18262], British Travellers in America: 613 
ten-years would be more than a match for the strongest and the’ swiftest, 
ifthe child, were not ;scared by the creature’s: approach. It.is: not 
yenomous ; it neyer-attacks,a thing in human shape unless greatly: pro- 
voked—nor will iti then pursue its enemy far—seldom. or never: more 
than-a few yards. volo oi 
- 9Of architecture in. America the less we say the better, especially 
where it may be mistaken for a sly fling ata sixth or eigth order, which, 
for want of a better name, the people of America are: getting to regard 
as British; for if they do put their colonnades or pilasters on the top of 
what they were intended to uphold, as they are charged with, doing by 
our-author, and as they certainly do, reader, if the truth must out, 
why—perhaps—that may not be much more laughable than what you 
see every day with you, and are likely to see for a long while—a superb 
colonnade of large pillars put before, if not on the top of what, if they 
were not intended to support, one hardly knows what they were intended 
for, But, seriously—seriously though—the Americans have little toe 
beast of in the way of architecture, and that which they have (except 
in ‘three or four cases) I take to be much of a piece with what is 
regarded with you (with singular propriety) as the screen to Carlton 
House—a double colonnade—employed in supporting what ?—why, the 
arms of the British Empire. 
So, too, of the pigeons of America—they are hardly more numerous, 
I fear, than the pigeons of the mother-country, though, to be sure, they 
do. fly in flocks, and are sometimes known to break down the branches, 
not of the genealogical (as there), but—of the pine trees of their 
country (I do not say this of my own knowledge; but I have seen 
them in such great clouds, that I can believe the story). 
And as for the gouging, and “ rough and tumble” fighting of America 
—and especially in Virginia and Maryland, which Mr. Weld picks out, 
rather unfortunately, I think, for the locaton of his story—I have only 
to say, that I, have resided more than eight years in Maryland; that I 
have knowna moultitude of Virginians, and been a good deal over Virginia; 
and that I have never seen, either in Maryland or in Virginia, or in any 
other part, of America, any thing so bad—so brutal, or so savage—as 
the wrestling of the Devonshire men. What would be thought in 
America, were I to say that which is perfectly true of their behaviour ? 
What, if I were to say that I have seen two stout men kicking each 
others’ shins by the hour together, under pretence of wrestling—both 
being armed with heavy, thick-soled shoes at the time! that I ‘have 
examined the legs of a Cornish man, who had been a wrestler after the 
Devonshire mode for nearly thirty years, and that I found them in a 
state which I dare not describe, further than to say that they were any 
thing but legs—that. the shin bone appeared to have lost the edge by a 
continual, process of exfoliation, that the whole shape was that of a 
litsb which has been distorted, crushed, and seared with a hot iron— 
the bone preternatural, the skin discoloured, smooth and ‘glossy... And 
what would \they say in America if I were to) add, that) Devonshire 
men are said ‘to, wrestle together in this way sometimes till the blood 
s out of their shoes; that they wear horn at the toes of their shoes 
forkicking; that they aim at the ankles; and that, it is now common to 
pad the legs from the instep to the knee with folds of cloth about half 
~ aminch thick, strapped on with strong leather straps, underneath which, 
for ja further protection, the parties insert their pocket-handkerchiefs. 
