318 CITY OF BALTIMORE. 



Beyond the Susquehannah, the railway passes through 

 a flat, poor, and sandy region bearing hardwood, chiefly 

 oak, and on which Indian corn, winter rye, and poor 

 pasture are the principal agricultural products. We 

 had now fairly entered upon the long pine-barren zone 

 or terrace, of which I have already spoken as pro 

 ducing the large supplies of turpentine and pine timber 

 in the Carolinas and in Georgia. 



At Baltimore I was met by Dr Higgins, Agricultural 

 Chemist to the State of Maryland, with whom I spent a 

 very pleasant afternoon. The city is beautifully placed 

 at the head of a wide bay, partly on a flat margin of the 

 water, but now chiefly on the slope and summit of the 

 elevated banks from which the eye commands the flats, 

 and is carried over the creeks and lowlands beneath, 

 towards the broader waters of Chesapeake Bay. It is well 

 built, prosperous, and increasing in size. Employment is 

 plentiful, and skilled labour commands a wage of about 

 a dollar and a half a-day. The mechanics usually live 

 in self-contained houses owned by themselves, of which 

 there are whole streets in the city. These houses are 

 fifteen feet in front and three stories high, and are built of 

 brick, on leasehold sites held for ninety-nine years, renew 

 able for ever. In a slave State, where the aristocratic 

 principle is recognised, the dread of long leases and 

 reserved rents does not exist, which so strangely agitates 

 the communities of New England and New York. 



The southern pro-slavery sentiment is still strong in 

 Maryland, though the number of slaves has rapidly de 

 clined during the last twenty years. In 1830 the slave 

 population of this State numbered 102,000, but in 1840 

 it had decreased to 90,000, while the number of free 

 coloured people exceeded 62,000. The census of the 

 present year (1850) will probably show a still more rapid 

 diminution. 



The city of Baltimore contains a population of about 



