At Pittsburg the Ohio ends, or rather begins, by the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers.  We ascended the latter to Brownsville, about 56 miles.  Having booked ourselves at an office, we had to get into a smaller steamer on the other side of the bridge which spans the river.  The entire charge to Philadelphia was 12 dollars each.  We went by the “Consul,” at half-past 8 A.M. of the 11th of March.  The water was very high, as had been the case in the Ohio all the way from Cincinnati.  We had not proceeded far when I found the passengers a-stir, as if they had got to their journey’s end.  What was the matter?  Why, we had come to falls, which it was very doubtful whether the steamer could get over.  The passengers were soon landed, and the steamer, with the crew, left to attempt the ascent.  There were locks at hand by which, under ordinary circumstances, boats evaded the difficulty; but the flood was now so great that they could not be used.  Our steamer, therefore, stirred up her fires, raised her steam, brought all her powers to bear, faced the difficulty, dashed into it, cut along, and set at defiance the fury of the flood.  “There she goes!”—­“No!”—­“Yes!”—­“No!”—­“She’s at a stand,”—­the next moment she was gliding back with the torrent:  she had failed!  But nil desperandum.  “Try—­try—­try again!” An immense volume of smoke issued from her chimney, and soon she seemed again to be fully inflated with her vapoury aliment.  I expected every moment an explosion, and, while rejoicing in our own safety on terra firma, felt tremblingly anxious for the lives of those on board.  Having had sufficient time to “recover strength,” she made for the foaming surge once more.  “There she goes!”—­“No!”—­“Yes!”—­she paused—­but it was only for the twinkling of an eye,—­the next moment she was over, and the bank’s of the Monongahela resounded with the joyful shouts of the gazing passengers.  We now breathed more freely, and were soon on board again; but we had not advanced very far before we had to get out once more, in consequence of other falls, which were stemmed with the same inconvenience, the same anxiety, and the same success as in the preceding instance.

But ere long an obstacle more formidable than the falls presented itself—­a bridge across the river.  This bridge the boats were accustomed to pass under, but the water was now so high that it could not be done; and we had to wait till another boat belonging to the same company, above the bridge, came down from Brownsville, and enabled us to effect an exchange of passengers; for neither of the boats could get under the bridge.  The down boat soon made its appearance; and a scene of confusion ensued which I know not how to describe.  Imagine two sets of passengers, about 150 persons in each set, exchanging boats!  Three hundred travellers jostling against each other, with “plunder” amounting to some thousands of packages, to be removed a distance of 300 or 400 yards, at the risk and responsibility