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Now and then, a back door in the dreary block is distinguished by an arbored trellis bearing a grape-vine, and furnishing for the weary housewife a shady kitchen, al fresco. As a rule, however, there is little attempt to better the homeless shelter furnished by the corporation. We restocked with provisions at Monongahela City, a smart, newish town, and at Elizabeth, old and dingy.

The excessive rains and vast quantity of snow which had fallen, prevented our reaching Mr. Frazier's, an Indian trader, at the mouth of Turtle creek, on Monongahela river, until Thursday the 22d.

Thus, when at last the gray of the morning came, the Hartford and Albatross rode in safety above Port Hudson, while the Richmond, Monongahela, Genesee, and Kineo, all battered and more or less injured, lay at anchor once more near Prophet Island, and the Mississippi had perished in a blaze of glory.

Throughout the Ohio country the warriors were on the side of the French who were continuing the construction of the powerful fortress at the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela. The French were far down in the province of New York, and they held control of Lake Champlain and of Lake George also.

They remained in the village but two hours, and then pushed forward straight for Fort Pitt. At the time of which I write, Fort Pitt was a structure standing on the point of land where the Monongahela and the Alleghany rivers unite to form the broad Ohio.

On the eighth of July, it was reported that the English were only a few miles from the fort, which they would probably invest the next day, and M. de Beaujeu, a captain of the regulars, asked the commandant for permission to prepare an ambuscade and contest the second passage of the Monongahela.

Craik was a thorough believer in Washington's destiny, and in the dark days of the Revolution would hearten up his comrades by the story of the Indian chieftain met upon the Ohio in 1770 who had vainly tried to kill Washington in the battle of the Monongahela and had finally desisted in the belief that he was invulnerable.

A reception was tendered him at Kittanning, notwithstanding that little city's misfortune in "not being incorporated," and the mayor delivered a warm address of welcome. From the moment Paul neared Pittsburgh's suburban places there was a continued ovation until he completed the voyage at the Point, where the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela forms the Ohio.

Securing birchbark canoes, he and his party descended the Allegheny to its junction with the Monongahela, then turning southwestward on the beautiful stream formed by these two small rivers and now known as the Ohio, he explored the country along the banks of the river to what was called by him the Rapids of the Ohio.

On the 9th of July, on the Monongahela River, near Fort Duquesne, in a struggle in the forest against French and Indians he was defeated and killed. George Washington was in the fight and had to report to Dinwiddie the dismal record of what had happened. The frontier was aflame; and nearly all the Indians of the West, seeing the rising star, went over to the French.