276 TOBACCO-SQUIRTING AMERICAN. 



for his conduct. There was something so sincere in the gen 

 tleman s manner, and in his anxiety to remove the stain, that 

 induced me to say, he could not have spit on any thing more 

 worthless; and notwithstanding the nature of our introduc 

 tion, we continued on intimate terms for the remainder of the 

 voyage. There was nothing in America to which I was so 

 long of getting reconciled, as the copious spitting, and my 

 repugnance was chiefly overcome by the accident to my sur- 

 tout. The use of tobacco in every shape is, to a certain 

 extent, an abomination, and the preference or dislike given to 

 one mode of consumption over another, arises from habit. The 

 smoking Dutchman, chewing American, and snuffing Scotch 

 man, may be objects of disgust to each other, and all of them 

 perhaps abhorred by a fastidious person who dislikes the use of 

 tobacco in any shape. 



I have already alluded to the shabbiness of my attire on 

 leaving Montreal, and after having travelled so long and so 

 roughly, often not unrobing for the night, my clothes had 

 become literally threadbare. My hat was originally of white 

 silk-web of bad quality, and now almost without wool. My 

 appearance would have betokened mendicity in Britain, and 

 procured pecuniary assistance from the humane ; but in the 

 countries through which I had latterly travelled, charity is 

 never asked nor bestowed, yet my garb had its advantages : It 

 brought me in contact with all classes of the inhabitants, with 

 out exciting suspicions of any kind, and enabled me to see 

 them in their real character. My unpretending appearance 

 and deportment could not call forth the democratic rudeness 

 which assumed or presumptuous superiority seldom fails to 

 experience, in almost every portion of the United States ; and 

 the sycophant, if such exists in the valley of the Mississippi, 

 had nothing to attract his notice. 



The safety of my person and property may have been aided 

 by the meanness of my dress, which possessed no allurement 

 to the robber, thief, or swindler. My position as a traveller 

 in the Western United States, and Upper Canada, differed 

 from that of many British travellers who have visited the 

 countries, and I shall leave others to judge if it was calculated 

 to promote the object of my journey. 



