We again fell in with the Ohio at Steubenville, having traced the
tributary down to its mouth. Our road then lay along the bank of the
Ohio for about seventy miles, and anything more perfect in river scenery
it would be difficult to imagine. Many large tributaries fell into it,
the mouths of which we crossed over long bridges, and from these bridges
had long vistas up their valleys. For about thirty miles we had the bold
banks of Virginia opposite to us; but, after that, we quitted the state
of Ohio, and for forty miles the course of the river was through the
state of Pennsylvania. A number of steamboats enlivened the scene, with
their huge stern wheels making a great commotion in the water. The river
too was studded with islands, and the continuous bend, the river taking
one prolonged curve from Steubenville to Pittsburg, added greatly to the
beauty of the scene. On approaching Pittsburg we crossed the Alleghany,
which is a fine broad stream. The Monongahela, which here meets it, is a
still finer one, and the two together, after their junction, constitute
the noble river which then, for the first time, takes the name of the
Ohio, or, as it is most appropriately called by the French, "La belle
riviere"--for anything more beautiful than the seventy miles of it which
we saw to-day it would be difficult to imagine.
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