Nearly every person who knows anything at all about the history of the United States has heard of Blennerhassett's Island.

This island is one hundred and ninety miles from Pittsburg, and two hundred and eighty-seven from Cincinnati. It is a beautiful island; but has at present an appearance of desolation, that forcibly reminds the traveler what it once was.

Blennerhassett, the owner, was a man of great taste, and, till his connection with Burr, quite an inoffensive man, and a good citizen. But no one could be long in peace and quiet who had anything to do with the seditious, ambitious, and treasonable Aaron Burr. It is true he was not legally convicted of treason, but he was finally ruined in character and property, as a cause of his evident wrong doing.

Instead of a beautiful mansion fifty-four feet square, two stories high, and well proportioned, with two wings, and a charming little garden, with every delicacy of fruit, vegetables, and flowers which could be made to grow in that climate, with the most beautiful walks, and shrubbery—nothing now is seen but a heap of ruins.

All day long, this second of our days on the river, we were hoping the boat would reach Blennerhassett's Island before night, or at least before bedtime. But we were doomed to disappointment. At the latest hour which it was proper for us to be awake, the boat was some thirty to fifty miles below.

We passed the next day the mouths of two beautiful rivers on the Virginia side, the Big Sandy and the Great Kanawha. It was curious to see the line formed by the junction or union of the two rivers—the one with its blue clear waters, the other with its turbid, milky current. They seemed as if made of entirely different materials. We also passed, besides the coaling places I have named, several considerable villages, among which were Point Pleasant, Murraysville, and Belleville, Virginia; and Gallipolis and Millersburg in Ohio.

We also lost sight, during the night, of Marietta, at the mouth of the Muskingum River, now quite a large and pleasant village, near which are several very remarkable ancient fortifications and mounds of earth, supposed to have been the depositories of the dead, by some now unknown people.