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 it, takes a long course northward, and after being joined at
Pittsburg by the Alleghany, a river as large as itself, the two together
there, form the Ohio.
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