river, with the noise of a neighbouring ripple in their ears, and the apprehension in their hearts that they would float off and be dashed to pieces before morning. They, however, arrived safely at Beaver in Pennsylvania, where they purchased a large skiff, which could run in any state of the water without grounding; but it was uncovered and exposed them to the sun, fogs and rain. At night, too, they had to land, unload the boat, make her fast, with the fear that she might be stolen before day light, and seek a lodging on shore. In this manner they passed many thriving villages just risen in the wilderness-they saw the mouths of numerous boatable streams extending hundreds of miles into the interior, and bearing on their bosom the produce of their banks to the great Ohio-and they often met boats from the Kenhawa, laden with salt, ascending by poling and seeking a market on the upper waters of the Alleghany.

At Wheeling, where the great national road meets the Ohio, they made a long and sad sojourn. The influenza prevailed, and filled the houses with gloom; and the multitude of emigrants arrested by it, rendered the situation of all comfortless and disheartening. In such a crowd they could obtain but little attention, and their increased expenses added nothing to their comfort. There they, however, remained until the middle of November, when they again resumed their voyage-the temperature of the air had now become delightful, and the river scenery fine. "The gentle and almost imperceptible motion of the boat says our author, as you sit on deck and see the trees apparently moving by you, and new groups of scenery still opening upon your eye, together with the view of these ancient and magnificent forests which the axe has not yet despoiled, the broad and beautiful river, the earth and the sky, render such a trip, at this season, the very element of poetry." The shores too were not destitute of animation, for, from the houses and cabins, the crowds of children that poured out to view the passing strangers, gave satisfactory proof that population kept pace with subsistence, and this could be obtained in boundless profusion, with very slight attention to cultivation or business. One of the author's friends settled near St. Charles, raised in one year, with only the assistance of his two sons, who were boys, a hired white man and a negro, 2,400 bushels of corn, 800 bushels of wheat, and other articles in proportion; and the number of cattle, hogs, &c. that he could have raised was indefinite, as his pastures and hay were sufficient for above a thousand.

Our voyagers landed at Marietta, just above the mouth of the Muskingum, with letters to the venerable General Putnam, the patriarch of this colony. He had been one of the first settlers

in this place when it was a compact and boundless forest-he had seen the houses, cattle, and some of the inhabitants swept away by an awful inundation, and felt the scourge of Indian warfare, but he lived to rejoice in the ultimate prosperity of the settlement. He lived to witness "a hundred steam-boats laden for New-Orleans, pass by in the compass of a few hours. He had surrounded his modest but commodious dwelling with fruit trees of his own planting; and finer or more loaded orchards than his no country could offer. In the midst of rural plenty and endeared friends who had grown up around him—far from the display of wealth, the bustle of ambition and intrigue, the father of the colony, hospitable and kind, without ostentation and without effort, he displayed in these remote regions the grandeur, real and intrinsic, of those immortal men who achieved our Revolution. Of these great men, most of whom, and General Putnam among the rest, have passed away, there seems to have arisen a more just and more respectful estimate. Greater and more unambitious men no age or country has reared. Cato's seems to have been their motto-esse quam videri." (p. 34.) We transcribe this offering to these military heroes with the feeling with which it was made. It is truly delightful to contemplate these hoary patriots in the splendid evening of their days, still unwearied in well doing, exhibiting by example and disseminating by precept the blessed principles of our Revolution; and impressing on youthful hearts, destined, perhaps, at no distant period, to sway the councils of the nation, that inestimable love of liberty which they purchased with their blood, and bestowed on us as an inheritance.

Notwithstanding the inhabitants of this part of the State are principally Yankees, and, indeed, Ohio is said to be called the Yankee State by her neighbours, complaints are every where made of "Yankee tricks, Yankee finesse, wooden nutmegs, straw blankets, pit-coal indigo," &c. Wherever our travellers stopped for lodgings they were asked if they were Yankees? And where they answered in the affirmative, they constantly saw the unwelcome nature of the intelligence expressed in the lengthened visage. On this point, our author appears to be a little out of humour, and he endeavours to palliate the inference so unfavourable to his countrymen by shifting the odious burden to other shoulders. He says "the emigrants upon whom these charges are fixed, which are probably magnified, both in number and enormity, are as often other people as Yankees. But as these last eminently possess the power of talking, and inspire a sort of terror by their superior acuteness, and as that terror procures a certain degree of respect, many a blockhead from the southern

and middle states has wished to shine his hour as a wise man, and has assumed this terrific name; and thus the impression has finally been established, that almost all the emigrants who pass down the rivers are Yankees." (p. 32.) This, however, will not do. A Southron would, indeed, deserve the epithet of a "blockhead," if he assumed a character to inspire terror where he would wish to conciliate regard. Besides, it would be as difficult for him to assume the character, dialect, &c. of a Yankee so as to deceive a Yankee, as it would for the latter successfully to disguise himself as a Southron; which we regard as almost an impossibility.

At Marietta, they purchased a Kentucky flat of forty tons, subject to the incumbrance of a Kentuckian and his family, who had previously insured a passage in it. He was a pretty fair specimen of the rough frank character of his country. He swore a great deal, but upon learning the character of our traveller, he promised to abstain and kept his word. His great delight was to tease the children by ridiculing the Yankees; but it all went off harmoniously enough, and they reached Cincinnati, though not without encountering a severe thunder storm at night, accompanied with wind and rain, which drenched the boat, and terrified the passengers.

It is not our intention to follow our author in describing any of these towns. In their general outline they resemble each other. They are all newly erected upon spots, which, a few years since, were the abodes of savages and wild beasts. The wilderness, in most places, still surrounds them, though every where pierced with cultivated farms. But in provement hourly advances, and the foundations of newer towns are continually laid out and built up. Whether they succeed or fail, depends on commerce, whose blessings are voluntarily bestowed, and cannot be forcibly snatched.

Of the manner in which these towns are sometimes made, our author gives us the following account.

When I

"Vevay in Indiana, has grown to be a considerable town. was there, the village had just commenced. I was lodged in the house of a respectable Swiss gentleman, who had married a wife from Kentucky. The people were prompt and general in attending divine service.

The next evening there was a warned meeting of the inhabitants, and the object was to locate the town-house, a market, and First, Second and Third-streets. I attended the meeting. The night was dark and rainy. The deep and rich bottom, the trees of which had been just cut down, was so muddy that my feet sunk at every step. Huge beach and sycamore trunks of trees so impeded these avenues and streets, that were to be, that I doubt if a chaise could have made its way by daylight, and the most careful driving amidst the logs. When you hear about market-houses, and seminaries and streets, Nos. 1, 2 and 3, in the midst,

of a wilderness of fallen logs, you will have some idea of the language appropriate to a kind of speculation almost peculiar to this country, that is to say, town-making. You will infer from this too what magnificent ideas these people have with respect to the future. I learned, in recently ascending the Ohio, that these splendid anticipations are now realized, that the town house, market and streets actually exist, and that instead of huge sycamore trunks, they have now blocks of brick buildings." p. 59. It was to this place that the colony from Switzerland brought their vines, and established their noble vineyard. They cultivated the cape grape and the sweet-water grape of Madeira.The vines grow with the greatest luxuriance, and consequently require severe pruning; but they reward the toil with the richest clusters.

But to return to Ohio. The soil is excellent, indeed it is said that this State contends with Illinois alone in the possession of the largest bodies of fine land. The prairies are not large, but the forests are heavy and deep; they contain, however, few evergreens, and but little cypress. The State is dotted with small farms, and cultivated by a hardy and numerous body of freemen, whose manners resemble the New-Englanders, from whom they have sprung.

· After remaining sometime in Cincinnati, our traveller left his. family, and in the spring made a tour through the State of Indiana, on its front on the Ohio; then across the Ohio through part of Kentucky, and back to rejoin them.

The native Kentuckians are described as a very large race of men. The difference in manners between them and their neighbours of the non-slave-holding states is said to be very perceptible. Their villages are full of people, at leisure, from whose dress and appearance may be seen their exemption from personal labour. Rustic opulence appeared every where; but leisure and opulence, without refinement of manners or cultivation of mind must lead to gross and vulgar excesses; accordingly, they are addicted to what our traveller terms the prevailing vices of the west (would to God they were confined to the west) gambling and intemperance. Both parents and children, when admonished, admitted and deplored the fact. They had virtue enough, sometimes, to resolve to amend, but not enough to adhere to their resolution. The truth is, their only security for amendment will be the improvement of their minds, but from their conceited and boastful character, this is scarcely to be expected. In this respect, it is surprising what a resemblance exists between them and all islanders, not excepting EnglishInsulated as it were by their forests and mountains from VOL. II. NO. 3.

men.

26

the civilized world, they think all they have or are connected with, is, beyond comparison, the best in the world. Their horses, dogs, guns, wives, children, country, are superior to those of all mankind. All their sons are the bravest and wisest, and their women the fairest and most virtuous. They look, with disdain on the younger States, and, like the English, “designate their own country with the veneration due to age, by the name of "Old Kentucky." One of their methodist preachers holding forth, in a neighbouring State on the happiness of heaven, having gradually advanced towards his climax, concluded thus, "In short, my brethren, to say all in one word, heaven is a Kentuck of a place!" p. 64.

Now, we have no objection to acknowledge it a virtue in a Kentuckian or any other person to have an exclusive preference to his own State and its possessions, but its obtrusive excess becomes not only offensive to others, but opposes a bar to all improvement. He who is wise in his own conceit will disdain instruction, and undertake to teach his master. We agree with our author “that there is a distinct and striking moral physiognomy in this people; an enthusiasm, a vivacity and ardour of character, courage, frankness, generosity, that have been developed with the peculiar circumstances under which they have been placed; and that these are incitements to all that is noble in a people." We unite with him in the exclamation

"O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nôrint.”

But we see no chance of their ever knowing what blessings they possess; no prospect of their most desirable improvement, nor ever shall, till a knowledge of their own imperfections is brought home to their bosoms, and they are made modestly to acknowledge, and blushingly to feel that Lexington is not Athens, nor "Kentuck" heaven.

After returning from his tour, and reposing a few days, our traveller purchased a keel boat of about ninety feet in length, and embarked his family for St. Louis. They encountered and weathered a violent storm, and drenched with wet, arrived in the evening at General Harrison's; of whom we have a warm and no doubt a just panegyrick. After two days spent there, they again went adrift, and as they passed the magnificent bluffs of the Ohio, towering aloft in fanciful forms, they could not but be delighted with their grandeur, and that of the vegetable kingdom; nor view, without admiration and unsated curiosity, the flocks of parroquets that animated the trees on the banks. They stopped for a short time at the Shaw-noe town, which they found