In the main, southern Indiana and Illinois--as well as the trans-Mississippi territory--drew from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and the remoter South. North of the latitude of Indianapolis and St. Louis the lines of migration led chiefly from New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. But many of the settlers came, immediately or after only a brief interval, from Europe. The decade following the close of the war was a time of unprecedented emigration from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany to the United States; and while many of the newcomers found homes in the eastern States, where they in a measure offset the depopulation caused by the westward exodus, a very large proportion pressed on across the mountains in quest of the cheap lands in the undeveloped interior. During these years the western country was repeatedly visited by European travelers with a view to ascertaining its resources, markets, and other attractions for settlers; and emigration thither was powerfully stimulated by the writings of these observers, as well as by the activities of sundry founders of agricultural colonies. "These favorable accounts," wrote Adlard Welby, an Englishman who made a tour of inspection through the West in 1819, "aided by a period of real privation and discontent in Europe, caused emigration to increase ten-fold; and though various reports of unfavorable nature soon circulated, and many who had emigrated actually returned to their native land in disgust, yet still the trading vessels were filled with passengers of all ages and descriptions, full of hope, looking forward to the West as to a land of liberty and delight--a land flowing with milk and honey--a second land of Canaan." ¹ ¹ Thwaites, Early Western Travels, vol. XII, p. 148. After the dangers from the Indians were overcome, the main obstacle to western development was the lack of means of easy and cheap transportation. The settler found it difficult to reach the region which he had selected for his home. Eastern supplies of salt, iron, hardware, and fabrics and foodstuffs could be obtained only at great expense. The fast-increasing products of the western farms--maize, wheat, meats, livestock--could be marketed only at a cost which left a slender margin of profit. The experiences of the late war had already proved the need of highways as auxiliaries of national defense. It required a month to carry goods from Baltimore to central Ohio. None the less, even before the War of 1812, hundreds of transportation companies were running four-horse freight wagons between the eastern and western States; and in 1820 more than three thousand wagons--practically all carrying western products--passed back and forth between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, transporting merchandise valued at eighteen million dollars.