[Page 3:202]14 July [sic, June]: This morning the forest contained many Quercus phellos andobtusiloba. After we traveled 11 miles, we stopped at a solitary house in the forest where we ate breakfast and received new horses. Twelve miles farther on, the [illegible] was turned in at the post office. [We traveled 6 miles to the town of Paoli in a limestone region; stones were lying on [the ground], scattered everywhere. We [suffered] many strong, sharp jolts on the bad, very rough road. Woodlands interrupted by cultivated fields covered the land. Of living animals we saw only woodpeckers and a few small birds. Right after Paoli we reached Litt Creek, which remained at our side for some time. From the town it was 5 miles to an isolated house, where the stage stopped and the passengers had a very good breakfast. The owner, a certain Chambers, was a Quaker.

The whole area consists of limestone hills; the scattered rocks from these are very disadvantageous to the road. [People] say the area is very healthy [and] the air is very clean, but the water contains lime; [those] accustomed to it consider it very good. We saw many horses in the forests. I was told, however, that horse breeding in Indiana is behind that of other states. Nonetheless, very good stallions have been introduced, and I noticed many horses [with good conformation]. They say the best horses in the United States are bred in Kentucky.

The awful road continued over limestone hills. The forests became more sparse. [We went 8 _8_miles">] miles with the same horses [and] then changed [them] at an isolated house. Then we reached and passed the small Blue River, surrounded by forest with a settlement where we rested. The forest that followed next consisted of [oaks]: red, black, willow (or pin oak), and the blunt-lobed oak. We saw picturesque valleys, some completely filled with Quercus phellos, dense and dark. Then we [came to] more-open areas totally overgrown with scrub oak. The soil here is infertile, consisting of red clay. There were large puddles in depressions [where the] water had turned altogether red from the dissolved soil. At noon we reached a single house, surrounded by its fields [and] meadows, [all ringed] by a tall forest. We ate lunch there and changed horses. In a fine nearby meadow, a Rebhuhn (quail [sic]) called. [They] are very common here, [and] in the house they had many eggs from these birds—small, somewhat pointed, and colored pure white.

From this house it is 4 miles to Greenville, a small, poor town or village. There we met a gathering of many country people who had tied their horses and wagons to the houses and fences. An election was being held. The heat was high and the dust very troublesome. In the forest that followed, there were many beech trees. Five miles from Greenville, we changed horses at a solitary farmstead. The drought was considerable and very favorable to the increase of insects. The cicadas buzzed loudly in the forests, which were composed mostly of beech trees.

We traveled through a pleasant forest valley, where we again found many farmers gathered [at] a town [?]. They drank a lot of whiskey, and the assembly was very[Page 3:203] noisy and lively. They, too, had come together for the election of a councilman. The crowd was most curious; they pressed around the coach and wanted to know where we came from. Some of them played the game with small stone balls [marbles?] that children play in the streets in Germany.

We soon had climbed to the end of the limestone hill chain, the summit of which we [gained] gradually and without noticing. [From] its southern slope, we had a far-reaching, broad, incomparable view into the valley—or actually into the vast plain of the Ohio. As far as the eye could see, a dark forest covered the broad land, and the beautiful river cut through it like a silver stripe winding through the landscape. In the distance we saw the pale reddish mass of [the] houses of New Albany and Louisville, stretching out on both sides of the Ohio. The slope of the hill chain was soon traversed, and we drove through a thoroughly cultivated region toward New Albany, to which it was 5 miles from the last village, whose name I forget.

New Albany is an important, charming town with broad, regularly laid-out streets [that form] squares; the buildings, as in all American cities, [have] large [and] frequently gilded or colorful inscriptions [announcing] the businesses being conducted therein. They had a few cholera cases here, and smallpox was also said to have recently broken out in the town. The former had not been severe up to now.

A steam ferry runs here on the Ohio, [and our] stage crossed the river on it in order to drive to Louisville. [There remained] a few miles to be covered on sandy ground, but some nice country homes had been built and neat gardens and wooded areas established. Among the latter, one was [remarkable] for its colossal beech trees and dark shade; others were planted with locusts. In the afternoon we reached Louisville—an attractive, sizable town about which I wrote in the first part of this Tagebuch. Here, too, they had some cholera cases, but not [a] significant [number], and people had become rather indifferent to this serious illness. Our stay in Louisville was very short this time.

The steamboat Paul Jones was [scheduled] to leave for Cincinnati in just a few hours. We had our luggage brought on board right away. Before [leaving?], I visited a few bookstores and bought some books. The steamboats that run from here to Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are not large. Ours had 20 beds in the lower, or gentlemen’s, cabin; the ladies’ cabin was above.

We departed at about five o’clock, and the course was very fast. During the night, after we had covered 30 miles, something broke in the steam engine, and we had to stop until two or three o’clock in the afternoon on [15 June.]