SECTION VII.
POLITICAL NON-EXISTENCE OF WOMEN.

One of the fundamental principles announced in the Declaration of Independence is, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. How can the political condition of women be reconciled with this?

Governments in the United States have power to tax women who hold property; to divorce them from their husbands; to fine, imprison, and execute them for certain offences. Whence do these governments derive their powers? They are not "just," as they are not derived from the consent of the women thus governed.

Governments in the United States have power to enslave certain women; and also to punish other women for inhuman treatment of such slaves. Neither of these powers are "just;" not being derived from the consent of the governed.

Governments decree to women in some States half their husbands' property; in others one-third. In some, a woman, on her marriage, is made to yield all her property to her husband; in others, to retain a portion, or the whole, in her own hands. Whence do governments derive the unjust power of thus disposing of property without the consent of the governed?

The democratic principle condemns all this as wrong; and requires the equal political representation of all rational beings. Children, idiots, and criminals, during the season of sequestration, are the only fair exceptions.

The case is so plain that I might close it here; but it is interesting to inquire how so obvious a decision has been so evaded as to leave to women no political rights whatever. The question has been asked, from time to time, in more countries than one, how obedience to the laws can be required of women, when no woman has, either actually or virtually, given any assent to any law. No plausible answer has, as far as I can discover, been offered; for the good reason, that no plausible answer can be devised. The most principled democratic writers on government have on this subject sunk into fallacies, as disgraceful as any advocate of despotism has adduced. In fact, they have thus sunk from being, for the moment, advocates of despotism. Jefferson in America, and James Mill at home, subside, for the occasion, to the level of the author of the Emperor of Russia's Catechism for the young Poles.

Jefferson says,[7] "Were our State a pure democracy, in which all the inhabitants should meet together to transact all their business, there would yet be excluded from their deliberations,

"1. Infants, until arrived at years of discretion;

"2. Women, who, to prevent depravation of morals, and ambiguity of issue, could not mix promiscuously in the public meetings of men;

"3. Slaves, from whom the unfortunate state of things with us takes away the rights of will and of property."

If the slave disqualification, here assigned, were shifted up under the head of Women, their case would be nearer the truth than as it now stands. Woman's lack of will and of property, is more like the true cause of her exclusion from the representation, than that which is actually set down against her. As if there could be no means of conducting public affairs but by promiscuous meetings! As if there would be more danger in promiscuous meetings for political business than in such meetings for worship, for oratory, for music, for dramatic entertainments,—for any of the thousand transactions of civilized life! The plea is not worth another word.

Mill says, with regard to representation, in his Essay on Government, "One thing is pretty clear; that all those individuals, whose interests are involved in those of other individuals, may be struck off without inconvenience.... In this light, women may be regarded, the interest of almost all of whom is involved, either in that of their fathers or in that of their husbands."

The true democratic principle is, that no person's interests can be, or can be ascertained to be, identical with those of any other person. This allows the exclusion of none but incapables.

The word "almost," in Mr. Mill's second sentence, rescues women from the exclusion he proposes. As long as there are women who have neither husbands nor fathers, his proposition remains an absurdity.

The interests of women who have fathers and husbands can never be identical with theirs, while there is a necessity for laws to protect women against their husbands and fathers. This statement is not worth another word.

Some who desire that there should be an equality of property between men and women, oppose representation, on the ground that political duties would be incompatible with the other duties which women have to discharge. The reply to this is, that women are the best judges here. God has given time and power for the discharge of all duties; and, if he had not, it would be for women to decide which they would take, and which they would leave. But their guardians follow the ancient fashion of deciding what is best for their wards. The Emperor of Russia discovers when a coat of arms and title do not agree with a subject prince. The King of France early perceives that the air of Paris does not agree with a free-thinking foreigner. The English Tories feel the hardship that it would be to impose the franchise on every artizan, busy as he is in getting his bread. The Georgian planter perceives the hardship that freedom would be to his slaves. And the best friends of half the human race peremptorily decide for them as to their rights, their duties, their feelings, their powers. In all these cases, the persons thus cared for feel that the abstract decision rests with themselves; that, though they may be compelled to submit, they need not acquiesce.

It is pleaded that half of the human race does acquiesce in the decision of the other half, as to their rights and duties. And some instances, not only of submission, but of acquiescence, there are. Forty years ago, the women of New Jersey went to the poll, and voted, at state elections. The general term, "inhabitants," stood unqualified;—as it will again, when the true democratic principle comes to be fully understood. A motion was made to correct the inadvertence; and it was done, as a matter of course; without any appeal, as far as I could learn, from the persons about to be injured. Such acquiescence proves nothing but the degradation of the injured party. It inspires the same emotions of pity as the supplication of the freed slave who kneels to his master to restore him to slavery, that he may have his animal wants supplied, without being troubled with human rights and duties. Acquiescence like this is an argument which cuts the wrong way for those who use it.

But this acquiescence is only partial; and, to give any semblance of strength to the plea, the acquiescence must be complete. I, for one, do not acquiesce. I declare that whatever obedience I yield to the laws of the society in which I live is a matter between, not the community and myself, but my judgment and my will. Any punishment inflicted on me for the breach of the laws, I should regard as so much gratuitous injury: for to those laws I have never, actually or virtually, assented. I know that there are women in England who agree with me in this—I know that there are women in America who agree with me in this. The plea of acquiescence is invalidated by us.

It is pleaded that, by enjoying the protection of some laws, women give their assent to all. This needs but a brief answer. Any protection thus conferred is, under woman's circumstances, a boon bestowed at the pleasure of those in whose power she is. A boon of any sort is no compensation for the privation of something else; nor can the enjoyment of it bind to the performance of anything to which it bears no relation. Because I, by favour, may procure the imprisonment of the thief who robs my house, am I, unrepresented, therefore bound not to smuggle French ribbons? The obligation not to smuggle has a widely different derivation.

I cannot enter upon the commonest order of pleas of all;—those which relate to the virtual influence of woman; her swaying the judgment and will of man through the heart; and so forth. One might as well try to dissect the morning mist. I knew a gentleman in America who told me how much rather he had be a woman than the man he is;—a professional man, a father, a citizen. He would give up all this for a woman's influence. I thought he was mated too soon. He should have married a lady, also of my acquaintance, who would not at all object to being a slave, if ever the blacks should have the upper hand; "it is so right that the one race should be subservient to the other!" Or rather,—I thought it a pity that the one could not be a woman, and the other a slave; so that an injured individual of each class might be exalted into their places, to fulfil and enjoy the duties and privileges which they despise, and, in despising, disgrace.

The truth is, that while there is much said about "the sphere of woman," two widely different notions are entertained of what is meant by the phrase. The narrow, and, to the ruling party, the more convenient notion is that sphere appointed by men, and bounded by their ideas of propriety;—a notion from which any and every woman may fairly dissent. The broad and true conception is of the sphere appointed by God, and bounded by the powers which he has bestowed. This commands the assent of man and woman; and only the question of powers remains to be proved.

That woman has power to represent her own interests, no one can deny till she has been tried. The modes need not be discussed here: they must vary with circumstances. The fearful and absurd images which are perpetually called up to perplex the question,—images of women on wool-sacks in England, and under canopies in America, have nothing to do with the matter. The principle being once established, the methods will follow, easily, naturally, and under a remarkable transmutation of the ludicrous into the sublime. The kings of Europe would have laughed mightily, two centuries ago, at the idea of a commoner, without robes, crown, or sceptre, stepping into the throne of a strong nation. Yet who dared to laugh when Washington's super-royal voice greeted the New World from the presidential chair, and the old world stood still to catch the echo?

The principle of the equal rights of both halves of the human race is all we have to do with here. It is the true democratic principle which can never be seriously controverted, and only for a short time evaded. Governments can derive their just powers only from the consent of the governed.

PART II. ECONOMY.

"That thou givest them they gather. Thou openest thine hand; they are filled with good."

104th Psalm.

The traveller from the Old World to the New is apt to lose himself in reflection when he should be observing. Speculations come in crowds in the wilderness. He finds himself philosophizing with every step he takes, as luxuriously as by his study fireside, or in his rare solitary walk at home.

In England, everything comes complete and finished under notice. Each man may be aware of some one process of formation, which it is his business to conduct; but all else is presented to him in its entireness. The statesman knows what it is to compose an act of parliament; to proceed from the first perception of the want of it, through the gathering together of facts and opinions, the selection from these, the elaborating, adjusting, moulding, specifying, excluding, consolidating, till it becomes an entire something, which he throws down for parliament to find fault with. When it is passed, the rest of society looks upon it as a whole, as a child does upon a table or a doll, without being aware of any process of formation. The shoemaker, thus, takes his loaf of bread, and the clock that ticks behind his door, as if they came down from the clouds as they are, in return for so much of his wages; and he analyzes nothing but shoes. The baker and watchmaker receive their shoes in the same way, and analyze nothing but bread and clocks. Too many gentlemen and ladies analyze nothing at all. If better taught, and introduced at an early age into the world of analysis, nothing, in the whole course of education, is probably so striking to their minds. They begin a fresh existence from the day when they first obtain a glimpse into this new region of discovery.

Such an era is the traveller's entrance upon the wilder regions of America. His old experience is all reversed. He sees nothing of art in its entireness; but little of nature in her instrumentality. Nature is there the empress, not the handmaid. Art is her inexperienced page, and no longer the Prospero to whom she is the Ariel.

It is an absorbing thing to watch the process of world-making:—both the formation of the natural and the conventional world. I witnessed both in America; and when I look back upon it now, it seems as if I had been in another planet. I saw something of the process of creating the natural globe in the depths of the largest explored cave in the world. In its depths, in this noiseless workshop, was Nature employed with her blind and dumb agents, fashioning mysteries which the earthquake of a thousand years hence may bring to light, to give man a new sense of the shortness of his life. I saw something of the process of world-making behind the fall of Niagara, in the thunder cavern, where the rocks that have stood for ever tremble to their fall amidst the roar of the unexhausted floods. I stood where soon human foot shall stand no more. Foot-hold after foot-hold is destined to be thrown down, till, after more ages than the world has yet known, the last rocky barrier shall be overpowered, and an ocean shall overspread countries which are but just entering upon civilized existence. Niagara itself is but one of the shifting scenes of life, like all of the outward that we hold most permanent. Niagara itself, like the systems of the sky, is one of the hands of Nature's clock, moving, though too slowly to be perceived by the unheeding,—still moving, to mark the lapse of time. Niagara itself is destined to be as the traditionary monsters of the ancient earth—a giant existence, to be spoken of to wondering ears in studious hours, and believed in from the sole evidence of its surviving grandeur and beauty. While I stood in the wet whirlwind, with the crystal roof above me, the thundering floor beneath, and the foaming whirlpool and rushing flood before me, I saw those quiet, studious hours of the future world when this cataract shall have become a tradition, and the spot on which I stood shall be the centre of a wide sea, a new region of life. This was seeing world-making. So it was on the Mississippi, when a sort of scum on the waters betokened the birth-place of new land. All things help in this creation. The cliffs of the upper Missouri detach their soil, and send it thousands of miles down the stream. The river brings it, and deposits it, in continual increase, till a barrier is raised against the rushing waters themselves. The air brings seeds, and drops them where they sprout, and strike downwards, so that their roots bind the soft soil, and enable it to bear the weight of new accretions. The infant forest, floating, as it appeared, on the surface of the turbid and rapid waters, may reveal no beauty to the painter; but to the eye of one who loves to watch the process of world-making, it is full of delight. These islands are seen in every stage of growth. The cotton-wood trees, from being like cresses in a pool, rise breast-high; then they are like the thickets, to whose shade the alligator may retreat; then, like groves that bid the sun good-night, while he is still lighting up the forest; then like the forest itself, with the wood-cutter's house within its screen, flowers springing about its stems, and the wild-vine climbing to meet the night breezes on its lofty canopy. This was seeing world-making. Here was strong instigation to the exercise of analysis.

One of the most frequent thoughts of a speculator in these wildernesses, is the rarity of the chance which brings him here to speculate. The primitive glories of nature have, almost always since the world began, been dispensed to savages; to men who, dearly as they love the wilderness, have no power of bringing into contrast with it the mind of man, as enriched and stimulated by cultivated society. Busy colonists, pressed by bodily wants, are the next class brought over the threshold of this temple: and they come for other purposes than to meditate. The next are those who would make haste to be rich; selfish adventurers, who drive out the red man, and drive in the black man, and, amidst the forests and the floods, think only of cotton and of gold. Not to such alone should the primitive glories of nature be dispensed; glories which can never be restored. The philosopher should come, before they are effaced, and find combinations and proportions of life and truth which are not to be found elsewhere. The painter should come, and find combinations and proportions of visible beauty which are not to be found elsewhere. The architect should come, and find suggestions and irradiations of his art which are not to be found elsewhere. The poet should come, and witness a supremacy of nature such as he imagines in the old days when the world's sires came forth at the tidings of the rainbow in the cloud. The chance which opens to the meditative the almost untouched regions of nature, is a rare one; and they should not be left to the vanishing savage, the busy and the sordid.

I watched also the progress of conventional life. I saw it in every stage of advancement, from the clearing in the woods, where the settler, carrying merely his axe, makes his very tools, his house, his fireplace, his bed, his table; carves out his fields, catches from among wild or strayed animals his farm stock, and creates his own food, warmth, and winter light,—from primitive life like this, to that of the highest finish, which excludes all thought of analysis.

The position or prospects of men in a new country may best be made intelligible by accounts of what the traveller saw and heard while among them. Pictures serve the purpose better than reports. I will, therefore, give pictures of some of the many varieties of dwellers that I saw, amidst their different localities, circumstances, and modes of living. No one of them is aware how vivid an idea he impresses on the mind of humanity; nor how distinct a place he fills in her records. No one of them, probably, is aware how much happier he is than Alexander, in having before him more worlds to conquer.

My narratives, or pictures, must be but a few selected from among a multitude. My chapter would extend to a greater length than any old novel, if I were to give all I possess.

The United States are not only vast in extent: they are inestimably rich in material wealth. There are fisheries and granite quarries along the northern coasts; and shipping from the whole commercial world within their ports. There are tanneries within reach of their oak woods, and manufactures in the north from the cotton growth of the south. There is unlimited wealth of corn, sugar-cane and beet, hemp, flax, tobacco, and rice. There are regions of pasture land. There are varieties of grape for wine, and mulberries for silk. There is salt. There are mineral springs. There is marble, gold, lead, iron, and coal. There is a chain of mountains, dividing the great fertile western valley from the busy eastern region which lies between the mountains and the Atlantic. These mountains yield the springs by which the great rivers are to be fed for ever, to fertilize the great valley, and be the vehicle of its commerce with the world. Out of the reach of these rivers, in the vast breadth of the north, lie the great lakes, to be likewise the servants of commerce, and to afford in their fisheries the means of life and luxury to thousands. These inland seas temper the climate, summer and winter, and insure health to the heart of the vast continent. Never was a country more gifted by nature.

It is blessed also in the variety of its inhabitants. However it may gratify the pride of a nation to be descended from one stock, it is ultimately better that it should have been compounded from many nations. The blending of qualities, physical and intellectual, the absorption of national prejudices, the increase of mental resources, will be found in the end highly conducive to the elevation of the national character. America will find herself largely blessed in this way, however much she may now complain of the immigration of strangers. She complains of some for their poverty; but such bring a will to work, and a capacity for labour. She complains of others for their coming from countries governed by a despotism; but it is the love of freedom which they cannot enjoy at home, that brings such. She complains of others that they keep up their national language, manners, and modes of thinking, while they use her privileges of citizenship. This may appear ungracious; but it proceeds from that love of country and home institutions which will make staunch American patriots of their children's children. It is all well. The New England States may pride themselves on their population being homogeneous, while that of other States is mongrel. It is well that stability should thus have been temporarily provided for in one part of the Union, which should, for the season, be the acknowledged superior over the rest: but, this purpose of the arrangement having been fulfilled, New England may perhaps hereafter admit, what some others see already, that, if she inherits many of the virtues of the Pilgrims, she requires fortifying in others; and that a large reinforcement from other races would help her to throw off the burden of their inherited faults.

There can scarcely be a finer set of elements for the composition of a nation than the United States now contain. It will take centuries to fuse them; and by that time, pride of ancestry,—vanity of physical derivation,—will be at an end. The ancestry of moral qualities will be the only pedigree preserved: and of these every civilized nation under heaven possesses an ample, and probably an equal, share. Let the United States then cherish their industrious Germans and Dutch; their hardy Irish; their intelligent Scotch; their kindly Africans, as well as the intellectual Yankee, the insouciant Southerner, and the complacent Westerner. All are good in their way; and augment the moral value of their country, as diversities of soil, climate, and productions, do its material wealth.

Among the most interesting personages in the United States, are the Solitaries;—solitary families, not individuals. Europeans, who think it much to lodge in a country cottage for six weeks in the summer, can form little idea of the life of a solitary family in the wilds. I did not see the most sequestered, as I never happened to lose my way in the forests or on the prairies: but I witnessed some modes of life which realized all I had conceived of the romantic, or of the dismal.

One rainy October day, I saw a settler at work in the forest, on which he appeared to have just entered. His clearing looked, in comparison with the forest behind him, of about the size of a pincushion. He was standing, up to the knees in water, among the stubborn stumps, and charred stems of dead trees. He was notching logs with his axe, beside his small log hut and stye. There was swamp behind, and swamp on each side;—a pool of mud around each dead tree, which had been wont to drink the moisture. There was a semblance of a tumble-down fence: no orchard yet; no grave-yard; no poultry; none of the graces of fixed habitation had grown up. On looking back to catch a last view of the scene, I saw two little boys, about three and four years old, leading a horse home from the forest; one driving the animal behind with an armful of bush, and the other reaching up on tiptoe to keep his hold of the halter; and both looking as if they would be drowned in the swamp. If the mother was watching from the hut, she must have thought this strange dismal play for her little ones. The hard-working father must be toiling for his children; for the success of his after life can hardly atone to him for such a destitution of comfort as I saw him in the midst of. Many such scenes are passed on every road in the western parts of the States. They become cheering when the plough is seen, or a few sheep are straggling on the hill side, seeming lost in space.

One day, at Niagara, I had spent hours at the Falls, till, longing for the stillness of the forest, I wandered deep into its wild paths, meeting nothing but the belled heifer, grazing, and the slim, clean swine which live on the mast and roots they can find for themselves. I saw some motion in a thicket, a little way from the path, and went to see what it was. I found a little boy and girl, working away, by turns, with an axe, at the branches of a huge hickory, which had been lately felled. "Father" had felled the hickory the day before, and had sent the children to make faggots from the branches. They were heated and out of breath. I had heard of the toughness of hickory, and longed to know what the labour of wood-cutting really was. Here was an irresistible opportunity for an experiment I made the children sit down on the fallen tree, and find out the use of my ear-trumpet, while I helped to make their faggot. When I had hewn through one stout branch, I was quite sufficiently warmed, and glad to sit down to hear the children's story. Their father had been a weaver and a preacher in England. He had brought out his wife and six children. During the week, he worked at his land, finding some employment or another for all of his children who could walk alone; and going some distance on Sundays to preach. This last particular told volumes. The weaver has not lost heart over his hard field-labour. His spirit must be strong and lively, to enable him to spend his seventh day thus, after plying the axe for six. The children did not seem to know whether they liked Manchester or the forest best; but they looked stout and rosy.

They, however, were within reach of church and habitation; buried, as they appeared, in the depths of the woods. I saw, in New Hampshire, a family who had always lived absolutely alone, except when an occasional traveller came to their door, during the summer months. The old man had run away with his wife, forty-six years before, and brought her to the Red Mountain, near the top of which she had lived ever since. It was well that she married for love, for she saw no one but her husband and children, for many a long year after she jumped out of her window, in her father's house, to run away.

Our party, consisting of four, was in the humour to be struck with the romance of the domestic history of the old man of the mountain, as the guide is called. We had crossed Lake Winnepisseogee, the day before, and watched from our piazza, at Centre Harbour, the softening of the evening light over the broad sheet of water, and the purple islands that rested upon it. After dark, fires blazed forth from the promontories, and glimmered in the islands; every flaming bush and burning stem being distinctly reflected in the grey mirror of the waters. These fires were signs of civilization approaching the wild districts on which we were entering. Land on the lake shores has become very valuable; and it is being fast cleared.

We were to have set off very early on our mountain expedition, next day; but the morning was misty, and we did not leave Centre Harbour till near eight;—nearly an hour and a half after breakfast. We were in a wagon, drawn by the horses on which the two ladies were to ascend the mountain from the guide's house. The sky was grey, but promising; for its curtains were rising at the other end of the lake, and disclosing ridge after ridge of pines on the mountain side. The road became very rough as we began to ascend; and it was a wonder to me how the wagon could be lifted up, as it was, from shelf to shelf of limestone. One shelf sloped a little too much, even for our wagon. Its line of direction was no longer within the base, as children are taught at school that it should be. All the party, except myself, rolled out. The driver, sprawling on his back on a terribly sharp eminence of limestone, tugged manfully at the reins, and shouted, "Whoi-ee" as cheerfully as if he had been sitting on a cushion, in his proper place. He was not a man to desert his duty in an extremity. He was but little hurt, and nobody else at all.

The wagon was left here, and we ascended a mile, a steep path, among woods and rocks, to the guide's little farm; plunging into a cloud, just before we reached the house. It was baking day; and we found the old dame, with a deaf and dumb daughter,—one of three deaf,—busy among new bread, pies, and apples. Strings of apples hung against the walls; and there was every symptom of plenty and contentment within and without doors. The old dame might have been twin sister to Juliet's nurse. She was delighted to have an opportunity of using her tongue, and was profuse in her invitations to us to stay,—to come again,—to be sociable. The exercise she takes in speaking must be one cause of her buxom health. Out of a pantomime, I never saw anything so energetic as her action; the deafness of her children being no doubt the cause of this. She seemed heartily proud of them; the more, evidently, on account of their singularity. She told us that the daughter now at home had never left it. "Her father could not spare her to school; but I could have spared her." What a life of little incidents magnified must their's be! As one of my companions observed, the bursting of a shoe, or the breaking of a plate, must furnish talk for a week. The welcome discovery was made that we had a mutual acquaintance. A beloved friend of mine had ascended the mountain some weeks before, and had followed her usual practice of carrying away all the hearts she found there. The old dame spoke lovingly of her as "that Liza;" and she talked about her till she had seen my foot into the stirrup, and given me her blessing up the mountain.

The path was steep, and the summit bare. There was an opening for a single moment on our arrival; the mist parted and closed again, having shown us what a view there was beneath us of green mountains, and blue ponds, and wooded levels. We were entertained for some time with such glimpses; more beautiful perhaps than an unrestricted vision. Such revelations take away one's breath. When all was misty again, we amused ourselves with gathering blue-berries, which grew profusely under foot. The old man, too, was ready with any information we desired about himself; and with abundance of anecdotes of summer travellers, to whom he had acted as guide.

He was a soldier of the revolution; and at its close, retired hither, with his bride, among bears and deer. There are no deer left; and he killed nineteen bears with his own hand: the last, thirty-five years before. One of them was nearly the death of him. A shot which he intended to be mortal was not so. The wounded bear chased him; and there was nothing to be done but to run round and round a tree, loading his gun, while the bear was at his heels, blowing foam and blood upon him. He fired over his shoulder, and dispatched his pursuer. He told us, when the curtain of mist finally drew up, the opinions of learned men whom he had conducted hither, about this mountain having once been an island in the midst of a vast lake. He pointed out how it is, even now, nearly surrounded by waters; Long Pond, Lake Winnepisseogee, and Squam Lake. The two last are so crowded with islands that the expression of the water is broken up. The islands lie in dark slips upon the gleamy surface, dividing it into too many pond-like portions. But the mountain horizon was altogether beautiful. Some had sharp peaks, some notched; the sides of some were bare, with traces of tremendous slides: others, green as the spring, with wandering sun gleams and cloud shadows. I found myself much mistaken in my fancy that I did not care for bird's-eye views.

The dame was looking out for us when we descended, anxious to detain us for more talk, and to make us bearers of a present to "that Liza." She hung some strings of her drying apples over the arm of a gentleman of the party, with the utmost faith that he would take care of them all the way to Boston. He kindly received them; and I can testify that he did his best to make them reach their destination. It was kindness well bestowed; for no doubt it was a winter luxury of the good dame's to fancy our mutual friend enjoying her Red Mountain applesauce. The sending a present to Boston must be a rare event to dwellers in such a solitude.

Not many miles from this place, stands a deserted dwelling whose inhabitants lived in a deeper solitude, and perished all in one night, far from human aid. No house stands within many miles of it, even now. I had heard the story before I saw the place; but I had no idea of the difference between listening to a sad tale, and seeing the spot of which it is told. In a deep narrow valley among the White Mountains, lived a family of the name of Willey. Their dwelling was a comfortable log-house, on a green platform, at the foot of one of the steepest mountains. There were but few travellers among these mountains in their day; but those few were kindly welcomed: and the cheerful host and hostess, and their comely children, were always well spoken of. On a stormy August night, 1826, a tremendous slide came crashing down the mountain side, at the rear of the house. If the family had remained in their chambers, they would have been safe: a rock at the edge of the green platform, behind the dwelling, parted the slide, so that the grassy plot remained untouched,—a bright island in the midst, of the desolation. The family, to the number of nine, were overwhelmed, and all perished. The bodies of seven were found. The bones of the other two are doubtless buried under the slide, where rank verdure and young trees are growing up, as if trying to efface the horrors of the wreck. The scene must have been dreadful to those who first arrived at the spot, after the event. The house, safe on its grass plot; its door standing wide; the beds and clothes of the family showing that they had sprung up from sleep, and so fled from the only place where they would have been safe; no one there; a deadly silence brooding over the quiet spot, and chaotic desolation around;—it is no wonder that the house remains deserted, and the valley untenanted.

Some miles further on, the traveller may witness what comfortable cheer may be afforded by dwellers in the wilderness. All travellers in the White Mountains know Ethan A. Crawford's hospitality. He cannot be said to live in solitude, inasmuch as there is another house in the valley: but everybody is aware how little sociability there is between two dwellers in a lonely place. One may enjoy life there; and several may get on well; but two never: and Ethan Crawford's is a virtual solitude, except for three months in the year. The fate of the Willeys was uppermost in our minds when we arrived; and we were little prepared for such entertainment as we found. After a supper of fine lake trout, a son of our host played to us on a nameless instrument, made by the joiners who put the house together, and highly creditable to their ingenuity. It was something like the harmonica in form, and the bagpipes in tone; but, well-played as it was by the boy, it was highly agreeable. Then Mr. Crawford danced an American jig, to the fiddling of a relation of his. The dancing was somewhat solemn; but its good faith made up for any want of mirth. He had other resources for the amusement of his guests: a gun wherewith he was wont to startle the mountain echoes, till, one day, it burst: (leaving nothing for us to do but to look at the fragments:) also, a horn, which, blown on a calm day, brings a chorus of sweet responses from the far hill sides. Retirement in such a valley, and with such resources as Ethan Crawford's, is attractive enough to the passing traveller; and, to judge by the countenance of the host, anything but dispiriting to those who have made trial of it.

No solitude can be more romantic than that at the mouth of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky; so called, not because any mammoth-bones have been found there, but because it is the largest explored cave in the world. I was told, not only by the guides, but by a gentleman who is learned in caves, that it can be travelled through, in different directions, to the extent of sixty miles. We could not think of achieving the entire underground journey; but we resolved to see all we could; and, for that purpose, preferred devoting the half of two days to the object, to one entire day, the weariness of which would probably curtail our rambles. After a most interesting and exciting journey of nearly two nights and a day from Nashville, Tennessee, our party, consisting of four, arrived at Bell's hotel, twelve miles from the cave, at half-past seven, on a bright May morning. We slept till one o'clock, and then set off in a stage and four for the cave. My expectations had been so excited, that every object on the road seemed to paint itself on my very spirit; and I now feel as if I saw the bright hemp fields, the oak copses, the gorgeous wild flowers, and clear streams, running over their limestone beds, that adorned our short journey.

The house at the cave stands on the greenest sward that earth and dews can produce; and it grows up to the very walls of the dwelling. The well, with its sweep,—a long pole, with a rope and bucket at one end, laid across the top of a high post,—this primitive well, on the same plot of turf, and the carriage in which two travellers—young men—had just arrived, were the only occupiers of the grass, besides the house. We lost no time in proceeding to the cave. The other party of travellers and the guides carried lamps, and grease to trim them with; an ample supply of both; for the guides know something of the horrors of being left in darkness in the mazes of a cave. We went down a steep path into a glen, from which the golden sunlight seemed reflected, as from water; so bright was the May verdure. The guides carried our cloaks; which seemed to us very ridiculous; for we were panting with the heat. But, when we had wound down to the yawning, shadowy cave, with its diamond drips and clustering creepers about the entrance, a blast of wintry wind gushed from it, and chilled our very hearts. I found it possible to stand on one foot, and be in the midst of melting heat; and leaning forward on the other, to feel half frozen. The humming birds must be astonished, when they flit across the entrance, to meet winter in the middle of the glen, and emerge into summer again on the other side.

The entrance of the cave serves as an ice-house to the family of the guide. They keep their meat there, and go to refresh themselves when relaxed by the heat. The temperature is delightful, after the first two or three minutes; and we were glad to leave our cloaks by the way side. The ladies tied handkerchiefs over their heads, and tucked up their gowns for the scramble over the loose limestone; looking thereby very picturesque, and not totally unlike the witches in Macbeth. The gloom, the echo of the footsteps, the hollow sound of voices, the startling effect of lights seen unexpectedly in a recess, in a crevice, or high overhead,—these impressions may be recalled in those who have wandered in caves, but can never be communicated to those who have not. It is in vain to describe a cave. Call it a chaos of darkness and rocks, with wandering and inexplicable sounds and motions, and all is done. Everything appears alive: the slowly growing stalactites, the water ever dropping into the plashing pool, the whispering airs,—all seem conscious. The coolness, vastness, suggestions of architecture, and dim disclosures, occasion different feelings from any that are known under the lights of the sky. The air in the neighbourhood of the waterfall was delicious to breathe; and the pool was so clear that I could not, for some time, see the water, in a pretty full light. That Rembrandt light on the drip of water, on the piled rocks, and on our figures,—light swallowed up before it could reach the unseen canopy under which we stood, can never be forgotten. Milton's lake of fire might have brought the roof into view:—nothing less.

The young guides, brothers, were fine dashing youths, as Kentucky youths are. They told us some horrible tales, and one very marvellous story about darkness and bewilderment in the labyrinth of the cave. They told us (before they knew that any of us were English) that "all the lords and lights of England had been to see the cave, except the king." While they were about it, they might as well have included his majesty. Perhaps they have, by this time; good stories being of very rapid growth. They reported that ladies hold on in the cave better than gentlemen. One of the party supposed this was because they were lighter; but the guide believed it was owing to their having more curiosity.

I was amused at their assurances about the number of miles that we had walked; and thought it as good a story as any they had told us: but, to my utter amazement, I found, on emerging from the cave, that the stars were shining resplendently down into the glen, while the summer lightning was quivering incessantly over the "verdurous wall" which sprang up to a lofty height on either hand. There seemed to be none of the coolness of night abroad. A breathless faintness came over us on quitting the freshness of the cave, and taught us the necessary caution of resting awhile at the entrance.

Supper was ready when we returned; and then the best room was assigned to the three ladies, while the gentlemen were to have the loft. We saw the stars through chinks in our walls; but it was warm May, and we feared no cold. Shallow tin-pans,—milk-pans, I believe,—were furnished to satisfy our request for ewer and basin. The windows had blinds of paper-hanging; a common sort of window-blind at hotels, and in country places. Before it was light, I was wakened by a strong cold breeze blowing upon me; and at dawn, I found that the entire lower half of the window was absent. A deer had leaped through it, a few weeks before; and there had been no opportunity of mending it. But everything was clean; everybody was obliging; the hostess was motherly; and the conclusion that we came to in the morning was that we had all slept well, and were ready for a second ramble in the cave.

We saw, this day, the Grotto and the Deserted Chamber. Few visitors attempt the grotto, the entrance to it being in one part only a foot and a half high. We were obliged, not only to go on hands and knees, but to crawl lying flat. It is a sensation worth knowing, to feel oneself imprisoned in the very heart of a mountain, miles from the sun-light, and with no mode of escape but the imperceptible hole which a child might block up in five minutes. Never was there a more magnificent prison or sepulchre. Whether the singularity of our mode of access magnified to our eyes the beauties we had thereby come into the midst of, or whether Nature does work most con amore in retired places, this grotto seemed to us all by far the most beautiful part of the cave. The dry sandy floor was pleasant to the tread, after the loose limestone; the pillars were majestic; the freaks of nature most wild and elegant. The air was so fresh and cool that, if only a Rosicrucian lamp could be hung in this magnificent chamber, it would be the place of all others in which to spend the sultry summer's day,—entering when the beauties of the sunrise had given place to glare, and issuing forth at the rising of the evening star.

On our way to the Deserted Chamber, we cut off half a mile by a descent through a crevice, and a re-ascent by another. We were presently startled by the apparition of two yellow stars, at what appeared an immeasurable distance. In this cave, I was reminded, after a total forgetfulness of many years, of the night-mare visitations of my childhood; especially of the sense of infinite distance, which used to terrify me indescribably. Here, too, the senses and the reason were baulked. Those two yellow stars might have been worlds, many millions of miles off in space, or,—what they were,—two shabby lamps, fifty yards off. A new visitor had arrived; and the old man of the solitary house had brought him down, in hopes of meeting our larger party. One of the gentlemen presently slipped on the loose stones, and fell into a hole, with his back against a sharp rock; and he seemed at first unable to rise. This was the only misadventure we had; and it did not prove a serious one. He was somewhat shaken and bruised, and rendered unwilling to go with the rest to the Bottomless Pit: but there was no eventual injury. He and I staid in the Deserted Chamber, while our companions disappeared, one by one, through a crevice, on their way to the pit. The dead silence, and the glimmer of our single lamp, were very striking; and we were more disposed to look round upon the low-roofed apartment, piled with stones as far as the eye could reach, than to talk. I tried to swallow a piece of bread or cake, very like a shoe-sole, and speculated upon these piles of stones;—by whose hand they were reared, and how long ago. There is much cane—doubtless, once used for fuel—scattered about the deeper recesses of the cave; and these stones were evidently heaped up by human hands: and those not Indian. It is supposed that this cave was made use of by that mysterious race which existed before the Indians, and of which so many curious traces remain in the middle States of the West; a race more civilized, to judge by the works of their hands, than the Indians have ever been; but of which no tradition remains.

Our party returned safe, and refreshed by a draught of water, better worth having than my luncheon of bread. When we left the cave, our guides insisted upon it that we had walked, this morning, ten or eleven miles. I pronounced it four. Others of the party said seven; and the point remains unsettled. We all agreed that it was twice as much as we could have accomplished in the heat above ground; and perhaps the most remarkable walk we had ever taken in our lives. Our hostess was with us the whole time; and it was amusing to see in her the effect of custom. She trod the mazes of this cave just as people do the walks of their own garden.

The gush of sun-light pouring in at the mouth of the cave, green and soft, as we emerged from the darkness, was exquisitely beautiful. So was the foliage of the trees, after the rigid forms which had been printing themselves upon our eye-sight for so many hours. As we sat at the entrance, to accustom ourselves to the warm outward air, I saw, growing high in the steep woods, the richest of kalmias, in full bloom. One of the gentlemen ran to bring me some; and when it came, it was truly a feast to the eye. How apt are we to look upon all things as made for us! How many seasons has this kalmia bloomed?

We were truly sorry to bid farewell to our motherly hostess, and her "smart" sons. Theirs is a singular mode of life; and it left nearly as vivid an impression on our minds as their mighty neighbour, the cave. If any of us should ever happen to be banished, and to have a home to seek, I fancy we should look out for a plot of green sward, among flowering kalmias, near the mouth of an enormous cave, with humming birds flitting about it by day, and fire-flies and summer lightning by night.

In strong contrast in my mind with such a scene as this, stands a gay encampment in the wilderness, at which I soon after arrived. The watering places among the Virginia mountains are as new and striking a spectacle as the United States can afford. The journeyings of those who visit them are a perpetual succession of contrasts. I may as well give the whole journey from Cincinnati to the eastern base of the Alleghanies.

We left Cincinnati at noon on the 25th of June: as sultry a summer's day as ever occurs on the Ohio. The glare was reflected from the water with a blinding and scorching heat; and feather fans were whisking all day in the ladies' cabin of our steam-boat. Hot as it was, I could not remain in the shady cabin. The shores of the Ohio are so beautiful, that I could not bear to lose a single glimpse between the hills. It is holiday-travelling to have such a succession of pictures as I saw there made to pass noiselessly before one's eyes. There were the children running among the gigantic trees on the bank, to see the boat pass; the girl with her milk-pail, half way up the hill; the horseman on the ridge, or the wagoner with his ox-team pausing on the slope. Then there was the flitting blue jay under the cool shadow of the banks; the butterflies crossing the river in zig-zag flight; the terrapins (small turtle) floundering in the water, with their pert little heads above the surface; and the glancing fire-flies every night.

On the afternoon of this day, we were met by the storm which swept over the whole country, and which will be remembered as having caused the death of the son of Chief-Justice Marshall, at Baltimore, on his way to his dying father. I watched, from the deck, the approach of the storm. First, the sky, above the white clouds, was of a dark grey, which might have been mistaken for the deep blue of twilight. Then a mass of black clouds came hurrying up below the white. Then a flash escaped from out of the upper grey, darting perpendicularly into the forest; and then another, exploding like the four rays of a star. I saw the squall coming in a dark line, straight across the river. Our boat was hurried under the bank to await it. The burst was furious: a roaring gust, and a flood of rain, which poured in under our cabin door, close shut as it was. All was nearly as dark as night for a while, and all silent but the elements. Then the day seemed to dawn again; but loud peals of thunder lasted long, and the lightning was all abroad in the air. Faint flashes now wandered by; and now a brilliant white zig-zag quivered across the sky. One splendid violet-coloured shaft shot straight down into the forest; and I saw a tall tree first blaze and then smoulder at the touch. A noble horse floated by, dead and swollen. When we drew out into the middle of the river, it was as if spring had come in at the heels of the dog-days; all was so cool and calm.

The company on board were of the lowest class we ever happened to meet with in our travels. They were obliging enough; as everybody is throughout the country, as far as my experience goes; but otherwise they were no fair specimens of American manners. One woman excited my curiosity from the beginning; but I entertained a much more agreeable feeling towards her when we parted, after several days' travelling in company. Her first deed was to ask where we were going; and her next, to take my book out of my lap, and examine it. Much of the rest of her time was occupied in dressing her hair, which was, notwithstanding, almost as rough as a negro's. She wore in her head a silver comb, another set with brilliants, and a third, an enormous tortoiseshell, so stuck in, on one side, as to remind the observer, irresistibly, of a unicorn. She pulled down her hair in company, and put it up again, many times in a day, whenever, as it seemed to me, she could not think of anything else to be doing. Her young companion, meantime, sat rubbing her teeth with dragon-root. The other cabin company seemed much of the same class. I was dressing in my state room between four and five the next morning, when an old lady, who was presently going ashore, burst in, and snatched the one tumbler glass from my hand. She was probably as much amazed at my having carried it out of sight as I was at her mode of recovering it.

I loved the early morning on the great rivers, and therefore rose at dawn. I loved the first grey gleams that came from between the hills, and the bright figures of people in white, (the men all in linen jackets in hot weather,) on the banks. I loved to watch the river craft; the fussy steamer making rapid way; the fairy canoe shooting silently across; the flat-boat, with its wreath of blue smoke, stealing down in the shadow of the banks, her navigators helping her along in the current by catching at the branches as they passed: and the perilous looking raft, with half-a-dozen people on it, under their canopy of green boughs, their shapeless floor bending and walloping in the middle of the stream. I loved the trees, looking as if they stood self-poised, their roots were washed so bare. I loved the dwellings that stood behind their screen, those on the eastern bank seeming fast asleep; those on the western shore gay with the flickering shadows cast on them by the breezy sunrise through the trees.

On passing Catletsburgh we bade adieu to glorious Kentucky. At that point, our eyes rested on three sovereign States at one glance, Ohio, Kentucky, and Virginia. We landed at Guyandot, and proceeded by stage the next morning to Charleston, on the Kanawha river. The road, all the way to the Springs, is marvellously good for so wild a part of the country. The bridges over the streams are, some of them, prettily finished; and the accommodations by the road side are above the average. The scenery is beautiful the whole way. We were leaving the great Western Valley; and the road offered a succession of ascents and levels. There were many rivulets and small waterfalls; the brier-rose was in full bloom along the ground; the road ran half way up the wooded hills, so that there were basins of foliage underneath, the whole apparently woven into so compact a mass by the wild vine, that it seemed as if one might walk across the valley on the tree tops. The next day's dawn broke over the salt works and coal pits, or rather caverns of coal, on the hill sides. The corn was less tall and rich, the trees were less lofty, and it was apparent that we were mounting to a higher region. It occurred to me, in a careless kind of way, that we were now not very far from the Hawk's Nest. Some ladies in the Guyandot Hotel had said to me, "Be sure you see the Hawk's Nest." "What is that?" "A place that travellers can see if they choose; the driver always stops a few minutes to let them see the Hawk's Nest." I had never heard of it before, and I never heard of it again. The world is fairly awakened to Niagara; but it is still drowsy about two scenes which moved me—the one more than Niagara, the other nearly as much; the platform at Pine Orchard House, on the top of the Catshills, and the Hawk's Nest.

The last of the Kanawha River, as we bade adieu to it on the 28th of June, was smooth and sweet, with its islets of rocks, and the pretty bridge by which we crossed the Gauley, and entered upon the ascent above New River. The Gauley and the New River join to make the Kanawha. The ascent of the mountains above New River is trying to weak nerves. The horses have to stop, here and there, to rest; and it appears that if they were to back three steps, it would be death. The road, however, is really broad, though it appears a mere ledge when the eye catches the depth below, where the brown river is rushing and brawling in its rocky bed. A passenger dropped his cap in the steepest part, and the driver made no difficulty about stopping to let him recover it. What a depth it was! like the dreamy visions of one's childhood of what winged messengers may first learn of man's dwelling-place, when they light on a mountain-top; like Satan's glimpses from the Mount of Soliloquy; like any unusual or forbidden peep from above into the retirements of nature, or the arrangements of man. On our left rose the blasted rocks which had been compelled to yield us a passage; but their aspect was already softened by the trails of crimson and green creepers which were spreading over their front. The unmeasured pent-house of wild vine was still below us on the right, with rich rhododendron blossoms bursting through, and rock-plants shooting up from every ledge and crevice at the edge of the precipice. After a long while, (I have nothing to say of time or distance, for I thought of neither,) a turn in the road shut out the whole from our sight. I leaned out of the stage, further and further, to catch, as I supposed, a last glimpse of the tremendous valley; and when I drew in again, it was with a feeling of deep grief that such a scene was to be beheld by me no more. I saw a house, a comfortable homestead, in this wild place, with its pasture and corn-fields about it; and I longed to get out, and ask the people to let me live with them.

In a few minutes the stage stopped. "If any of the passengers wish to go to the Hawk's Nest ..." shouted the driver. He gave us ten minutes, and pointed with his whip to a beaten path in the wood to the right. It seems to me now that I was unaccountably cool and careless about it. I was absorbed by what I had seen, or I might have known, from the direction we were taking, that we were coming out above the river again. We had not many yards to go. We issued suddenly from the covert of the wood, upon a small platform of rock;—a Devil's Pulpit it would be called, if its present name were not so much better;—a platform of rock, springing from the mountain side, without any visible support, and looking sheer down upon an angle of the roaring river, between eleven and twelve hundred feet below. Nothing whatever intervenes. Spread out beneath, shooting up around, are blue mountain peaks, extending in boundless expanse. No one, I believe, could look down over the edge of this airy shelf, but for the stunted pines which are fast rooted in it. With each arm clasping a pine-stem, I looked over, and saw more, I cannot but think, than the world has in reserve to show me.

It is said that this place was discovered by Chief Justice Marshall, when, as a young man, he was surveying among the mountains. But how many Indians knew it before? How did it strike the mysterious race who gave place to the Indians? Perhaps one of these may have stood there to see the summer storm careering below; to feel that his foothold was too lofty to be shaken by the thunderpeals that burst beneath; to trace the quiverings of the lightnings afar, while the heaven was clear above his own head. Perhaps this was the stand chosen by the last Indian, from which to cast his lingering glance upon the glorious regions from which the white intruders were driving his race. If so, here he must have pined and died, or hence he must have cast himself down. I cannot conceive that from this spot any man could turn away, to go into exile. But it cannot be that Marshall was more than the earliest of Saxon race who discovered this place. Nature's thrones are not left to be first mounted by men who can be made Chief Justices. We know not what races of wild monarchs may have had them first.

We travelled the rest of the day through an Alpine region, still full of beauty. The road is so new that the stopping places seemed to have no names. The accommodations were wonderfully good. At eleven we reached a place where we were allowed, not only to sup, but to lie down for two hours; a similar mercy to that afforded us the night before. Those who are impatient of fatigue should not attempt this method of reaching the Virginia Springs, though they are much to be pitied if they adopt any other. Our first re-entrance upon the world was at Lewisburg, at noon, on the 29th. It appears to be a neat village. The militia were parading: very respectable men, I do not doubt, but not much like soldiers. In a quarter of an hour we were off for the White Sulphur Springs, nine miles (of dusty road) from Lewisburg, and arrived there at half-past two, just as the company were dispersing about the walks, after dinner.

Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between our stage-coach society and that which was thronging the green area into which we were driven. We were heated, wearied, shabby, and all of one dust colour, from head to foot, and, I doubt not, looking very sheepish under the general stare. Every body else was gay and spruce, and at full leisure to criticise us. Gentlemen in the piazza in glossy coats and polished pumps; ladies in pink, blue, and white, standing on green grass, shading their delicate faces and gay head-dresses under parasols; never was there a more astonishing contrast than all this presented with what we had been seeing of late. The friends who were expecting us, however, were not ashamed of us, and came bounding over the green to welcome us, and carry us within reach of refreshment.

It was doubtful whether "a cabin" could be spared to us. We were fortunate in being so favoured as to be put in possession of one in the course of the afternoon. Several carriages full of visitors arrived within a few days, each with its load of trunks, its tin pail dangling behind (wherewith to water the horses in the wilderness) and its crowd of expecting and anxious faces at the windows, and were turned back to seek a resting-place elsewhere. That we were accommodated at all, I believe to this day to be owing to some secret self-denying ordinance on the part of our friends.

On one side of the green, are the large rooms, in which the company at the Springs dine, play cards, and dance. Also, the bar-room, and stage, post, and superintendent's offices. The cabins are disposed round the other sides, and dropped down, in convenient situations behind. These cabins consist of one, two, or more rooms, each containing a bed, a table, a looking-glass, and two or three chairs. All company is received in a room with a bed in it: there is no help for it. The better cabins have a piazza in front; and all have a back door opening upon the hill side; so that the attendants, and their domestic business, are kept out of sight.

The sulphur fountain is in the middle of the southern end of the green; and near it is the sulphur bathing-house. The fountain rises in the midst of a small temple, which is surmounted by a statue of Hygeia, presented to the establishment by a grateful visitor from New Orleans.

The water, pure and transparent, and far more agreeable to the eye than to the taste, forms a pool in its octagon-shaped cistern; and hither the visitors lounge, three times a day, to drink their two or three half-pint tumblers of nauseousness.

I heard many complaints, from new-comers, of the drowsiness caused by drinking the water. Some lay down to sleep more than once in the day; and others apologised for their dulness in society; but this is only a temporary effect, if one may judge by the activity visible on the green from morning till night. One of the greatest amusements was to listen to the variety of theories afloat about the properties and modes of application of the waters.

These springs had been visited only about fifteen years. No philosophising on cases appears to have been instituted: no recording, classifying, inferring, and stating. The patients come from distances of a thousand miles in every direction, with a great variety of complaints; they grow better or do not; they go away, and nobody is the wiser for their experience. It would be difficult to trace them, and to make a record of anything more than their experience while on the spot. The application of these waters will probably continue for a long time to be purely empirical. All that is really known to the patients themselves is, that they are first sleepy, then ravenous; that they must then leave the White Sulphur Spring, and go to the Warm Springs, to be bathed; then to the Sweet Springs, to be braced; and then home, to send all their ailing friends into Virginia next year.

Upwards of two hundred visitors were accommodated when I was in the White Sulphur Valley; and cabins were being built in all directions. The valley, a deep basin among the mountains; presents such beauties to the eye, as perhaps few watering-places in the world can boast. There has been no time yet to lay them open, for the benefit of the invalids; but there are plans for the formation of walks and drives through the woods, and along the mountain sides. At present, all is wild, beyond the precincts of the establishment; and, for the pleasure of the healthy, for those who can mount, and ramble, and scramble, it seems a pity that it should not remain so. The mocking-bird makes the woods ring with its delicious song; and no hand has bridged the rapid streams. If you want to cross them, you must throw in your own stepping-stones. If you desire to be alone, you have only to proceed from the gate of the establishment to the first turn in the road, force your way into the thicket, and look abroad from your retreat upon as sweet and untouched a scene of mountain and valley as the eye of the red man loves to rest upon. The gentlemen who are not invalids go out shooting in the wilderness. A friend of mine returned from such an expedition, the day after my arrival. He brought home a deer; had been overtaken by a storm in the mountains, and had, with his companions, made a house and a fire. Such amusements would diversify the occupations of Bath and Cheltenham very agreeably.

The morning after our arrival, we were too weary to be roused by the notice bell, which rings an hour before every meal; and we were ready only just in time for the last bell. Breakfast is carried to the cabins, if required; but every person who is able prefers breakfasting in company. On rainy mornings, it is a curious sight to see the company scudding across the green to the public-room, under umbrellas, and in cloaks and india-rubber shoes. Very unlike the slow pace, under a parasol, in a July sun.

There was less meat on the table at breakfast and tea than I was accustomed to see. The bread and tea were good. For the other eatables there is little to be said. It is a table spread in the wilderness; and a provision of tender meat and juicy vegetables for two or three hundred people is not to be had for the wishing. The dietary is sure to be improved, from year to year; the most that is to be expected at present is, that there should be enough for everybody. The sum paid for board per week is eight dollars; and other charges may make the expenses mount up to twelve. Pitchers of water and of milk may be seen, at every meal, all down the tables; little or no wine.

The establishment is under the management of the proprietor, who has been offered 500,000 dollars for it, that it may be conducted by a company of share-holders, who would introduce the necessary improvements. When I was there, the proprietor was still holding off from this bargain, the company not being willing to continue to him the superintendence of the concern. I hope that arrangements, satisfactory to all parties, may have been made by this time. The average gross receipts of a season were reported to be 50,000 dollars. It was added that these might easily be doubled, if all were done that might be.

Rheumatism and liver complaints seemed the most common grievances. Two little girls, perhaps four and five years old, sat opposite to me, who were sufferers from rheumatism. But the visitors who came for pleasure seemed to outnumber considerably those who came for health.

After breakfast, we sauntered about the green, and visited various new acquaintances in their piazzas. Then we went home for our bonnets, and rambled through the woods, till we were sent back by the rain, and took shelter beside the fountain. The effect was strange of seeing there a family of emigrants, parents and nine children, who were walking from North Carolina into Illinois. There must have been twins among these children, so many of them looked just alike. The contrast between this group of way-worn travellers, stopping out of curiosity to taste the waters, and the gay company among whom they very properly held up their independent heads, was striking to a stranger.

We dined at two; and afterwards found that a fire would be comfortable, though it was the last day of June. As many friends as our room would hold came home with us, and sat on the bed, table, and the few chairs we could muster, while one made the wood fire, and another bought ice-creams, which a country lad brought to the door. These ice-creams seemed to be thin custard, with a sprinkling of snow in it; but the boy declared that they were ice-creams when he left home. When we had finished our dessert, washed and returned the glasses, and joked and talked till the new-comers of our party grew ashamed of their drowsiness, we crossed the green to diversify the afternoon amusements of certain of our friends. Some were romping with their dogs; some reading books brought by themselves; (for there is no library yet;) some playing at chess or backgammon; all deploring the rain.

After tea, we stormed the great scales, and our whole party were individually weighed. It must be an interesting occupation to the valetudinarians of the place to watch their own and each others' weight, from day to day, or from week to week. For my part, I found my weight just what it always has been, the few times in my life that I have remembered to ascertain it. Such unenviable persons can never make a pursuit of the scales, as others can whose gravity is more discriminating.—From the scales, we adjourned to the ball-room, where I met friends and acquaintances from Mobile and New Orleans; saw new-comers from the Carolinas and Georgia; was introduced to personages of note from Boston; recognized some whom I had known at Philadelphia; and sat between two gentlemen who had fought a duel. There was music, dancing, and refreshments; laughing and flirting here; grave conversation there;—all the common characteristics of a ball, with the added circumstances that almost every State in the Union was here represented; and that we were gathered together in the heart of the mountains.

One more visit remained to be paid this day. We had promised to look in upon some friends who were not at the ball, in order to try the charms and virtues of egg-nogg, which had been lauded to us by an eminent statesman, who has had opportunity, during his diplomatic missions, to learn what there is best in this world. The egg-nogg having been duly enjoyed, we at length went home, to write letters as long as we could hold up our heads, after so extremely busy a day:—a day which may be considered a fair specimen of life at the White Sulphur Springs.

One of the personages whom I referred to as low company, at the beginning of my story, declared himself in the stage-coach to be a gambler, about to visit the Springs for professional purposes. He said to another man, who looked fit company for him, that he played higher at faro than any man in the country but one. These two men slept while we were mounting to the Hawk's Nest. People who pursue their profession by night, as such people do, must sleep in the day, happen what may. They were rather self-important during the journey; it was a comfort to see how poor a figure they cut at the Springs. They seemed to sink into the deepest insignificance that could be desired. Such persons are the pests of society in the south and west; and they are apt to boast that their profession is highly profitable in the eastern cities. I fear this is no empty vaunt.

We left the White Sulphur Springs, a party of six, in "an extra exclusive return stage," and with two saddle horses. Nothing could be more promising. The stage was perfectly new, having been used only to bring General C—— and his lady from Philadelphia to the Springs. We had a shrewd and agreeable Yankee driver, for the whole way. The weather was as fine as July weather ought to be; and as cool as is its wont near the tops of mountains: the very weather for the saddle, or for having the stage open on all sides; or for walking. The alternations were frequently tried. Roses and mountain laurels adorned our road; the breezy woods cast their shadows over us; and we remembered what waters were springing beneath us;—that we were passing over the sources of the mighty rivers of the West, which we had lately navigated with deep awe and delight. The few dwellings we passed were almost all houses of entertainment; but nothing could be more quiet than their air, nestling as they did in the most enviable situations, and resembling more the lodges in the avenues of the parks of English gentry than the hotels of the high road.