Ms. Julia Semencs i from ber heist LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, AND SOLD BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES. Trav 1800 1400 2. Essays, Amarizan A.R (1) Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835. By HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH. LETTER I. DEAR FRANK, In order to lay a solid foundation for my travels, I ought first to tell how this new world was made; and, secondly, how it was peopled; since, if it had never been made or peopled, it would not be worth writing about. There are two ways of making a world, lately invented by the geologists—one by fire, the other by water. I mention these to show you it is no difficult matter; and you may take your choice of either, as people choose whether they will have their mutton roasted or boiled. But, though it was easy enough for the philosophers to tell how America was made, the peopling of it was not quite so trifling a job, and cost them more labour than all the rest of the earth put together. The old world, it seems, was hugely surprised, at finding this thumping bantling, as it were, thus laid at its door; and the philosophers, like faithful parish officers, set to work to ferret out the father. In this pilgrimage, they fared pretty much like the lad in the French novel, who, in a |