River," which flows under ground for the distance of nearly ten miles. When there has been a very heavy fall of rain, and the water cannot find room to pass under ground, the overplus runs in a channel above, and joins the river again where it rises from the earth. This upper channel by no means follows the course of the subterraneous one.

The road passes over the upper channel, which is pretty deep, and which, in spite of the quantity of rain which had fallen only five or six days before, was, when I crossed it, nearly dry.

At about sixty miles from the Ohio, I stopped one night at the house of a man called Byrom. He was of the sect of Methodists called New Lights, who hold the doctrine of the sufficiency, and absolute necessity, of good works. (I may lament en passant that all sects do not agree in this principle.) Byrom was a very devout man, and before going to bed invited me to prayers. Accordingly he read a chapter of the Bible, which he commented upon; and then, in chorus with the whole family, sung a hymn. He told me that he considered this way of concluding the evening an indispensable duty. Indeed, I have several other times observed the same custom in the Western States.

A few miles from Mr. Byrom's, at a place called French Lick, is a very large pigeon roost. Several acres of timber are completely destroyed, the branches, even of the thickness of a man's body,

being torn off by the myriads of pigeons that settle on them. Indeed, the first time I saw a flight of these birds, I really thought that all the pigeons in the world had assembled together, to make one common emigration. These pigeons do a great deal of mischief; for as they clear immense tracts of forest, of all the mast, acorns, &c. numbers of the hogs, which run at large in the woods, are in consequence starved to death.

When crossing a small stream, the day after leaving Byrom's, I saw a large flock of beautiful green and yellow parroquets. These were the first I had met with; and as they were very tame, and allowed me to come close to them, I got off my horse, and stopped a short time to admire them. I afterwards saw numbers of the same kind in the flats of the Wabash and Mississippi, for this beautiful bird apparently delights in the neighbourhood of streams.

Before arriving at Hindostan, a small village on the East Fork of White River, the country becomes very hilly; and being on that account thinly settled, abounds with game of all descriptions. Some idea may be formed of the abundance of it, from the price of venison at this place, and in the neighbourhood. A haunch will bring only 20 cents (about 1s. 9d. sterling), or the value of 25 cents, if the hunter will take powder, lead, or goods. The shopkeepers who buy the haunches, the only parts of the deer that are thought worth selling, cure

and dry them much in the same manner as the Scotch do their mutton hams, and then send them for sale to Louisville or New Orleans. These dried venison hams, as they are called, are very good eating.

The two young men who ferried me over the river, had just returned from a hunting excursion. They had only been out two days; and not to mention a great number of turkeys, had killed sixteen deer and two bears, besides wounding several others. The bear is much more esteemed than the deer; first, because his flesh sells at a higher price; and secondly, because his skin, if a fine large black one, is worth two or three dollars.

I was stopped for three days at the West Fork of White River, owing to the ice, which was of such a thickness, and came down the stream with such rapidity, that it was impossible for the ferryboat to cross.

In these thinly settled countries, if a traveller be detained, or if he wish to stop a day or two to rest his horse, he can, if either a sportsman or a naturalist, find abundant amusement. Go to what house I might, the people were always ready to lend me a rifle, and were in general glad to accompany me when I went out hunting. Hence, in addition to the pleasure of the chase, I had, at the same time, an opportunity of becoming better acquainted with the manners of the Backwoodsmen, and with the difficulties. and hardships which are

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undergone by all the first settlers of a new country. I found I had imbibed the most erroneous ideas, from seeing none of the inhabitants, but those who, living by the road side, were accustomed to receive money from travellers, and sometimes to charge as much for their coarse fare, and wretched accommodations, as would be paid in the Eastern States for the utmost comfort a tavern can afford. I therefore considered all the people a sordid and imposing set. But when I began to enter into the company of the Backwoodsmen, quite off the roads, and where a traveller was seldom or never seen, I found the character of the settlers quite different from what I had supposed. In general they were open hearted and hospitable, giving freely whatever they had, and often refusing any recompense. It is true they always treated me as their équal; but at the same time, there was a sort of real civility in their behaviour, which I have often looked for in vain elsewhere.

In the Backwoods, pork, or as they call it hogsflesh, together with venison and hommony (boiled Indian corn), was my usual fare, and a blanket or two, on the floor of the cabin, my bed; but I was amply compensated for this want of luxuries by a degree of openness and hospitality, which indeed the most fastidious could not but have admired. Thus, on going away, my host has sometimes accompanied me four or five miles, in order to put me in the track leading to the road.

But notwithstanding the instances of good-heartedness, and simplicity of manners, which one meets with in these wild countries, yet few travellers are willing to quit the more frequented districts; and it is to this want of self-denial, that I should be disposed to attribute the erroneous accounts of the American character which have been given us. Some of our travellers moreover, are in the practice of detailing all the disagreeable scenes of low life, which they have witnessed at the taverns, and hence lead their readers to form a very incorrect idea of the whole people. If an American traveller in England were to do the same, he would have no difficulty, in proving us the most profligate, immoral, and cheating nation on the face of the earth.

After waiting in vain two days for the river to freeze over, so that I could pass on horseback, I at last hired two or three men, armed with poles, to asist in keeping off the cakes of ice; and thus succeeded in crossing, notwithstanding the width and rapidity of the river.

Between the White River and Vincennes is a large swamp, intersected by a small stream. Over this swamp, for the distance of two miles, is a piece of what the Western people very expressively term a

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Corderoy Road," which is very common in these States, and is made wherever the ground is marshy. A Corderoy Road consists of small trees, stripped of their boughs, and laid touching one another,