Committing my baggage to a carman, I ascended the bank of diluvial earth and pebbles with all eagerness, and walked to the point of land where Fort Pitt (old Fort Du Quesne) had stood. It is near this point that the Alleghany and Monongahela unite, and give birth to the noble Ohio. It is something to stand at the head of such a stream. The charm of novelty is beyond all others. I could realize, in thought, as I stood here, gazing on the magnificent prospect of mingling waters, and their prominent and varied shores, the idea, which is said to be embodied in the old Mingo substantive-exclamation of O-he-o! a term, be it remembered, which the early French interpreters at once rendered, and truly, it is believed, by the name of _La Belle Rivière_. So far, I said to myself, all is well,--I am now west of the great spinal chain. All that I know of America is now fairly _east_ of me--bright streams, warm hearts and all. I have fairly cast myself loose on the wide waters of the west. I have already come as many hundred miles, as there are days in the week, but I begin my travels here. I have, as it were, taken my life in my hand. Father and mother, I may never see more. God wot the result. I go to seek and fulfil an unknown destiny. Come weal or woe, I shall abide the result. All the streams run south, and I have laid in, with "time and chance" for a journey with them. I am but as a chip on their surface--nothing more! Whether my bones are to rest in this great valley, or west of the Cordilleras, or the Rocky Mountains, I know not. I shall often think of the silver Iosco, the farther I go from it. To use a native metaphor, My foot is on the path, and the word, is onward! "The spider taketh hold with her hands," Solomon says, "and is in king's palaces." Truly, a man should accomplish, by diligence, as much as a spider.