history or tradition, where a Dutchman outwitted any body. I would tell it you, but you would not comprehend it, without a description of the place, which I can't afford to give just now.

One thing struck me here as a peculiarity. It may be common, but I have not observed it before. The banks of this river, for upwards of forty miles, are, in every instance, singularly contrasted. If high on one side, it is low and flat on the other, and in no one instance did I see an exception to this rule. It is not my business to explain these matters. Let the philosophers look to them, if, as is very possible, they have not explained them before. After the junction of the two streams, the river widens, and just here it is that the ship navigation properly ends, in coming up from the bay. The place is called City-Point, a lucus a non lucendo-there being no city, only every body wonders why one was not built there. Below this, commence those extensive flats where the early settlers first broke the soil of the United States; and where the first sun rose and set on the natives of the eastern hemisphere, pursuing the peaceful occupations of husbandry in this wilderness of the west. It is here then that we see the spot where first was planted the seeds of this great country-mighty in its present vigorous youth, but far mightier in its future destinies. The place, therefore, is one of the most interesting to a reflecting mind (as mine is of course) of any in this country. To an American it is peculiarly interesting. You know I have travelled to Rome-seen all the ruins-and been besieged in

that renowned city by at least ten thousand beggars. Then I have been up the Archipelago, where I saw several things that are not to be seen, as most travellers do. Then I have been at Smyrna, where I never wish to go again, and seen the very spot where old Homer, as they affirm, kept a grammar-school. A strange place, there being not a single birch tree in the whole neighbourhood! From thence we may infer, that "probably," as the learned member of the Agricultural Society of Otaheite, &c. &c. &c. &c. would say that, probably, either Homer used the ferula, instead of a birchen twig—or that he did not approve of flagellation-or, lastly, that he never kept a school in this place. This last supposition is rendered more "probable," by the claim of the Island of Chios to the same honour; but every body knows, that islanders always have been, and always will be, the greatest braggarts in the world. But to return, I have travelled from Smyrna to Constantinople, in which progress I was almost bitten to death by fleas. Here, too, I encountered a Christian exile, who bore this testimony to the exuberance of Christian charity—“I have travelled among savages, pagans, mussulmen, and whenever I entered their doors, they gave me all that my wants demanded, and felt the offer of remuneration as an insult-but when I come among Christians, I can get nothing without money." But he had never been in Old Virginia.

Yet, after having seen (in books) all these remains of ancient, or exhibitions of modern, magnificence, I

can honestly say, that they excited nothing like the feeling I experienced, on visiting the spot where the first permanent settlement was made by the pilgrims, in this our western hemisphere. Nothing now remains, but the land they cultivated, and their graves; but the spot is well known, and every century, while, like a river, it carries millions of light wonders to the ocean of oblivion, will only render it more interesting and illustrious. It is closely connected with the first links of a great chain of causes and effects, that have already changed the destiny of the new, and will probably change that of the old world. He, therefore, who cannot feel the inspiration of this spot, need not take the trouble to go to Rome or Athens, for he may rest assured, that the fine and subtile spirit which lives, and moves, and has its being, in the future and the past alone, is not an inmate of his mind.

But to return to the honest, humdrum, present time, which is almost as bad as jumping off a horse at full speed. The land in the vicinity of James river, below Richmond, and indeed in the greater part of Lower Virginia, is greatly injured by being planted too often without its strength being sustained by manure. It reminds me of poor S- who grew prematurely old, and turned his head into a pine barren, by cultivating his faculties overmuch. This was the reason why I never studied too hard, though, to do myself justice, I used to batter that most infamous science, algebra, until I was plus in stupidity, and minus in every thing else.

The reason why the land in this part of the country is so generally impoverished, is, probably, the great number of slaves, who enable the owner to plant a greater portion of his land every year. The temptation of immediate profit is too strong to overcome the anticipation of future want. The present and the future are, indeed, always at war with each other; and it is not yet quite certain, whether in a worldly view, the votaries of one or other are the most wise. With this wise observation, I bid you good by. Your's always.

LETTER IX.

DEAR FRANK,

ADVANCING into the country in the direction we were advised to follow, we crossed the Pamunkey, a branch of York river, which, flowing through a clay soil, is generally so muddy, that if Narcissus had made it his looking-glass, he never had died for love. The Indians, who inhabited the western shores of Chesapeake bay, seem to have had a singular predilection for the letter P, in giving names to the rivers. We have the Petapsco, Patuxent, Potomac, Piankatank, Powhatan,* Pamaunck,† Pamunkey, and doubtless divers others, whose names have been altered by the Europeans. For it is to be recollected that the first settlers of an Indian country not only take away from the copper-coloured villains their lands and rivers, but give them new names, like the gipsies, who first steal children, and then, to disguise the theft, christen them anew.

Beyond the Pamunkey the country begins gradually to assume a more irregular appearance, and becomes diversified with hills and valleys. At first the soil is principally of clay, but as you proceed, it becomes gravelly for a space; and in approaching the Blue Ridge, again changes to a reddish clay. Much of

*Now James river.

+ Now York river.