s they wished to do. They
were honest, straightforward good women, and _ladies_ in their minds,
though great curiosities to look at.

This walk, and our subsequent explorings in Grafton, occupied the whole
forenoon, the temptation to pick the red leaves and shake the trees for
hickory nuts being very great, and having greatly prolonged the time
which our walk occupied. But the village itself, for it is no more,
though, having a mayor, it calls itself a city, had great objects of
interest, and is a curious instance of what a railway will do in
America to _make_ a town; for it scarcely had any existence three years
ago, and is now full of artificers and others employed in the railway
works, all fully occupied, and earning excellent wages.

The people marry so early that the place was almost overflowing with
children, who certainly bore evidence in their looks to the healthiness
of the climate.

This being a slave state, there was a sprinkling of a black population;
and among the slaves we were shocked by observing a little girl, with
long red ringlets and a skin exquisitely fair, and yet of the proscribed
race, which made the institution appear more revolting in our eyes than
anything we have yet seen. The cook at the hotel was a noble-looking
black, tall and well-made, and so famous for his skill at omelettes,
that we begged him to give us a lesson on the subject, which he
willingly did. I asked him if he were a slave, and he replied, making me
a low bow, "No, ma'am, I belong to myself." The little red-haired girl
was a slave of the mistress of the hotel.

We again linked ourselves on to a train which came up at about one
o'clock, and at Benton's Ferry, about twenty miles from Grafton, we
crossed the Monongahela, over a viaduct 650 feet long; the iron bridge,
which consists of three arches of 200 feet span each, being the longest
iron bridge in America. Though the water was not very deep, owing to a
recent drought, it was curious to see the little stream of yesterday
changed into an already considerable river, almost beating any we can
boast of in England.

We now began to wind our way down the ravine called Buffalo Creek, which
we passed at Fairmont, over a suspension bridge 1000 feet long. The road
still continued very beautiful, and was so all the way to this place,
Wheeling, which we reached at about six o'clock. The last eleven miles
was up the banks of the _real_ Ohio, for the Monongahela, after we last
left