love to mingle with the sons and daughters of industry; to mark the economy of their household, and compare their mode of living with that of the same class of people in my own country. The opulent of every nation are nearly the same; refinement has polished away the original stamp of character: the true estimate of manners is to be made among those in a middle rank of life.

Having crossed the ferry, I resumed my journey through a country which might be assimilated to one continued forest. Tall trees of pine, planted by the hand of nature in regular rows, bordered the road I travelled; and I saw no other animals, but now and then a flock of deer, which ceasing awhile to browse, looked up at me with symptoms of wonder rather than fear.

Along these lonely regions, here retir'd,

From little scenes of art, great Nature dwells

In awful solitude, and nought is seen

But the wild herds that own no master's stall."

At three in the afternoon I reached Jacksonborough, the only town on the road from Charleston to Coosobatchie. Though a foot-traveller, I was received at the tavern with every demonstration of respect; the landlord ushered me into a room which afforded the largest fire I had ever seen in my travels: yet the landlord, rubbing his hands, complained it was cold, and exclaimed against his negroes for keeping so bad a fire. Here, Syphax, said he, be quick and bring more

wood you have made, you rascal, a Charleston fire: fetch a stout back-log, or I'll make a back

log of you.

The exclamations of the landlord brought his wife into the room. She curtesied, and made many eloquent apologies for the badness of the fire; but added, that her waiting man Will had run away, and having whipped Syphax till his back was raw, she was willing to try what gentle means would do.

A dinner of venison, and a pint of Madeira, made me forget I had walked thirty miles; and it being little more than four o'clock, I proceeded forward on my journey. The vapours of a Spanish segar promoted cogitation, and I was lamenting the inequality of conditions in the world, when night overtook me.

I now redoubled my pace, not without the apprehension that I should have to seek my lodgings in some tree, to avoid the beasts that prowled nightly in the woods; but the moon, which rose to direct me in my path, alleviated my perturbation, and in another hour I descried the blaze of a friendly fire through the casements of a loghouse. Imaginary are worse than real calamities; and the apprehension of sleeping in the woods was by far more painful than the actual experience of it would have been. The same Being who sends trials, can also inspire fortitude.

The place I had reached was Asheepo, a hamlet

consisting of three or more log-houses; and the inhabitants of every sex and age had collected round a huge elephant, which was journeying with his master to Savannah.

Fortune had therefore brought me into unexpected company, and I could not but admire the docility of the elephant, who in solemn majesty received the gifts of the children with his trunk. But not so the monkey. This man of Lord Monboddo was inflamed with rage at the boys and girls; nor could the rebukes of his master calm the transports of his fury.

I entered the log-house which accommodated travellers. An old negro-man had squatted himself before the fire. Well, old man, said I, why don't you go out to look at the elephant? Hie! Massa, he calf! In fact the elephant came from Asia, and the negro from Africa, where he had seen the same species of animal, but of much greater magnitude.

Travelling, says Shakespeare, acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows; and there being only one bed in the log-house, I slept that night with the elephant-driver. Mr. Owen was a native of Wales, but he had been a great traveller, and carried a map of his travels in his pocket.-Nothing shortens a journey more than good company on the road; so I departed after breakfast from Asheepo, with Mr. Owen, his elephant, and his monkey.

Mr. Owen related to me the wonders of his

elephant, which at some future day, I may perhaps publish in a separate treatise; but they would be irrevelant to my present journey, which towards noon I was left to prosecute alone. The elephant, however docile, would not travel without his dinner; and Mr. Owen halted under a pine-tree to feed the mute companion of his toils.

For my own part, I dined at a solitary loghouse in the woods, upon exquisite venison. My host was a small Planter, who cultivated a little rice, and maintained a wife and four children with his rifled-barrel-gun. He had been Overseer to a Colonel Fishborne, and owned half a dozen negroes; but he observed to me his property was running about at large, for four of them had absconded.

As I purposed to make Pocotaligo the end of my day's journey, I walked forward at a moderate pace; but towards evening I was roused. from the reveries into which my walking had plunged me, by a conflagration in the woods. On either side of the road the trees were in flames, which extending to their branches, assumed an appearance both terrific and grotesque. Through these woods, belching flames and rolling smoke, I had to travel nearly a mile, when the sound of the negro's axe chopping of wood, announced that I was near Pecotaligo.

At Pocotaligo I learned that the conflagration

in the woods arose from the carelessness of some back-wood-men, who having neglected to extinguish their fires, the flames had extended in succession to the herbage and the trees.

I was somewhat surprised on entering the tavern at Pocotaligo, to behold sixteen or more. chairs placed round a table which was covered with the choicest dishes; but my surprise ceased when the Savannah and Charleston stage-coaches stopped at the door, and the passengers flocked to the fire before which I was sitting. In the Charleston coach came a party of comedians. Of these itinerant heroes the greater part were my countrymen; and, as I was not travelling to see Englishmen, but Americans, I was not sorry when they retired to bed.

I was in a worse condition at Pocotaligo than Asheepo; for at Pocotaligo the beds were so small that they would hold only respectively one person. But I pity the Traveller who takes umbrage against America because its houses of entertainment cannot always accommodate him to his wishes. If he images no other happiness to himself in travelling, but what is to be obtained from repasts that minister to luxury, and beds distinguished by their softness, let him confine his excursions to the cities of polished Europe. The Western Continent can supply the Traveller an employment more noble than a minute attention to the casualties of the road, which are afterwards to be enlarged upon with studied declamation.