Pittsburg is three hundred miles from Philadelphia. It is a sort of London in miniature, very black and smoky. The Alleghany River and Mountains surround it. The theatre is very old. "This, you know, is the first time I have ever been away from you. I have felt many qualms of homesickness, and I miss you, dear, dear mother, more than words can give out. Has William gone to Petersburg? Furnish me with every particular, especially how our Tid is, and whether she reads with the yard-stick. Give me an account, too, of my Grandma, and of my _beautiful_ Sister. The long ride in the stage has made my hurdies so callous that they would ward off a cannon-ball. "Give my respects to all my friends, particularly to Philip. Inform me also, if you can, how the Tivoli Garden gets on. Write as early as possible, and pray pay the postage, as I am out of funds. I expect the managers by the next stage. Mr. Hughes, formerly of the Walnut Street Theatre, is here. I find him a perfect gentleman. "Your affectionate son, "EDWIN FORREST." In a short time the company collected their properties and took passage on the Ohio River in a flat-boat for Maysville, Kentucky. They floated lazily along for five days and nights, in delightful weather, through lovely scenery new to the most of them, filling the time with stories, games, and jokes,--a happy set, careless, healthy, and as gay and free as the ripples of the stream that glanced around them. They played at Maysville a few evenings with excellent success, greatly delighting the rude Kentuckians, who thronged in from miles around.