sand-tongued insects of this land. This whimsical cry, with the shorter note of the little tree frog, the chirp of crickets, and the whiz and boom of a thousand other flying creatures, creates, at this season, to the ear of a stranger, a noise truly astounding. We are now, however, tolerably familiarized to the sound, and I doubt not may soon be able to say to a wondering stranger, like the young American, I hear nothing.

* I have since had one of these insects in my hand. In size it is larger than the ordinary grasshopper, and in colour of a much more vivid green. It is perfectly harmless, and is altogether a most "delicate creature.”

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New York, October, 1818.

We have removed from our former residence, to a more private boarding-house at the head of Broad-way; a gay street that you will remember, though it has now stretched itself over twice the length of earth that it occupied when you traversed it. This house has been filled with a rapid succession of inmates since we first entered it, and whenever we are not engaged abroad, we find a very pleasing society at the public table. The social mode of living here adopted in the hotels and boarding-houses, offers great advantages to foreigners, who may be desirous of mixing easily with the natives, and of observing the tone of the national manners. During the few days that we have lived in this house, we have met with a greater variety of individuals from all parts of the Union, than we could have done in as many months by visiting in half the private houses of the city. Families from the Eastern States, and gentlemen from the south and west, have successively appeared, and departed, and left with us many invit

ations to their various dwellings -so warmly uttered, that the heart could not doubt their sincerity. We were peculiarly struck by the polished manners of one or two natives of Carolina, and by the independent air, softened by republican simplicity, of some of the adventurous settlers from the infant west. We gleaned from these intelligent strangers many curious facts, tending to illustrate the amazing advance of this country, which imparts to it the character of a player's stage, where both the actors and the scenery are shifted as fast as you can turn your eye. One gentleman, in the prime of manhood, told me, that he knew the vast tract which now forms the flourishing state of Ohio, when it contained no inhabitant save the wild hunter and his prey. Making lately the same journey, through which he had toiled 20 years ago through one vast, unbroken forest, het found smiling landscapes, sprinkled with thriving settlements, villages, and even towns, and a people. living under an organized government, and well administered laws. "I had heard of all this," said my informer," and knew that it all was so; but when I saw it with my own eyes, I felt as a man might be supposed to feel, who should wake from a sleep of some centuries' duration, and find the earth covered with states and empires of which he had never heard the name."

Many changes have taken place in this city and island since you knew them. Streets upon streets have been added to the former, and much draining

and levelling (of this last I incline to think too much) has been, and is still carrying on in, and about it. The citizens of Paris were wont to call the narrow streets of their old capital rues aristocrates, and very justly, since pedestrians had to make their way through them at the hazard of their lives. In opposition to this, the streets here might with justice be termed rues democrates. Not content with broad pavements, carefully protected from the encroachment of wheels by a sill of considerable elevation, the little inequalities of the ground are being removed with much trouble and expense. I have frequently admired the ingenuity with which a new, or rather an additional foundation is introduced beneath a brick house of very tolerable solidity, so as to preserve to it the superiority it had hitherto asserted over the passing causeway. But I have not yet had the opportunity of observing a house upon its travels. I am told, however, that the curiosity is still to be seen, though probably very rarely, as the now universal use of brick, in almost all the chief cities of the States, as well as the improved style of architecture in the wooden tenements, still prevalent in the country, must have rendered the method of travelling in domo, and shifting the neighbourhood, with out disturbing the household gods, considerably less feasible. My confidence in the veracity of a friend has been occasionally put to the proof, when he has pointed out to me, in the outskirts of

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the city, a house that had undergone a transportation of a quarter of a mile to arrange itself in the line of the street, and which stood a very secure looking tenement of two floors, with brick chimneys, and walls of very substantial frame work.

Notwithstanding the pleasant, opulent, and airy appearance of the city, a European might be led to remark, that, if nature has done every thing for it, art, in the way of ornament, has as yet done little. Except the City Hall, there is not a public building worth noticing; but it presents what is far better-streets of private dwellings, often elegant, and always comfortable. Turn where you will, successful industry seems to have fixed her abode. No dark alleys, whose confined and noisome atmosphere marks the presence of a dense and suffering population; no hovels, in whose ruined garrets, or dank and gloomy cellars, crowd the wretched victims of vice and disease, whom penury drives to despair, ere she opens to them the grave.

I shall not fatigue you with particular accounts of the excursions we have made into the surrounding country. We surveyed with pleasure the thriving farms of Long Island, and those of the neighbouring state of Jersey. The country is every where pleasingly diversified; gentle hills, sinking into extensive valleys, watered by clear rivers, their banks sprinkled with neat white dwellings, usually low and broad roofed, shaded by