smount in order to cut away part of the
impediment. Large trees which have fallen across the road, frequently
intercept your passage, and you have no alternative but to lift the wheels
of the vehicle over them.

As we approached Cincinnati the difficulty of travelling became greatly
augmented. The rains had cut up the roads into ravines, sometimes full
three feet in depth, which, added to the clayey nature of the soil,
completely exhausted the horse, and rendered him incapable of proceeding
faster than a slow walk, even with the empty carriage.

There are a number of Baptists residing at Cincinnati, who frequently
entertain the inhabitants with public baptisms in the Ohio river. At one
of those ceremonies, about this time, rather a ludicrous occurrence took
place. The baptizing preacher stands up to his middle in the water, and
the person to be baptized is led to him by another preacher. On this
occasion the officiating clergyman was rather a slight man, and the lady
to be baptized was extremely large and corpulent--he took her by the
hands to perform the immersion, but notwithstanding his most strenuous
exertions, he was thrown off his centre. She finding him yield, held
still harder, until they both sowsed completely under the water, where
they lay floundering and struggling for some time, amidst the shouts and
laughter of the multitude assembled on shore. At length their brethren
extricated them from this perilous situation.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] M. Duponceau adduces the following examples: "In the Arancanian
language the word '_idnancloclavin_' means 'I do not wish to eat with
him.' There is a similar verb in the Delaware tongue--'_n'schingiwipona_,'
which means 'I do not like to eat with him.' To which may be added another
example in the latter tongue--'_machtitschwanne_,'--this must be
translated 'a cluster of islands with channels every way, so that it is
in no place shut up, or impassable for craft.' This term is applied to the
islands in the bay of New York."

CHAPTER VII.

The weather having become cold and disagreeable towards the latter end of
December, I set out for New Orleans. The larger class of steam-boats lay
then at Shippingsport, immediately below the falls of Ohio, the river not
being sufficiently high to enable them to pass over those rapids. Boats
drawing from nineteen to twenty-six inches water can almost at all seasons
ply on the Upper Ohio, and during the periods that the large boats a