dishes one by one, and leave the dinner entirely extinct. It may be urged in extenuation of this haste, that people who drink plentifully of this water cease to be free agents, and must make the most of their time in eating. The visiters here are mostly invalids, either real or imaginary; if there be any such thing as imaginary sickness. It has always struck me as a great piece of assurance in one man to tell another that he was hipped, as the phrase is—as if a man was not a better judge of his own feelings than any body else can possibly be. For my part, I believe by far the most common imaginary complaint is that of fancying ourselves wiser than other people; and, under the influence of this species of the hypochondria, pretending to decide on their internal ailments. I am convinced that a person may suffer much, and yet the hours of health and sickness be so equally balanced, that, to the eye of an observer, nothing seems to be the matter; and thus the poor soul is deprived of sympathy, because he don't waste away and die.

The country people often stop here to take a glass of the water, and I had opportunities of seeing numbers of them. They are much like the country people in all the remote parts of the United States, and appear at the spring, among the fashionable ladies and gentlemen, without the least embarrassment. There is a striking air of conscious independence about them, which, to me, is the finest characteristic of our countrymen, and gives assurance of long-continued freedom. At first, it seems

a little unpleasant, but reflection soon reconciles us to this proud badge of liberty. This feature of character is, perhaps, stronger in the south than elsewhere; for where there are a great many blacks, it is, in itself, no small distinction to be white. In Virginia, too, the freeholders give their votes viva voce, in the presence of the candidates; and this, doubtless, gives them a character of more sturdy independence.

Here, too, the hunters are seen coming down with their deer to sell; for the mountains in this region abound with mighty hunters before the Lord, who cultivate a little land, and hunt a great deal. These are the people to make soldiers of; for they endure more hardships, and encounter more fatigues to kill one deer, than would kill twenty of the stoutest bucks in all Christendom. In the morning, they are at their posts in the pathless mountains, in the depths of winter; often all night out; and often bewildered in these recesses for two or three days. They are patient of cold and hunger-but don't bear thirst well, and always carry a bottle of whiskey. It is an utter disgrace to one of these mountain spirits, to draw the blood of a squirrel in killing it; they just hit the bark to which he clings, and bring him down by the shock, stone dead, without touching the body, or breaking the skin. An army of these fellows would march to the north pole, and shoot out the wind's eye, if it were no bigger than the point of a needle. I noticed one of these men last Sunday, down at the spring; and such a lad you won't always

VOL. I-O

see. He was at least six feet high; all bone and sinew, and had but one eye, which by the way was not in the middle of his forehead, else he might have passed for Polyphemus, in a hunting shirt. Whether his having but one eye was the consequence of an amusement said to have been fashionable hereabout, some years ago, or whether it was put out designedly, that he might take sight, without the trouble of shutting it, I am unable to tell; for I reckon the man that asked him might chance to get knocked down, with something betwixt a fist and a sledgehammer. He was followed by two dogs, lank and fierce, looking somewhat like their master-who, however, talked with a degree of manliness, intelligence, and decorum, that would have astonished people, who measure the fineness of a man's intellect by the texture of his coat. The fact is, that these people are not altogether dependant on hunting, but cultivate little farms-and there is, in the peaceful labours of agriculture, something that softens and harmonizes the heart of man, just as its influence ameliorates the climate, and smooths the rugged face of nature. This hunter told me he had a little farm, in a glen in the mountains, of which he was to have the produce of all he cleared to himself for three years after which one-third was to be given to the proprietor. I believe these are the usual terms on which land is taken up in this region-where it is less valuable, because situated just between the navigable rivers that centre in the Atlantic, on one hand, the Mississippi on the other, and a number of miles distant

from each. The roads, too, are inconvenient for wagons; and the produce of these little farms finds its principal market at the springs-which are an immense advantage to this country, not only by helping the people off with their surplus produce, but by their visiters affording such excellent examples of refined manners, and models for caps and cossack breeches. Good night.

DEAR FRANK,

LETTER XIX.

Ir is a rainy morning; the mountains have all got on their nightcaps of mist, and the clouds have fallen far below their lofty summits. Deserted is the green lawn, before the whitewashed cabins of the sulphur spring, and not a soul is to be seen seated under the shade of the oaks, with book in hand, half-buried in sleep and sentimental reveries. What renders this confinement more irksome, I have just finished my last romance, and have nothing left but one of those little works, something between a novel and a sermon, in which religion and love are strangely jumbled together, to the great benefit of the former, no doubt. It is the production of one of the good ladies of mother England, whose fault it will not be if our young damsels don't admire a spruce young parson, who proses much, and does nothing beyond any other human being, and pant with unceasing fervour for a husband in a black coat.

In this predicament I shall follow the orthodox example of our good aunt Kate, who, whenever it is too stormy to go any where else, takes her work and runs over to spend the day sociably with her opposite neighbour, who wishes her at the bottom of the red sea. I mean to saddle myself on you