bed; in the second, by our side, sleep six fine but dirty children; and in the chamber, Mrs. Ingle and a valuable English maid:'-all, be it observed, covered with an incurable eruption ten times worse than the itch.' Thus, on my account, husband and wife are divided. It is not unusual for a male and female to sleep in the same room uncurtained, holding conversation while in bed. In a yard adjoining the house are three sows and pigs half starved, and several cows, calves, and horses, very poor, having no grass, no pasture, but with bells about their necks, eternally ringing. Shame, or rather what is called false shame, or delicacy, does not exist here. Males dress and undress before the females, and nothing is thought of it. Here is no servant. The maid is equal to the master. No boy, or man servant. No water, but at half a mile distant. Mr. Ingle does all the jobs, and more than half the hewing, splitting, and ploughing. He is all economy, all dirty-handed industry. No wood is cut in readiness for morning fires. He and the axe procure it, and provender for the poor hungry cattle, pigs, and horses. His time is continually occupied, and the young boys just breeched are made useful in every possible way.'-pp. 235, 236.

Mrs. Ingle, a delicate bred lady, was obliged to turn out and remain in the woods and swamps half the night, to prevent the wide spreading fires from consuming their corn and log-cabin. She acknowledged that love of country, former friends and comforts, from which they tore themselves, was frequently a source of painful thought.'

The following is well worth the serious attention of the English farmer, who in evil hour has meditated a flight to this Paradise of Fools.'

Retrograding and barbarizing is an easy process.'-Alas! alas! this is all poor Mr. and Mrs. Ingle have been doing. Far from the laws and restraints of society, and having no servants to do that for us which was once daily done, we become too idle in time to do any thing but that which nature and necessity require; pride and all stimuli forsake us, for we find ourselves surrounded only by men of similar manners; hence the face is seldom shaved or washed, or the linen changed except on washing days. The shoes are cleaned, perhaps, never; for if, indeed, a servant from England is kept, he, or she, is on a happy equality, rising up last and lying down first, and eating freely at the same time and table. None here permit themselves to have a master but negroes. A voyage in the stinking steerage of a ship, and then a journey over the mountains in waggons, sometimes camping out all night, or sleeping like pigs, as did Mrs. Ingle and six children and maid, on the dirty floor of a bar-room, amongst blackguards, and then floating in a little stinking ark, full of unclean things, will prepare the mind and body for barbarizing in a little log hole, like that in which I dined yesterday, belonging to Mr. Ferrel, who, with his family, some adults, male and female, in all ten souls, sleep in one room, fifteen feet by ten, only half floored, and in three beds standing on a dirt floor. The table, or thing

so called, is formed by two blocks and a broad board laid on them, and covered with a cloth, and seats or forms, in like manner, on each side of the table, which is only knee high. Proper chairs and tables they have none. When it rains, boards are laid over the chimney top, (which I can reach with my hand) to prevent the rain putting the fires out. This good-natured man has thus settled and removed eight times from one degree of barbarism to another. The victuals are served up in a hand-bason; and thus one room serves for parlour, kitchen, hall, bedroom and pantry.'-pp. 241, 242.

But, as Mr. Hornbrook, another disappointed settler from Devonshire, observed, after a long voyage and journey, we are glad to get into any hole, although we knew that, in England, we should think them not good enough for stables.' Another poor Devonshire farmer made his appearance, in search of some spot to place his unfortunate family. I asked him,' says the farmer, "if he repented leaving England. I do,' said he, a good deal, and so does my poor wife; and then he burst into tears.' (p. 206.)

At length our farmer reaches the end of his destination and of his hopes-the English prairie:-his hopes indeed had been pretty well damped in the course of his journey, both from what he had seen and what he every where heard. His first view was discouraging enough; it presented a wide, rusty, black prospect' -he saw no cornfields;' nothing done'-' rode into Albionsupped and went to bed in a hog-stye of a room, containing four filthy beds, and eight mean persons: the sheets stinking and dirty; three in one bed, all filth, no comfort, and yet this is an English tavern; no whiskey, no milk, and vile tea, in this land of prairies.' (p. 268.)

'Albion,' of which we have heard so much lately, ' contains one house and ten or twelve log-cabins with stinking puddles before every door, crowded with degenerate English mechanics, too idle to work, and above every thing but eating, drinking, brawling and fighting.' Our farmer of course visited Flower and Birkbeck, and was civilly treated by both. These dear friends however dwelt at opposite sides of the prairie, and were not on speaking terms; indeed one of the Flowers observed to Mr. Faux that he avoided seeing Birkbeck, because, if I come near,' said he, ‘I must lay violent hands on him, I must knock him down.' A young lady, it seems, was, as usual, the causa teterrima belli. Birkbeck had intended her for himself, but Flower got the start of him; and Birkbeck's plea of quarrel is, the immorality of Flower, in marrying a second wife while his first was still living in England: so that this hater of priestcraft and kingcraft, this Unitarian in religion, is a bigamist in morality, and—a latitudinarian in every thing. As we hear nothing of the Reverend Morris Birkbeck's preaching, we suppose he has laid aside his canonicals.

The

The Flowers, by this account, have done something, and are in possession of a flock of 500 Merino sheep; how the rank prairie grass has agreed with them, will probably have been experienced long before this time. Mr. Flower, sen. however, was disappointed, and his advice was, Tell your countrymen to stay at home, by all means, if they can keep their comforts.' Birkbeck had done nothing whatever on his side of the prairie, chusing rather to purchase his food from Harmony. He did not come there to farm, he says, he had farming enough in England for thirty years; —he is, in fact, what we long ago said he was, a mere land-jobber; he has, however, deceived himself, as well as others, and made but a sorry job of it. Indeed Friend Morris appears to have less worldly wisdom than we were willing to give him credit for. He held out no temptations to allure purchasers except in his 'Letters.' In consequence of these, indeed, emigrants in abundance flocked to the prairie, but on arriving there, they found neither shelter nor bed; and not having food sufficient for himself, there was little or none for strangers, and no person to show the land, nor did he know himself where it lay.' (p. 251.) The consequence was, that all were disgusted; some returned with hearty curses on Morris Birkbeck and his prairie; and others, more desperate, continued their course westerly as far as the Missouri, which has now become the favourite haunt (as being the farthest from all control) of rowdies and regulators.

A few farms in the neighbourhood of the Illinois prairie were partially cultivated. Among other settlers visited by our farmer were 'Orator Hunt's' son and his deaf and dumb brother, who had jointly about six acres under the plough; they were living ' in a miserable one-roomed log-cabin, without servant, male or female, half-naked and in rags, carrying their whole wardrobe on their backs: in their dog-hole were neither chairs, stools nor tables; they had no money, and their land was uncultivated, unsown, and selling for the payment of taxes'! (p. 274.) Avast reading there! Overhaul that article again! as old Trunnion says. Taxes, did you say? taxes in this last retreat of suffering humanity! and the land selling to pay them! What a shock will this intelligence give to the great Champion of Reform,' as the farmer affectionately calls him, when he finds that he has sent his only son to America to starve; and to have his little property taken from him by that obnoxious animal, the tax-gatherer, from whom, by his paternal advice, he sought refuge where no power on earth can crush the citizen'!

Mr. Faux also paid a visit to two brothers of the name of Cowling, small farmers from Lincolnshire, to whom Birkbeck had sold a bargain. They were living, or, as our farmer truly has it, 'fast

BB 2

barbarizing,'

barbarizing,' without any female, in a most miserable log-cabin, having only one room, no furniture of any kind, save a miserable, dirty, ragged bed to serve for both, who, says the farmer, were more filthy, stinking, ragged and repelling than any English stroller or beggar ever seen; garments rotting off, linen unwashed, face unshaven, and unwashed for, I should think, a month.' (p. 288.) 'Here,' observed Mr. Cowling, a man learns philosophy and its uses'! It is much to be regretted that Mr. Cowling had not learnt a little of this philosophy before he was persuaded by Birkbeck's misrepresentations to leave England; or at least, to call things by their proper names. But, as the farmer well observes, many English families living in this wilderness, without bread, butter, milk, tea or coffee for months together, if deprived of any one of those articles in England (for a day), would have cursed it and all in it, as the worst country under heaven'-nay, he adds, some of them will even boast of having learnt to do without sugar, because it is so dear in this untaxed land, flowing with milk and honey' (p. 311.)

6

We cannot doubt for a moment that a great portion of our countrymen who emigrate to these back settlements, go thither under a firm conviction of earning their livelihood without the sweat of their brows;' and that, generally speaking, they are the most worthless part of our population. It is impossible, otherwise, that so many of them should be found in that state of filth and degradation which is described by Mr. Faux, and indeed by all travellers who tell the truth. There is no country, in fact, within the temperate zones, where the unoccupied soil, be it almost as bad as it may, will not, by a proper degree of labour, produce sustenance of some kind or other for the support of man. The climate may be as unhealthy, the vermin as destructive, and the soil as infertile as the cold, wet, marshy prairies, over which hang dense, pestilent fogs and steaming heat'-on whose surface 'green grass, four feet high, conceals the stinking, stagnant, steaming water;'-yet, take the proper season, even in such unfavourable places, and Indian corn at least, or pulse, may be produced, not only to feed the family, but also to fatten pigs; and with the fat of these animals and wood-ashes, what but a rooted indolence and a total indifference to cleanliness can prevent the settlers from making as much soap as would be sufficient to keep themselves and their clothing in a state of decency, which is very far from being the case at present? To do all this, we grant, requires labour, which, it would seem, the majority of those who migrate thither, whether Europeans or Americans, expect, as we have said, to live without. Disappointed in their views, those who have the means, either return, or plunge deeper into the woods; but the rest, who must

remain,

remain, sit down dissatisfied, on a dreary uncleared or undramed waste, heap together a few logs for a hovel, which, instead of screening them from the vicissitudes of the weather, lets in the wind and rain at every crevice; get out of humour with the country, the people, and themselves; become silent and sulky; neglect their persons; barbarize,' as our farmer says, and finally turn 'philosophers,' like Mr. Cowling.

Some few, however, were met with by Mr. Faux in this wilderness, who were not exactly of this stamp; and, among others, a Mr. Bentley and his lady, from London; who, having a little property, invested it in land, and, without any previous knowledge, turned farmers, both resolutely determined to work hard in the field, from whence, says Mr. Faux, they return to their loghut, cheerful, happy and healthy.'-'In London,' he adds, he had the gout, and she the blue devils; but here, milking, fetching water, and all kinds of drudgery, in doors and out, have cured her, and ploughing him.' (p. 289.) Another couple from London, two ci-devant dandies, of the name of Millor, were living at the distance of five miles from any neighbour; they were known by the name of the babes in the wood;' and, as our traveller was informed, had shifted comfortably for themselves, though they never saw a plough before.' These, and a few others who are mentioned, and who had not been unmindful of the comforts left behind them, by habits of industry and cleanliness, had secured those comforts to a certain extent, even here-subject, however, to a nuisance over which they had no control,-the insolence, the brutality, and the depredations of squatters, rowdies, dirkers, gougers and riflers-men,' says our farmer, as wild as bucks and bears, systematically unprincipled, and in whom the moral sense seems to have no existence.' (p. 331.)

The very oldest settlers, however, on the western side of the Alleghanies, those of Kentucky and along the banks of the Ohio, who occupy the largest and choicest tracts of land, can do no more, with all their industry, than barely exist. As every body produces, there is no market for their surplus produce, except at New Orleans, to which place it will frequently not do more than pay freight. The river boatmen are stated to be such thieves that frequently nothing is heard more either of them or the produce; and the snags, mags and sawyers, are excellent sets-off in a New Orleans adventure.

The diseases that prevail in this uncultivated country, this steaming' land, as our farmer calls it, and the total absence of all medical (to say nothing, of all religious) advice and assistance, are alone serious drawbacks on the emigrant's prospects. But