beams which sustained it seemed to rest on a hair's breadth. Tracing also the semicircle with my eye, I perceived that it was considerably strained, about 20 feet on the same side from the centre. Afterwards, on crossing the bridge, we found several heavy logs placed over the spot to prevent the springing of the arch. You cannot conceive the horror with which we gazed upwards on its tremendous span. After a while, it appeared as if in motion; and the impulse was irresistible which led us to shut our eyes, and shrink as in expectation of being crushed beneath its weight. I cannot yet recall this moment without shuddering. Our sight swimming; our ears filled with the stunning roar of the river, the smoke of whose waters rose even to this dizzy height; while the thin coating of soil which covered the rock, and had once afforded a scanty nourishment to the blasted tree which sustained us, seemed to shake beneath our feet. At the time I judged this to be the work of busy fancy. To restore our confused senses, and save ourselves from losing balance, which had been the loss of life, we grasped the old pine with considerable energy, and it was at last, with trembling knees, and eyes steadily fixed upon our footsteps, neither daring to look up nor down, that we regained the height from which we had descended. Having regained it, I thought we never looked more like fools in our lives.

Crossing the bridge, (which brought us down

not quite to the level we had sought by a more perilous descent on the other side,) we walked round upon a fine carpet of verdure, kept always fresh by the spray from the basin beneath, till we stood above the brink of the fall, and nearly facing the arch. While making this circuit, we again shuddered, perceiving, for the first time, that the point we had descended to on the opposite side, had a concealed peril more imminent than those which had so forcibly affected our imagination. The earth beneath the old pine, being completely excavated, and apparently only held together by one of its roots. A young man, who the next day became our fellow traveller, told me that he had seen us take this position with such alarm, that his blood ran cold for many minutes after we left it; adding, that he had observed the earth crumble beneath our weight, and strike in the water below. I know not if his fancy had been as busy as ours in exaggerating our perils, but I will confess that they were sufficient to startle me from sleep twenty times during the ensuing night in all the horrors of tumbling down precipices, and falling through bridges in the manner of the sons of men, as seen in the vision of Mirza. I have heard it said that the art of swimming has lost more lives than it has saved; perhaps the art of clambering has done the same.

The flourishing town of Rochester, thus strikingly situated, is seven years old, that is to say,

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seven years ago, the planks of which its neat white houses are built, were growing in an unbroken forest. It now contains upwards of two hundred houses, well laid out in broad streets; shops, furnished with all the necessaries, and with many that may be accounted the luxuries of life; several good inns, or taverns, as they are universally styled in these states. We were very well, and very civilly treated in one of them; but, indeed, I have never yet met with any incivility, though occasionally with that sort of indifference which foreigners, accustomed to the obsequiousness of European service, sometimes mistake for it.

In the country, especially, service, however well paid for, is a favor received. Every man is a farmer and a proprietor; few therefore can be procured to work for hire, and these must generally be brought from a distance. Country gentlemen complain much of this difficulty. Most things, however, have their good and their evil. I have remarked that the American gentry are possessed of much more personal activity than is common in other countries. They acquire, as children, the habit of doing for themselves what others require to be done for them; and are, besides, saved from the sin of insolence, which is often so early fixed in the young mind. Some foreigners will tell you, that insolence here is with the poor. Each must speak from his own experience. I have never met with any; though I will confess, that

if I did, it would offend me less than the insolence offered by the rich to the poor has done elsewhere. But insolence forms no characteristic of the American, whatever be his condition in life. I verily believe that you might travel from the Canada frontier to the gulf of Mexico, or from the Atlantic to the Missouri, and never receive from a native born citizen a rude word, it being understood always that you never give one.

On arriving at a tavern in this country, you excite no kind of sensation, come how you will, The master of the house bids you good-day, and you walk in; breakfast, dinner, and supper, are prepared at stated times, to which you must generally contrive to accommodate. There are seldom more hands than enough to dispatch the necessary work; you are not therefore beset by half-a-dozen menials, imagining your wants, before you know them yourself; make them known however, and, if they be rational, they are generally answered with tolerable readiness, and I have invariably found with perfect civility. One thing I must notice, that you are never any where charged for attendance. The servant is not yours but the inn-keeper's; no demands are made upon you except by the latter; this saves much trouble, and indeed is absolutely necessary in a house where the servant's labour is commonly too valuable to be laid at the mercy of every whimsical traveller; but this arrangement originates in another cause,

the republican habits and feelings of the community. I honour the pride which makes a inan unwilling to sell his personal service to a fellowcreature; to come and go at the beck of another, -is it not natural that there should be some unwillingness to do this? It is the last trade to which an American, man or woman, has recourse; still some must be driven to it, particularly of the latter sex; but she always assumes with you the manner of an equal. I have never, in this country, hired the attendance of any but native Americans; and never have met with an uncivil word; but I could perceive that neither would one have been taken; honest, trusty, and proud, such is the American in service; there is a character here which all who can appreciate it, will respect.

At Rochester we dismissed our waggon; and the following morning, between three and four o'clock, once again seated in the regular stage, struck westward to the Niagara river. It was not, I assure you, without some silent alarm, that, on leaving Rochester, we crossed by starlight the tremendous bridge, for the purpose of opening the mail at Carthage.

The mode in which the contents of the post-bag are usually distributed through the less populous districts, had often before amused me. I remember, when taking a cross cut in a queer sort of a caravan, bound for some settlement on the southern shore of Lake Erie, observing, with no