built on neat
terraces, and, far from marring the scene, agreeably give life to
it; now and then, three such terraces are to be traced, one above the
other, against the dark background of wood and field--the lower and
upper devoted to rival railway lines, the central one to the common
way. The mouths of the beautiful tributary ravines are crossed either
by graceful iron spans, which frame charming undercut glimpses of
sparkling waterfalls and deep tangles of moss and fern, or by graceful
stone arches draped with vines. There are terraced vineyards, after
the fashion of the Rhineland, and the gentle arts of the florist and
the truck-gardener are much in evidence. The winding river frequently
sweeps at the base of rocky escarpments, but upon one side or the
other there are now invariably bottom lands--narrow on these upper
reaches, but we shall find them gradually widen and lengthen as we
descend. The reaches are from four to seven miles in length, but
these, too, are to lengthen in the middle waters. Islands are
frequent, all day. The largest is Neville's, five miles long and
thickly strewn with villas and market-gardens; still others are but
long sandbars grown to willows, and but temporarily in sight, for the
stage of water is low just now, not over seven feet in the channel.

Emerging from the immediate suburbs of Pittsburg, the fields broaden,
farmsteads are occasionally to be seen nestled in the undulations
of the hills, woodlands become more dense. There are, however, small
rustic towns in plenty; we are seldom out of sight of these.
Climbing a steep clay slope on the left bank, we visited one of
them--Shousetown, fourteen miles below the city. A sad-eyed, shabby
place, with the pipe line for natural gas sprawling hither and yon
upon the surface of the ground, except at the street crossings, where
a few inches of protecting earth have been laid upon it. The tariff
levied by the gas company is ten cents per month for each light, and a
dollar and a half for a cook-stove.

We passed, this afternoon, one of the most interesting historic points
upon the river--the picturesque site of ancient Logstown, upon the
summit of a low, steep ridge on the right bank, just below Economy,
and eighteen miles from Pittsburg. Logstown was a Shawanese village as
early as 1727-30, and already a notable fur-trading post when Conrad
Weiser visited it in 1748. Washington and Gist stopped at "Loggestown"
for five days on their visit to th