Part III.] Morris Birkbeck, Esq. 32» 



" or difficult to overcome, provided due regard has 

 '* been had to salubrity in the choice of their settle- 

 *' ment, and to diet and accommodation alter their 

 " arrival. 



" With best regards, I remain, Sec." 



622. Now, my dear Sir, your mode of address, in 

 this letter, clearly shews that yo\i have in your eye a 

 person above the level of common labourers. The 

 words " Dear Sir" indicate that you are speaking to a 

 friend, or, at least, to an intimate acquaintance ; of 



coarse to a person, who has not been brought up in the 

 habits of hard labour. And such a person it is, whom 

 you advise and press to come to the Illinois with a 

 hundred pounds in his pocket to become n farmer ! 



623. 1 will pass over the expenses previous to this 

 unfortunate man and his family's arriving at the Prairies, 

 though those expenses will be double the amount that you 

 state them at. But he arrives with 4-50 dollars in his 

 pocket. Of these he is to pay down 80 for his land, 

 leaving three times that sum to be paid afterwards. He 

 has 370 lett. And now what is he to do ? He arrives 

 in May. So that this family has to cross the sea in 

 Kinter, and the land in spring. There they are, how- 

 ever, and now what are they to do ? They are to have 

 built for 50 dollars a house " EXTREMELY COM- 

 " PORTABLE AND CONVENIENT."— the very 

 words that you use in describing the farmer's house, that 

 was to cost, with out-buildings, 1500 dollars! How- 

 ever, you have described your own cabin, whence we 

 may gather the meaning which you attach to the word 

 comfortable. " This cabin is built of round straight 

 " logs, about a foot in diameter, laying upon each other, 

 " and notched in at the corners, forming a room eighteen 

 •' feet long by sixteen ; the intervals between the logs 

 " ' chunked,' that is, filled in with slips of wood ; and 

 " ' mudded,' that is, daubed with a plaister of mud ; a 

 •* spacious chimney, built also of logs, stands like a 

 " bastion at one end ; the roof is well covered with four 

 •' hundred ' clap boards' of cleft oak, very much hke 

 *' the pales used in England for fencing parks. A hole 

 " is cut through the side called, very properly, the 



