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Boatmen were shouting and swearing; wagoners were whistling and hallooing and cracking their whips at their straining horses, as these toiled along with heavily-laden wagons to the different stores within the building; groups of horsemen were riding to and fro, and crowds of people were moving about on foot.
Over Westminster Bridge and down the Borough galloped Barnabas, on through the roaring din of traffic, past rumbling coach and creaking wain, heedless of the shouts of wagoners and teamsters and the indignant cries of startled pedestrians, yet watchful of eye and ready of hand, despite his seeming recklessness.
Every man appeared to be making for the stone bridge that spanned the creek at Strausburg. But in the rush some wagons interlocked and were overturned midway the bridge, and completely blocked the only crossing for miles above and below. Teamsters and wagoners leave their charge and rush to the rear.
One method of their operation was described in a Georgia newspaper item of 1828 which related that two wagoners upon meeting a slave upon the road persuaded him to lend a hand in shifting their load. When the negro entered the wagon they overpowered him and drove on. When they camped for the night they bound him to the wheel; but while they slept he cut his thongs and returned to his master.
A cart-harness and some old wagoners' frocks were fixed on pegs to the wall; while at the far end of these singular stables was a door strongly barred, and only just large enough to admit the body of a man.
They were travelling merchants not wagoners simply, as might have been supposed from their garments full of straw, and the huge whips which lay beside them on the floor. When they chewed their food, these worthies resembled horses masticating ears of corn; when they laughed, they made the windows rattle.
But in this new era members of Congress and the elite of Philadelphia and neighboring towns were not to be jostled at the table by burly hostlers, drivers, wagoners, and hucksters.
I asked what men would accompany the convoy, and learned that the wagoners were negroes, and that one or two white men would be in charge. This information threw a ray of hope upon my dark forebodings.
The scenes along the way were reiterations of terrors already described, creaking ambulances, staggering foot soldiers, profane wagoners, skulking officers and privates, officious Provost guards, defiles, pools and steeps packed with teams and cannon, wayside houses beset with begging, gossiping, or malicious soldiers, and wavy fields of wheat and rye thrown open to man and beast.
These were generally passing farmers and wagoners, or stage-passengers, stopping for a meal, but occasionally a person from the cities, like our friend, came to spend a few weeks in the mountains. So hither we came, for an out-of-the-world spot like this was just what we wanted.
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