more will extinguish the generation now rising in their place! What a gloomy prospect! What a melancholy reflection! And from whence arose a change and calamity so unexpected and painful to a liberal mind?

Avarice, and an inordinate craving after gold, form the well known characteristic of the Dutch. With them every consideration dissolves before views of acquirement, or prospects which hold out acquisitions of wealth. The first settlers of New Lancaster discovering lands to be of the first quality, bought up several thousand acres at a reduced price, erected a few buildings, and sent emisssaries to their countrymen to tempt them into their speculations, and allow them for certain advantages a participation of their views. Many came, and by acting in a similar efficacious manner to sell their purchasse and populate the place, a few years numbered from six to seven thou

sand inhabitants, composed of artisans, shop-keepers, mechanics, and farmers. The head of the navigation being the most profitable place on which to erect a town, it was chosen for that purpose, and its being healthy or unhealthy made no part of the calculation, or entered into the consultations on the business. Those who settled on farms chose the vicinity of creeks and springs for their habitations, for if they chose high grounds, time would be lost in looking after water, "time is money," say the Dutch. Some intermittent fevers, and a few hundred deaths in the first three or four years began to spread suspicions, that all was not right: that swampy spots were pernicious to life, that the money gleaned off them could neither purchase happiness or maintain health. To build a new town, new houses and barns, and to clear new lands were changes and expences too heavy to be endured: things remained till two suc

cessive summers teeming with disease, consumed the bulk of the inhabitants of the settlement, and compelled the few remaining ones to abandon their avaricious intentions and learn in future how to live.

So entirely was health cast out of all consideration at the time of erecting New Lancaster, that the settlers were not turned from their intention though a swamp of great extent, and part of which immediately bounds the west of the town, lay directly before them and emitted an effluvia so noxious as could hardly be withstood. Nor did they reflect that another swamp of a still worse nature, called "the muddy prairie," lay contiguous, and cast out of its bowels an air so mephitic, that persons had to close their mouth and nose on crossing any part of it. Deer and other animals chaced into these swamps by hunters, sink after a few struggles and never more ap

pear. The swamps will never be drained. Their extent and character defy human industry: the depth alone being much greater than any adjacent streams. The prevailing disorders they disseminate, are agues, fevers, and violent reachings. The latter complaint is nearly always fatal; and is accompanied by all the symptoms of yellow fever, such as derangement, convulsions, and a general effusion of blood.

Three miles below the Big Hockhocking, on the Virginia shore, I passed the town and settlement of Belleville, and two miles lower down I enjoyed the sight of a beautiful island of the same name, covered with trees, shurbs and verdure; and after a run of ten miles further without impediment, I arrived at a very dangerous part of the river, distinguished by the name of the Devil's Creek. In passing the creek, which issues from the Virginia shore, I found it necessary to

keep close round the left hand point to avoid being thrown by the current on dangerous rocks which lie in the bend above and below the mouth of the creek. I succeded well, but not without seeing the danger which required much exertion to shun.

Having lost considerable time in my late excursions, I being seduced by the fineness of the evening, and promised, lightness of the night, determined on not bringing to till I should reach this place. I therefore continued on, past Amberson's Island, Goose Island, and by midnight came up to two islands which. I understood to be but half a mile above Letart's Falls, universally feared as one of the most terrific parts of the navigation of the river. The roaring of the falls had reached us sometime before we made the islands, and reflections of propriety, safety, &c. were making such progress on my mind, that I began to repent of my deter