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Show I 56 THE UNION CANAL----HARRISBURG. On the 18th of September it was with very great difficulty that we got places in .the stage, the travellers being very numerous. After we had passed Kakusa Creek, we came to Womelsdorf, founded by Germans, fourteen miles from Reading, where we stopped to dine, and then proceeded over Dolpahaga Creek, to Lebanon County, which is in a tract diversified with eminences and wooded mountains. On this road we several times passed the Union Canal, which goes from Baltimore to Pittsburg, is very nearly completed, and is said to have cost 18,000,000 of dollars. After we had passed the River Swatara, which runs into the Susquehannah, we continued our journey in a dark but fine evening; the crickets and grasshoppers chirped all around ; but their note is by no means so loud as that of those in the Brazils. At length we perceived a number of lights before us, and came to Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, the end of our journey to-day. Harrisburg is a small town, with only 5,000 inhabitants, situated between the Susquehannah and the Union Canal. It has broad streets crossing each other at right angles ; but many of the buildings are of wood, for which they are now, however, gradually substituting better ones of brick. Rows of trees are planted in front of the houses. The inn at which we put up was in a square, which they were just covering with broken stones. Here, too, is the market-hall, a long roofed building supported by pillars, in which the productions of the country are exposed for sale, as in most of the towns in the United States. Harrisburg, being the capital of the state, is the residence of the. Governor. The state-house is built on a gentle eminence on the canal, near the town, and with its two wings is a very considerable building, with a colonnade and a cupola supported by pillars. Another interesting point of the town is the view of the Susquehannah, which is very broad here, and forms an island. A long bridge, covered at top, and enclosed at the sides, is built over each arm of the river. One of these bridges is about 600 paces in length. In the first there are twenty-three glass windows, and it has two pillars on shore, and five in the river. There are colossal bridges of this kind in the United States; and there is one further down the Susquehannah, which is one and a quarter mile and four rods in length, and has fifty-two pillars. The view from this bridge up the river is peculiarly beautiful. Verdant wooded islands adorn its surface, which is broad, but it was at this time very shallow. There are 500 negroes and people of colour. Germans are met with everywhere, and we were told that an able German physician lived here. The defective arrangements of the post-houses obliged us to stop here three days, and it was not till the 21st of September, in the evening, that we could leave the town to continue our journey during the night. We passed the Susquehannah, and the Juniata, which comes from the Alleghany Mountains, and flows into it. On the 22nd, at day-break, we were at the little village of Mexico. Mexico is in Mifflin County, forty miles from Harrisburg. Three miles further is the village of Miiflin Town, the capital of the county, where they were just building a new town-hall. The Union Canal, which connects Philadelphia and Baltimore with Pittsburg, in general follows the |
