to the price of provisions, and very expensive considering the accommodations afforded; storekeepers laying on a profit of at least 50 per cent.[509] Fordham says that the passage by stage and the expense of a journey from Philadelphia to Pittsburg was $50; the journey down the Ohio 900 miles from $10 to $15; to St. Louis by steamboat $20, on horseback $8.[510] The route to the western country, by way of New Orleans, was attended with many disadvantages, being much longer and more dangerous, in consequence of a good deal of coasting, and the difficulties of the Gulf of Florida. The voyage from the Balize to New Orleans, a distance of 100 miles, was always tedious and vessels sometimes consumed three weeks in covering this distance. The steamboats, from New Orleans,[511] did not proceed at stated periods, and travelers were sometimes obliged to take up a long and expensive residence in that city. To attempt to engage a passage in a keel boat up the stream was an almost endless undertaking. For these reasons, emigrants were advised to cone overland to Pittsburg, and to float from there down the Ohio River to their destination.[512] Fearon during his journey from Chambersburg to Pittsburg passed 63 wagons, with families from the several places following: 20 from Massachusetts, 10 from the district of Maine, 14 from Jersey, 13 from Connecticut, 2 from Maryland, 1 from Pennsylvania, 1 from England, one from Holland, 1 from Ireland; and about 200 persons on horseback and 20 on foot.[513] Fearon says that every emigrant whom he met on the Alleghanies, told hi m that he intended to settle in Ohio.[514] The population in Illinois, at this period, was to be found chiefly on the Wabash, below Vincennes, and on the banks of the Kaskaskia, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.[515]