kinder sorry for her-just think, I make them all the time! I'm going to send a box to her, but I'm not going to let them know where it comes from. You see, I haven't told them, yet, anything about my rugmaking. I've got a scheme, Miss Barrington-a fine scheme; but I can't tell it-yet."

It was spring before Keziah's "scheme" was divulged. Then Caleb Johnson received a letter, the contents of which threw the entire John

son family into a state of dazed wonder. It read:

"My Dear Brother:-You will shortly receive a piano which I am sending, with my love, to Jennie. I hope she will learn to play. It's been a good many years now that you've been sending money out here to me. My debt to you is a big one, and I can't ever hope to pay it; but, anyway, if things keep on like this, you won't have to send me much more. I'm making rugs. Folks buy them and pay me lots of money. Isn't it wonderful and-splendid? Lovingly, "KEZIAH."

O

I.

IN April 7th, 1796, Thomas Twining stepped ashore from the India and found himself at the end of a four months' voyage, in Philadelphia. He was one of the energetic Englishmen who laid the foundations of the Indian Empire. He had at this time been there three years, but, the state of his health rendering a voyage to England necessary, he determined to proceed thence by way of America. His two months' visit to this country at the beginning of our national existence. was but an episode in his Indian career, and seems to have been solely a visit of curiosity.

He entered the country by sailing up the Delaware, and although the city of Philadelphia did not present the splendor, nor majesty, nor venerable antiquity of some cities he had seen, not exhibiting the palaces of Calcutta, the temples of Benares, the marble domes and minarets of Agra and Delhi, its appearance was most gratifying to him as the city founded by Penn, and as the seat of the American Government.

Upon his arrival he received an invitation from one of the ship's owners to stay at his home for the night, but finding that when a stranger was invited to pass the night with his host it was never meant to give him the whole of a bed, the next morning he "took a lodging" at the London Tavern. Finding this deficient in comfort-although the

leading hotel of the city-he asked a person in the streets where the Members of Congress put up, and on being told that many of them lived together in a house in Fourth street, kept by an old Frenchman named Francis, he finally gained admittance there, and to his great joy he dined day after day with the Vice-President and Members of Congress, which fact he records in his "Travels" with Pepys-like faithfulness.

As for the city of Philadelphia, he thought it laid out on a "simple but monotonous plan, all the streets being equidistant from each other," and thus forming the houses between them into "square masses of equal dimensions."

"The streets resemble many of the smaller streets of London, excepting that the foot-pavement on each side is of brick instead of stone. The houses also are built of red brick, and have generally a shop on the first floor, and two or three windows in the stories above. The streets and houses thus resembling each other, having scarcely any difference in their appearance, excepting the accidental dissimilarity arising from the shops, produces a sameness wearying to the eye."

The naming of the streets he thought particularly confusing, such as "Delaware First Street" and "Schuylkyl First Street," and to name the other streets for the principal trees of America he considered scarcely less whimsical.

The first day he was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Bingham, "the principal person in Philadelphia, and the wealthiest, probably, in the

Union." He took supper with the Bingham family his first evening, and among other guests present was Alex. Baring-the future Lord Ashburton-and at this time a "clever, well-informed young man." The next day he dined with the Members of Congress.

"Mr. Adams took the chair always reserved for him at the head of the table, though himself superior to all sense of superiority. He appeared to be about sixty years of age. In person he was rather short and thick; in his manner somewhat cold and reserved, as the citizens of Massachusetts, his native State, are said generally to be. His presence caused a general feeling of respect, but the modesty of his demeanor and the tolerance of his opinions excluded all inconvenient restraint. He was generally dressed in a light or drab-colored coat, and had the appearance rather of an English country gentleman who had seen little of the world than of a statesman who had seen so much of public life. . . Indeed, to behold this distinguished man occupying the chair of the Senate in the morning, and afterwards walking home through the streets and taking his seat amongst his fellow-citizens, as their equal, conversing amicably with men over whom he had just presided, and perhaps checked and admonished, was a singular spectacle, and a striking exemplification of the state of society in America at this period."

Dr. Priestly, a refugee of the French Revolution, was then living in the city, and Twining describes the chief naturalist of the country as having a countenance "exceedingly mild and good-natured, his manner no less easy and conciliating. His person, short and slender, his age, apparently about sixty." Later, in Baltimore, he met M. Volney, also banished from France, but he was cold and satirical, "little pleased with America, and where not pleased he expressed himself with much severity."

After a week in Philadelphia, he decided to go via the mail wagon to the latter city.

"The vehicle was a long car with four benches. Three of these in the interior held nine passengers, and a tenth passenger was seated by the side of the driver on the front bench. There was no place nor space for luggage, each person being expected to stow his things as he could under his seat or legs. The entrance was in front, over the driver's bench. Of course, the three passengers on the back seat were obliged to crawl across all the other benches to get to their places. There were no backs to the benches to support and relieve us during a rough and fatiguing journey over a newly and ill made road."

Upon leaving the city they entered immediately upon the country, the "transition from streets to fields being abrupt, and not rendered gradual by detached houses and villas, as in the vicinity of London. The fields had nothing pleasing about them, being crossed and separated by the numerous intersections of the intended streets, and surrounded by large rough-hewed rails, placed zigzag, instead of hedges." About a mile from the city they crossed the Schuylkyl on a floating bridge,

"constructed of logs of wood placed by the side of each other upon the surface of the across them. water, and planks nailed Although this bridge floated when not charged, or charged but lightly, the weight of our wagon depressed it several inches below the surface, so that a foot-passenger passing at the same time would have been The exposed to serious inconvenience. roughness and imperfection of this construction on the principal line of road in America, and not a mile from the seat of government, afforded the most striking instance I had yet seen of the little progress the country had hitherto made in the improvements of civilization."

This instance of backwardness is mentioned

singular fact exemplifying the difficulties "not as a reproach to America, but as a and necessarily slow advancement of a new country."

However, he believed that there was no nation that would have done more in so short a time, and most

When he got into the hilly country, which presented some steep declivities, the wagon descended at a great rate, "for not only was it improvided with a drag to keep it back, but it seemed to be the principle of American driving to go as fast as possible down hill in order to make. up for the slowness inevitable on all other parts of the road." Another thing which he noted with surprise on this trip was that mere clumps of houses, the bare beginnings of villages, bore the names of the great towns or cities of England, but it did not occur to him to berate us, as so many of his successors have done, for not keeping the original Indian names. He also thought it would have been an easy and cheap embellishment of the country if a few of the fine trees of the ancient forests had been allowed to remain at least in the line of future hedgerows, if not in the fields, and he announced that in his opinion it was extremely unpicturesque to cut down all the trees about three feet above the ground.

But when crossing the Susquehannah near Havre de Grace he contemplated, with peculiar pleasure, the ancient woods which still threw their broad shadows upon its surface and was greatly struck with the wild poetic cast of the enchanting spot, all the features of which were as Indian as its name, excepting, indeed, the new-built town, where white houses on the southern shore had supplanted the wigwams of the Susquehannah tribe, and interrupted the magnificent line of foliage.

At length they arrived at Baltimore, having travelled from 10 A. M. Friday until 4 P. M. Saturdayspending the night (until 2:30 in the

was compelled to sleep in the same. room with nine other passengers, on "rude, unfurnished bedsteads, without curtains, ranged one close to another, like cots in a soldiers' barracks."

At the hotel where he stayed in Baltimore he found the party assembled at the table to consist "almost entirely of travellers and lodgers in the house, and not of residents in the town, for anti-Britannic as the Americans are in their political feelings, they have the domestic propensities of their ancestors, every man dining with his family, if he has one." This city he found to lack the symmetrical regularity of Philadelphia, and striking difference in the moral aspect of the two cities, Baltimore not having the dull uniformity which the dress and manners of a Quaker population gave to the metropolis.

Ten days later he took a day's journey to Washington, where he was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Law, the latter being the "granddaughter of Mrs. Washington, the President's lady." He started out from Georgetown to find Washington, whose discovery he describes as follows:

"Having crossed an extensive tract of level country somewhat resembling an English heath, I entered a large wood through which a very imperfect road had been made, principally by removing the trees, or rather the upper parts of them, in the usual manner. After some time this indistinct way assumed more the appearance of a regular avenue, the trees here having been cut down in a straight line. Although no habitation of any kind was visible, I had no doubt I was now riding along one of the streets of the metropolitan city. I continued in this spacious avenue for half a mile, and then came out upon a large spot, cleared of wood, in the centre of which I saw two buildings on an extensive scale, and some men at work on one of them. Advancing

and speaking to these workmen, they informed me that I was now in the centre of the city, and that the building before me

.

was the Capitol, and the other destined to be a tavern. As the greatest cities have a similar beginning, there was really nothing surprising here, nor out of the usual order of things; but still the scene which surrounded me-the metropolis of a great nation in its first stage from a sylvan statewas strikingly singular. Looking from where I now stood I saw on every side a thick wood pierced with avenues in a more or less perfect state. These denoted lines of the intended streets, which already appeared in the engraved plans, with their names. The Capitol promised to be a large and handsome building, judging from the part, about two-thirds, already above ground."

While the guest of the Law family he visited Alexandria, which, "situ

ated lower down on the Potomac and enjoying the advantage of a greater depth of water, would, in commercial competition, not improbably prove a formidable rival to Washington."

On the 13th of May, Mr. Twining called on General Washington at his home in Philadelphia, having been given a letter of introduction by his late host. "He lived in a small red brick house on the left side of High street. There was nothing in the exterior that denoted the rank of its possessor. Next door was a hair-dresser. In the drawingroom there were no pictures on the walls, no ornaments on the chimneypiece." Mrs. Washington he describes as a "middle-sized lady, rather stout; her manner extremely kind and unaffected." When the General entered, they both rose, Mrs. Washington said, "The President," and the two men were introduced.

of his countenance and the kindness of his address inspired. There are persons in whose appearance one looks in vain for the qualities they are known to possess, but the appearance of General Washington harmonized in a singular manner with the dignity and modesty of his public life."

After sitting about three-quarters of an hour, Mr. Twining rose to leave, but this private intercourse with one of the most unblemished characters that any country has produced formed one of his most memorable days in America. "The moment when the great Washington entered the room, and Mrs. Wash

ington said, 'The President,' made an impression on my mind which no subsequent years can efface."

On May 18th, he started for New York. Just after leaving Newark the horses became unmanageable on a steep hill, and Twining, with others, jumped out in order to save. their lives and lighten the load. In so doing he cut his right leg, probably on a stone in the road. He suffered from this accident the remainder of his visit, and while in New York was able to do very little sight-seeing. But he mentions the fine view from the Battery, notes that New York possesses an evident superiority over Philadelphia, Baltimore, Alexandria, and Washington for maritime communication, and may be considered the first port of the United States. In fact he recalled no city, in his recollection of the principal cities he had seen, whose situation was at once so advantageous and beautiful as that of New York. He was told that Broadway extended two miles, but as it was usual in America to reckon as streets such as were only comtemplated and not yet begun, it was not easy to know how much of this great length was imaginary.