They reached an
Indian village near where the city of Pittsburgh now stands, then
turned south to the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers
where dwelt a friendly tribe of Indians. Thence they went to Fort le
Boeuf, where the French commander received the Virginia major politely,
entertained him, but tried at the same time to win his Indian friends
away from him.
The return journey was terrible. The horses had become so weak that
they were useless except as light pack animals. The little party
struggled along on foot. Washington with one companion went on ahead.
It was the dead of winter, but when they reached the Ohio River, they
found that instead of its being frozen solid, as they had hoped, it was
a turbulent mass of tossing cakes of ice.
"There was no way of getting over," writes Washington in his journal,
"but on a raft, which we set about, with but one poor hatchet, and
finished just after sun-setting. This was a whole day's work; we next
got it launched, then went on board of it, and set off; but before we
were half-way over, we were jammed in the ice in such a manner that we
expected every moment our raft to sink and ourselves to perish. I put
out my setting-pole to try to stop the raft, that the ice might pass
by, when the rapidity of the stream threw it with so much violence
against the pole, that it jerked me out into ten feet of water; but I
fortunately saved myself by catching hold of one of the raft-logs.
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