About noon the third day, we came in sight of Wheeling, in Virginia. This is a considerable place. It contains about ten thousand inhabitants.

The boat stopped at Wheeling an hour or more to unload a part of her freight. This gave us a fine opportunity to go on shore and view the town. It is well built, but, like most of the places all the way from Cincinnati to Pittsburg, has quite a sooty appearance, caused by the dust of the coal, which they burn here in large quantities. Wheeling is, moreover, a place of considerable manufacture.

But the greatest curiosity at this place, and one of the greatest I have ever seen, is the suspension bridge thrown over the Ohio. It must be something like one thousand feet in length, as broad as most bridges are, and not far from ninety feet above the surface of the river when the water is low; though much less, of course, at times when the river rises.

This bridge is much more remarkable than the suspension bridge first built over Niagara River; for while that is much higher above the water than this, it is, in comparison, very narrow indeed. The suspension bridge at Wheeling is broad enough for several carriages to go side by side on it; but that below Niagara Falls is only just broad enough for one.

I would have visited it; but I was afraid the boat in which I was traveling would leave the wharf by some means sooner than was expected, and it would be a sad thing to be left in port, with our trunks all on board. Many of the company did venture, however, and they returned, too, in good time.

Bridgeport, a small but flourishing village, is on the Ohio side of the river, just opposite Wheeling. This whole region is noted for burnings and massacres, during the wars of our country with the Indians little more than fifty years ago.

One anecdote I will relate very briefly. In March, 1793, about fifty-nine years ago, as two brothers by the name of Johnson, one of them twelve, the other nine years of age, were playing by the side of the river some ten or twelve miles above Wheeling, they were suddenly seized by two Indians and carried about six miles into the woods. Here the savages built a fire and halted for the night. When they lay down to rest, each Indian took a boy on his arm. As may easily be conjectured, however, the boys did not sleep. Finding the Indians to be very sound asleep, they concerted a plan, young as they were, for destroying them and effecting their escape. The plan succeeded. One of the Indians was shot with his own rifle; the other was killed with a tomahawk. The boys returned to their own homes the next day in safety.