beneath her feet, I cannot recall the self-devotion with which she gave herself to it, without admiration.

'The only white persons we found at Nashoba were my amiable friend, Mrs. W * * *, the sister of Miss Wright, and her husband. I think they had between thirty and forty slaves, including children, but when I was there no school had been established. Books and other materials for the great experiment had been collected, and one or two professors engaged, but nothing was yet organized. I found my friend Mrs. W * * * in very bad health, which she confessed she attributed to the climate. This naturally so much alarmed me for my children, that I decided upon leaving the place with as little delay as possible, and did so at the end of ten days.

'I do not exactly know what was the immediate cause which induced Miss Wright to abandon a scheme which had taken such possession of her imagination, and on which she had expended so much money; but many months had not elapsed, before I learnt with much pleasure, that she and her sister had also left it. I think it probable that she became aware upon returning to Nashoba, that the climate was too hostile to their health. All I know farther of Nashoba is, that Miss Wright having found (from some cause or other) that it was impossible to pursue her object, herself accompanied her slaves to Hayti, and left them there, free, and under the protection of the president.

'I found no beauty in the scenery around Nashoba, nor can I conceive that it would possess any even in summer. The trees were so close to each other as not to permit the growth of underwood, the great ornament of the forest at New Orleans, and still less of our seeing any openings, where the varying effects of light and shade might atone for the absence of other objects. The clearing round the settlement appeared to me inconsiderable and imperfect; but I was told that they had grown good crops of cotton and Indian corn. The weather was dry and agreeable, and the aspect of the heavens by night surprisingly beautiful, I never saw moonlight so clear, so pure, so powerful.'-vol. i. pp. 37-42.

Nashoba having but few attractions for the lively fancy of our author, she shortened considerably her intended visit, and returning to Memphis with her family, she took the steam boat for Cincinnati, the capital of the west, and supposed to be one of the best situations at that side of the Alleghanies. Part of the voyage was still up the Mississippi, the remainder by the Ohio, whose shores, though almost as unhealthy as those of the great river into which it pours its gifts, present a much greater variety of scenery. 'Sometimes its clear wave waters a meadow of level turf; sometimes it is bounded by perpendicular rocks; pretty dwellings, with their gay porticos, are seen, alternately with wild intervals of forest, where the tangled bear-brake plainly enough indicates what inhabitants are native there. Often a mountain torrent comes pouring its silver tribute to the stream, and were there occasionally a ruined abbey, or feudal castle, to mix the romance of real life with that of nature, the Ohio would be perfect.' On the Kentucky side the scenery is particularly beautiful; its pastures, forests, and hunting grounds are still remembered with emotion by the Indians, who

have a wild lament, which they often chaunt to the memory of their former paradise. The town of Cincinnati rises from the water's edge along the side of a hill, on which it is finely situated; and as it has now a few towers and steeples, it appears like a handsome city. The author had no little difficulty in finding here a house to her taste.

'We went to the office of an advertising agent, who professed to keep a register of all such information, and described the dwelling we wanted. He made no difficulty, but told us his boy should be our guide through the city, and show us what we sought; we accordingly set out with him, and he led us up one street and down another, but evidently without any determinate object; I therefore stopped, and asked him whereabout the houses were which we were going to see.

"I am looking for bills," was his reply.

I thought we could have looked for bills as well without him, and I told him so; upon which he assumed an air of great activity, and began knocking regularly at every door we passed, enquiring if the house was to be let. It was impossible to endure this long, and our guide was dismissed, though I was afterwards obliged to pay him a dollar for his services.

We had the good fortune, however, to find a dwelling before long, and we returned to our hotel, having determined upon taking possession of it as soon as it could be got ready. Not wishing to take our evening meal either with the threescore and ten gentleman of the dining-room, nor yet with the half dozen ladies of the bar-room, I ordered tea in my own chamber. A good-humoured Irish woman came forward with a sort of patronising manner, took my hand, and said, "Och, my honey, ye'll be from the old country. I'll see you will have your tay all to yourselves, honey." With this assurance we retired to my room, which was a handsome one as to its size and bed-furniture, but it had no carpet, and was darkened by blinds of paper, such as rooms are hung with, which required to be rolled up, and then fastened with strings very awkwardly attached to the window-frames, whenever light or air were wished for. I afterwards met with these same uncomfortable blinds in every part of America.

Our Irish friend soon reappeared, and brought us tea, together with the never-failing accompaniments of American tea-drinking, hung beef, chipped up" raw, and sundry sweetmeats of brown sugar hue and flavour. We took our tea, and were enjoying our family talk, relative to our future arrangements, when a loud sharp knocking was heard at our door. My come in" was answered by the appearance of a portly personage who proclaimed himself our landlord.

"Are any of you ill?" he began.

"No, thank you, sir; we are all quite well," was my reply.

"Then, madam, I must tell you that I cannot accommodate you on these terms; we have no family tea-drinkings here, and you must live

with either me or my wife, or not at all in my house."

This was said with an air of authority that almost precluded reply, but I ventured a sort of apologistic hint, that we were strangers and unaccustomed to the manners of the country.

"Our manners are very good manners, and we don't wish any changes from England."

'I thought of mine host of the Washington afterwards when reading Scott's "Anne of Geierstein;" he in, truth, strongly resembled the inn-keeper therein immortalised, who made his guests eat, drink, and sleep, just where, when, and how he pleased. I made no further remonstrance, but determined to hasten my removal. This we achieved the next day, to our great satisfaction.'—vol. i. pp. 49-52.

Though neat and comfortable enough in appearance, her new dwelling wanted almost every convenience which we deem essential to cleanliness and decency. The middle of the street was the only receptacle for all those matters which in England are committed to the cart of the dustman; there was no pump, no cistern, no drain of any kind, and the only scavengers in the streets were the numerous pigs by which they were constantly traversed. The town. is about as large as Salisbury, and built almost entirely of bricks, which give it a heavy appearance. Even the trottoirs are composed of these materials. The houses are arranged in solid squares, each communicating with a small alley at the back door; it may be easily conceived, that in warm weather, in such a sewerless town, these alleys must be the favourite abodes of every nuisance and disease. It is bounded on the north by forest-covered hills, and on the south by those of Kentucky. It contains a population of about twenty thousand souls-a surprising number, when we consider that thirty years ago the spot on which it stands was occupied by the aboriginal forest. Mrs. Trollope never saw a beggar in this town during the two years she spent there; every body was busily employed; taxation was low; every ordinary want was easily supplied, but those enjoyments which are derivable from the luxuries and refinements of life were no where to be found. Both males and females were altogether destitute of what we call manners, although by no means deficient in intelligence. Their conversation was devoid as well of natural as conventional grace; 'there was always something either in the expression or the accent that jars the feelings and shocks the taste.' They rarely dine in scciety except in taverns, and then, as at Memphis, in total silence. Such is life in the town; let us now see what it is in the neighbouring country.

We visited one farm, which interested us particularly from its wild and lonely situation, and from the entire dependance of the inbabitants upon their own resources. It was a partial clearing in the very heart of the forest. The house was built on the side of a hill, so steep that a high ladder was necessary to enter the front door, while the back one opened against the hill side; at the foot of this sudden eminence ran a clear stream, whose bed had been deepened into a little reservoir, just opposite the house. A noble field of Indian corn stretched away into the forest on one side, and a few half cleared acres, with a shed or two upon them, occupied the other, giving accommodation to cows, horses, pigs, and chickens innumerable. Immediately before the house was a small potato garden, with a few peach and apple trees. The house was built of logs, and consisted of two rooms, besides a little shanty or lean-to, that was

used as a kitchen. Both rooms were comfortably furnished with good beds, drawers, &c. The farmer's wife, and a young woman who looked like her sister, were spinning, and three little children were playing about. The woman told me that they spun and wove all the cotton and woollen garments of the family, and knit all the stockings; her husband, though not a shoemaker by trade, made all the shoes. She manufactured all the soap and candles they used, and prepared her sugar from the sugar-trees on their farm. All she wanted with money, she said, was to buy coffee, tea, and whiskey, and she could " get enough any day by sending a batch of butter and chickens to market." They used no wheat, nor sold any of their corn, which, though it appeared a very large quantity, was not more than they required to make their bread and cakes of various kinds, and feed all their live stock during the winter. She did not look in health, and said they had all had ague in "the fall;" but she seemed contented, and proud of her independence; though it was in somewhat a mournful accent that she said, " 'tis strange to us to see company: I expect the sun may rise and set a hundred times before I shall see another human that does not belong to the family.”—vol. i. pp. 68—70.

So much for a specimen of back-wood independence. We can conceive it, however, to be much less horrible than the author represents it. She romances a good deal now and then about the want of a village bell, and pleasant society; but the human mind easily acquiesces in its lot under all imaginable circumstances, which to a lady fresh from London might seem terrific. One of her greatest annoyances-an annoyance which is not absent from the most civilized communities-was the difficulty of meeting with, and retaining when found, a good servant. By the by the name is not used in that part of the Union: free domestics are always called help." Nothing but the ambition of fine dress will induce a female to hire herself in that capacity, as it is universally considered to be a degradation. They eagerly seek employment in all kinds of manufactories, but to service they never go if they can avoid it. We have here more than one amusing specimen of these ladies, the first of whom a friend had recommended to the author. The question was put to her of course what wages she expected to get by the year.

"Oh Gimini!" exclaimed the damsel, with a loud laugh," you be a downright Inglisher, sure enough, I should like to see a young lady engage by the year in America! I hope I shall get a husband before many months, or I expect I shall be an outright old maid, for I be most seventeen already; besides, mayhap I may want to go to school. You must just give me a dollar and a half a week; and mother's slave, Phillis, must come over once a week, I expect, from t'other side the water, to help me clean."

'I agreed to the bargain, of course, with all dutiful submission; and seeing she was preparing to set to work in a yellow dress parsemé with red roses, I gently hinted that I thought it was a pity to spoil so fine a gown, and that she had better change it.

““ Tis just my best and worst," she answered, " for I've got no other."

And in truth I found that this young lady had left the paternal mansion with no more clothes of any kind than what she had on, I immediately gave her money to purchase what was necessary for cleanliness and decency, and set to work with my daughters to make her a gown. She grinned applause when our labour was completed, but never uttered the slightest expression of gratitude for that or for any thing else we could do for her. She was constantly asking us to lend her different articles of dress, and when we declined it, she said, "Well, I never seed such grumpy folks as you be; there is several young ladies of my acquaintance what goes to live out now and then with the old women about the town, and they and their gurls always lends them what they asks for; I guess, you Inglish thinks we should poison your things, just as bad as if we was Negurs." And here I beg to assure the reader, that whenever I give conversations, they are not made à loisir, but were written down immediately after they occurred, with all the verbal fidelity my memory permitted.

This young lady left me at the end of two months, because I refused to lend her money enough to buy a silk dress to go to a ball, saying, "Then 'tis not worth my while to stay any longer."

I cannot imagine it possible that such a state of things can be desirable, or beneficial to any of the parties concerned. I might occupy a hundred pages on the subject, and yet fail to give an adequate idea of the sore, angry, ever wakeful pride that seemed to torment these poor wretches. In many of them it was so excessive, that all feelings of displeasure, or even of ridicule, was lost in pity. One of these was a pretty girl, whose natural disposition must have been gentle and kind; but her good feelings were soured, and her gentleness turned to morbid sensitiveness, by having heard a thousand and a thousand times that she was as good as any other lady, that all men were equal, and women too, and that it was a sin and a shame for a free-born American to be treated like a servant.

'When she found she was to dine in the kitchen, she turned up her pretty lip, and said, "I guess that's 'cause you don't think I'm good enough to eat with you. You'll find that won't do here." I found afterwards that she rarely ate any dinner at all, and generally passed the time in tears. I did every thing in my power to conciliate and make her happy, but I am sure she hated me. I gave her very high wages, and she staid till she had obtained several expensive articles of dress, and then, un beau matin, she came to me full dressed, and said, "I must go." "When shall you return, Charlotte?" "I expect you'll see no more of me." And so we parted. Her sister was also living with me, but her wardrobe was not yet completed, and she remained some weeks longer till it was.

39

I fear it may be called bad taste to say so much concerning my domestics, but, nevertheless, the circumstances are so characteristic of America, that I must recount another history relating to them. A few days after the departure of my ambitious belle, my cries for "help" had been so effectual, that another young lady presented herself, with the usual preface, "I'm come to help you.' I had been cautioned never to ask for a reference for character, as it would not only rob me of that help, but entirely prevent my ever getting another; so, five minutes after she entered, she was installed, bundle and all, as a member of the family. She was by no means handsome, but there was an air of simple frankness in her VOL. 1. (1832).—No. IV.

PP