here received great kindness, and was visited by two of the respectable physicians of that place, who furnished me such medicines, and gave me such counsel, as my case seemed to require. The day after my arrival here, I took passage on board the steam-boat Grecian for Louisville. She was a fine, roomy boat, and carried, it was said, two hundred and fifty passengers. But most of them were deck passengers, and the cabin was not crowded. I found a pleasant company on board, and every attention that I could desire. Our boat had high power, and was capable of making rapid headway against the headiong current. The trees were in full foliage. We ran for the most part so as to graze the margin of willows, and were continually raking the tender branches and flowers on to our guards. Had I possessed the least elasticity, or capacity for cheerfulness, this passage under such pleasant circumstances, and at this delightful season, would have cheered me. There were some glorious mornings, when we saw the river studded with ascending and descending boats, heard the bugle note, the cheerfulness of life on the shore, and inhaled the odours of the blossoming forest ; such mornings as won id almost create a " soul beneath the ribs of death." But a languid and sinking nature passes, as 1 did, through all these circumstances of joy, incapable of seeing or feeling them. Little of incident occurred on this passage. The noisy and thoughtless mirth of healthy and happy people, crowded together in such a place, you will readily conceive would strike a key, not at all in unison with my feelings. Impatience induced me in the morning to wish for evening, and in the evening for morning, and when I laid myself in my solitary birth, it was my custom, after my

better thoughts had communed with God, to take a mental leave of my family and the world, for in the evening it often seemed to me doubtful if I should survive until the morning. On the eleventh we passed the place where our babe lies buried, and at midnight of the fourteenth, we arrived at Louisville. The trip which we had now performed in ten days, lying by two nights of those days for fog, used formerly to occupy twenty-five days of the first steam-boats that ascended the river. We had come on an average more than an hundred miles a day, against the whole weight of the Mississippi current. I had remarked, as soon as we began to pass the high lands on the Ohio, the wonderful change, which ten years had wrought in that region. The log-houses were gone, and replaced by houses of brick. The orchards, which were just planted when I descended the Ohio, had become thrifty trees of considerable size, and were now white with blossoms. Passing steam-boats, thriving villages, bustle and business had taken place of the solitude and stillness of the same places at the former period. Louisville had grown to be a fine town. The ware-houses, the stores, the smell at the landingeven, the ship-yards, all indicated the mercantile character, the great and growing importance of the place. The Ohio was too low for the Spartan to proceed over the falls. We took carriages, went round the falls, and embarked on board the Pike, a beautiful and swift steam-boat, bound to Cincinnati. The distance is one hundred and fifty miles, and we arrived there against the current of the Ohio in something less than a day.

I wTas still more struck with the changes at Cincinnati, than at Louisville. A number of steam-boats

were building here. I went on board the Belvidere, a most beautiful boat, which had just been completed. We are certainly making great strides in luxury. Nothing could evidence this more strikingly than to see such a boat, so fitted up, and with so much splendour, and in the ladies' cabin a fine piano, and all this in the harbour of a town at such a distance from the sea, and as yet scarcely forty years old. In the morning after my arrival, I was just able to make my way to the market, and the abundance, bustle, and cheerfulness of the spectacle amused me for a moment. The increase of this place is wonderful. It is supposed now to number above sixteen-thousand inhabitants.

I experienced here the kindest attentions of my relatives and friends, for I have relatives here. Dr. D., one of the respectable physicians of this place, visited me, and gave me medicine and counsel. I staid here two days, and then embarked on board the Ohio, an ordinary steam-boat, but the only one that in the present low stage of the water coula mount to Wheeling. The Pike had been full of passengers. The Ohio was crowded to overflowing. In our country at this time, the community seems to be gathered into steam-boats and stages. On my passage to Wheeling, my complaint took a new form, which weakened me extremely. But through the sustaining goodness of God, I arrived at that place. Could I have had cheerfulness to be capable of reflecting, I should have found sufficient food for thought, in contemplating at every step as I advanced, the improvement on the Ohio. Cesar said, that he found Rome of brick, and left it of marble. I found the Ohio, ten years before, with log-houses, and wooden benches. There were now

brick houses, ornamented court-yards, trellis-wrought summer-houses, fruit-gardens, and within, carpets, side-boards, and sofas. Wheeling, when I descended, was a smoky, mis-shapen village. When I returned, there were lines of massive brick buildings, and in the hotel where I lodged was an establishment on a footing with the first class of Atlantic houses of the same kind. Every thing denoted opulence, and the most careful attention to convenience and comfort. There were other establishments, equally large and expensive. I might have foreseen all this, but still it struck me with somewhat the same surprize, as a rustic reared in the country, would feel in being suddenly transported to the centre of a city. I reposed here one day. There were a great number of passengers in the steam-boat Ohio, who were bound over the mountains. All the carriages, beside the mail coaches, were put in requisition. We made up a private party, and took a carriage to go the first day as far as Washington. It was my first experiment of my capacity for travelling by land.

The great national road from the Ohio to Baltimore commences here. It is one of the noblest monuments of the power and munificence of our government. To understand and appreciate the grandeur and the utility of this work, one must have contemplated the Allegany ridges and cliffs, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles in extent, and must have crossed these mountains to Pittsburg, as I did, ten years before. There are simple, but noble freestone bridges over Wheeling creek, which meanders across the direction of the road, a great number of times. Ten miles from Wheeling, there is a massive stone monument to Mr. Clay, considered here as the

projector, and the efficient patron of this road. It is smooth and well railed, where the sides are precipitous. The angles of ascent are no where sharp. Every thing appertaining to the road is in that style of simple and durable grandeur, that begins to be the characteristic mark of our public works.

At Washington I was so exhausted, as to be unable to proceed. Here I took medicine and applied a large blister, rather an unpleasant application for a sick man, jolting up and down mountains in a stage.

Washington is a large and pleasant village in Pennsylvania, and the seat of a college which promises to be useful to literature. It would be repetition to say, that I found great kindness and attention during the two days that I spent here. Our road led us through Brownsville, formerly Red-stone. Here the road crosses the Monongahela, about a quarter of a mile in width. There is a fine bridge over the river ; but our driver, to avoid the toll, chose to ford it, to the manifest danger of having carriage and horses carried down the stream. Here you see again the imperishable stone houses, and barns of Pennsylvania. The tavern at which we stopped was an excellent house, and in high order. Indeed this town of Brownsville, by no means one of the most considerable in this region, would surprise an Atlantic inhabitant, who has been accustomed to associate with this country the ideas of rudeness and poverty. The country is in high cultivation, and the fields and orchards are delightful. Beyond this place we soon begin to ascend the mountains. We have fine taverns, and good entertainment all the way over the mountains. We were driven down the most considerable of them, a distance of between four and five miles, at a furious rate, and at

midnight, and just on the verge of precipices, that it would be fearful to look down upon at mid-day. I suffered more than I can describe- from weakness and exhaustion. We crossed the Potomac, staid a night at Frederick, and I was cheered at last w ith a distant view of the Atlantic regions. There are few pleasanter tracts in the United States, than the charming and fertile valley of Conecocheague in Maryland. Surveyors and engineers were surveying this rout, with a view to locating the position of a canal, to unite the tide waters of Virginia with the Ohio. I found Hagarstown a much larger and pleasanter place than I had anticipated. 1 arrived safely at Baltimore, though extremely exhausted in body and mind. At Philadelphia I staid some days, experiencing manykindnesses from the people to whom I was introduced. Here I consulted the benevolent and celebrated Dr. Physic, the u Magnus Apollo " of the Philadelphians. In passing from Baltimore to New York, a track too beaten for me to hazard any remarks upon, the only subject that occurs to me worthy of reflection is the astonishing facilities afforded to travellers for passing rapidly. On this route, as on the Ohio, the steam-boats, the stages, the hotels, were crowded- The community seemed to be all passing on the road. The same reflection forced itself upon me on my passage to Boston by the way of Providence.

Having arrived in Boston and met some friends, who are very dear to me,, and from whom I parted between ten and eleven years before, as I departed for the West, I could see by the very attempt to suppress surprize and exclamation, how time and disease had changed my countenance. We become so gradually accustomed to the changes which such causes op

erate upon us, as not, of ourselves, to be conscious how great they are. But they are immediately and painfully obvious to him, who sees the alteration of ten years fall upou his eye at a single glance. A few hours brought me to you, my dear friend, and having accomplished the object of my prayers, having seen again my earliest and most constant friend, I felt in that joyful hour of meeting, as though, could I have had my family with me, miserable as my health was, I should have been the happiest of ihe happy. But at the end of this long pilgrimage, with more than two thousand miles interposed between me and my family, your countenance, and that of my other friends, told me but too plainly, that these halcyon hours were not expected to be long repeated. There are no constant things here, but disappointments and tears. Happy for us, that there remaineth a rest for the people of God.

You requested me, at parting, to give you my views of the changes in the moral and physical aspect of New England, during the last ten years, as they struck me in returning to that country. The survey which I took of it, during the summer, was extensive though cursory, and probably the view will be the discoloured one, which resulted from sickly and jaundiced vision. It shall at least have the merit of brevity. I passed from Providence, by the way of Pawtucket, to Boston. I inquired respecting the huge