presents among them. About sunset, our flotilla of seven canoes, manned well by Indian and French Canadian crews, drew up, some of the rowers cheering the end of the day's work with snatches of a Canadian boat-song. We disembarked on some rocky islet which, as probably as not, had never felt the feet of man before. In a few moments the utter solitude had become a scene of bustle and business, carried on by the sudden population of some sixty souls; tents had been pitched in which we were to sleep; small trees had been cut for fuel; fires had been lighted, round which the motley crews were preparing the evening meal; some were bathing in the transparent little bays, some standing on a jutting piece of cliff, fishing; and here and there an Indian in the water, motionless, watching with an intent gaze, a spear in his hand ready to dart on his prey beneath. A large oil-cloth had been spread for our party on a convenient ledge of rock; hot peasoup, hot fish, the chase of the day, and large cold rounds of beef, showed that, though we were in the desert, we did not fare like anchorites; and the summer moon rose on the scattered fires, and the gay bivouac, and the snatches of song and chorus that from time to time woke the unaccustomed echoes of Lake Huron.

Entering the United States again, I made a rapid journey by Lakes Champlain and George, by Ticonderoga and Saratoga,historic names; spent four very delightful days in most attractive society in a New England village, revived the beauteous impressions of the Hudson, and, taking leave of friends not soon to be forgotten, on the quay of New York, left the hospitable shore.

You will have perceived that in these desultory notes I have not attempted to pronounce any formal judgment upon the American people, or the great experiment they are conducting in the face of the world. The extreme diversity of habits, manners, opinions, feelings, race, and origin, in the several parts of the wide extent of country I traversed, would render the difficulty, great in any case, of such an undertaking, still more subtle and complicated. The striking contrasts in such a shifting and variegated aspect of society, make me feel that any such general and dashing summary could only be attempted after the fashion of a passage which I have always much admired in Gibbon, where, wishing to give a fair view of the poetical character of Claudian, he sums up separately his merits and defects, and leaves his reader to strike the just balance. In some such mode it might be stated, that

North America, viewed at first with respect to her natural surface, exhibits a series of scenery, various, rich, and, in some of its features, unparalleled; though she cannot, on the whole, equal Europe in her mountain elevations, how infinitely does she surpass her in rivers, estuaries, and lakes! This variegated surface of earth and water is seen under a sky warm, soft, and balmy in some — clear, blue, and brilliant in all its latitudes, with a transparency of atmosphere which Italy does not reach, with varieties of forestgrowth and foliage unknown to Europe, and with a splendour of views in autumn before which painting must despair. With respect to the moral aspect, I naturally feel the difficulty of any succinct or comprehensive summary infinitely heightened. The feature which is the most obvious, and probably the most enviable, is the nearly entire absence, certainly of the appearance, and, in a great degree, of the reality of poverty; in no part of the world, I imagine, is there so much general ease and comfort among the great bulk of the people, and a gushing abundance struck me as the prominent characteristic of the land. It is not easy to describe how far this consideration goes to brighten the face of nature, and give room for its undisturbed enjoyment. Within a mere span of time, as compared with the general growth and progress of nations, the industry, at once steady and persevering, of the inhabitants, has cleared enormous tracts of forest, reared among their untrodden glades spacious and stately cities, opened new highways through the swamp and the desert, covered their unequalled rivers with fleets of steam-boats and craft of every form, given an extension to canals beyond all previous experience, and filled land and water with hardy miracles of successful enterprise. The traveller, wafted with marvellous ease by steam-boats and railways over prodigious spaces, cannot but indulge in what may appear a more superficial satisfaction at the accommodation he meets with in the hotels of the principal cities, which are regulated on a scale, and with a splendour and even cleanliness which he will find scarcely rivalled in the capitals of Europe. However absorbed in the pursuits of business, agriculture and trade, the citizens of these young republics may be, and though it would seem to be their obvious vocation in life to cultivate almost boundless wastes, and connect almost interminable distances, circles are nevertheless to be found among them which, in point of refined and agreeable intercourse, of literary taste, and general

accomplishment, it would be difficult for the same capitals of the elder world to surpass; the Bench and Bar, as well as other professions, can boast both of the solid and brilliant qualities by which they are adorned; and while much occurs in Congress that must be deemed rough and unseemly, the chords of high and generous feeling are frequently struck within its walls to accents of noble eloquence; in the universal fluency of their public speaking, they undoubtedly surpass ourselves. In rural life, I doubt whether the world can produce more examples of quiet simplicity and prosperous content than would be found, I might say most prominently, in the embowered villages of New England, or the sunny valleys of Pennsylvania. I am sure that I am not wanting in respect for our own operative classes; but neither can I conceal from myself that the appearance of the female factory population of Lowell presents some points of favourable contrast. Among the more opulent portion of society, an idle man without regular profession or fixed pursuit is the exception which excites observation and surprise. The purity of the female character stands deservedly high, and society has been deemed by some to be rendered less agreeable by the rigid devotion of the young married women to their households and nurseries. It is something to have travelled nearly over the whole extent of the Union without having encountered a single specimen either of servility or incivility of manner; by the last I intend to denote intentional rudeness. Elections may seem the universal business, topic, and passion of life, but they are, at least with but few exceptions, carried on without any approach to tumult, rudeness, or disorder; those which I happened to see were the most sedate, unimpassioned processes I can imagine. In the Free States, at least, the people at large bear an active, and, I believe, on the whole, a useful part in all the concerns of internal government and practical daily life; men of all classes, and especially of the more wealthy and instructed, take a zealous share in almost every pursuit of usefulness and philanthropy; they visit the hospitals and asylums; they attend the daily instructions of the schools; they give lectures at Lyceums and Institutes. I am glad to think that I may be treading in their foot-steps on this occasion. I have already mentioned with just praise, the universal diffusion and excellent quality of popular education, as established especially in the States of New England, the powerful Empire State of New York,

and, I may add, the prosperous and aspiring State of Ohio. With out venturing to weigh the preponderating recommendations or deficiencies of the Voluntary System, I may fairly ask, what other communities are so amply supplied with the facilities of public worship for all their members? The towns, old and young, bristle with churches; they are almost always well filled; the Sabbath, in the Eastern and Northern States at least, is scrupulously observed; and with the most unbounded freedom of conscience, and a nearly complete absence of polemical strife and bitterness, there is apparently a close unity of feeling and practice in rendering homage to God.

Though it would appear difficult, and must certainly be ungracious, to paint the reverse side of such a country and such a people, a severe observer would not be long at fault. With respect to their scenery itself, while he could not deny that within its vast expanse it contained at times both sublimity and beauty, he might establish against it a charge of monotony, to which the immense continuities of the same surfaces, whether of hill, valley, wood, lake, or river — the straight unbroken skirt of forest, the entire absence of single trees, the square parellelograms of the cleared spaces, the uniform line of zig-zag fences, the staring squareness of the new wooden houses, all powerfully contribute. In regard to climate, without dwelling on such partial influences as the malària which desolates the stunted pine-barrens of North Carolina, and banishes every white native of South Carolina from their riceplains during the entire summer, the hot damps which festoon the trees on the southern coast with a funereal drapery of grey moss, the yellow fever which decimates the Quays of New Orleans, and the feverish agues which line the banks of the Mississippi, it would be impossible to deny the violent alternations of temperature which have a more general prevalence; and it is certain that much fewer robust forms and ruddy complexions are to be seen than in our own more even latitudes. Passing from the physical to the moral atmosphere, amidst all the vaunted equality of the American freemen, there seemed to be a more implicit deference to custom, a more passive submission to what is assumed to be the public opinion of the day or hour, than would be paralleled in many aristocratic or even despotic communities. This quiet acquiescence in the prevailing tone, this complete abnegation of individual sentiment, is naturally most perceptible in the domain of politics; but

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I thought that it also in no inconsiderable degree pervaded the social circle, biassed the decisions of the judicial bench, and even infected the solemn teachings of the pulpit. To this source may probably in some measure be traced the remarkable similarity in the manners, deportment, conversation, and tone of feeling, which has so generally struck travellers from abroad in American society. Who that has seen, can ever forget the slow and melancholy silence of the couples who walk arm-in-arm to the tables of the great hotels, or of the unsocial groups who gather round the greasy meals of the steam-boats, lap up the five minutes' meal, come like shadows, so depart? One of their able public men made an observation to me, which struck me as pungent, and perhaps true, that it was probably the country in which there was less misery and less happiness than in any other of the world. There are other points of manners on which I am not inclined to dilate, but to which it would at least require time to be reconciled: I may just intimate that their native plant of tobacco lies at the root of much that we might think objectionable. However necessary and laudable the general devotion to habits of industry and the practical business of life may be, and though there are families and circles in which no grace, no charm, no accomplishment, are wanting, yet it cannot be denied, that among the nation at large, the empire of dollars, cents, and material interests, holds a very preponderating sway, and that art and all its train of humanities exercise at present but an enfeebled and restricted influence. If we ascend from social to political life, and from manners to institutions, we should find that the endless cycles of electioneering preparations and contests, although they may be carried on for the most part without the riotous turbulence, or overt bribery, by which they are sometimes but too notoriously disgraced among ourselves, still leave no intermission for repose in the public mind; enter into all the relations of existence; subordinate to themselves every other question of internal and foreign policy; lead their public men-I will not say their best, but the average of them-to pander to the worst prejudices, the meanest tastes, the most malignant resentments of the people; at each change of administration incite the new rulers to carry the spirit of proscription into every department of the public service, from the Minister at a great foreign court, to the post-master of some half-barbarous out-post, thus tending to render those whose functions ought to withdraw them

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