1XXX LIFE OF 



far exceeded in length what I first intended. My next will be from 

 Nashville. I shall then have seen a large range of Kentucky, and 

 be more able to give you a correct delineation of the country and 

 its inhabitants. In descending the Ohio, I amused myself with a 

 poetical narrative of my expedition, which I have called the Pil- 

 grim." 



To Mr Alexander Laivson. 



' ' Nashville, Tennessee, 

 April 28, 1810. 



"My dear Sie, — Before setting out on my journey through the 

 wilderness to Natchez, I sit down to give you, according to promise, 

 some account of Lexington, and of my adventures through the state 

 of Kentucky. These I shall be obliged to sketch as rapidly as pos- 

 sible. Neither my time nor my situation enables me to detail 

 particulars with any degree of regularity, and you must condescend 

 to receive them in the same random manner in which they occur, 

 altogether destitute of fanciful embellishment, with nothing but 

 their novelty and the simplicity of truth to recommend them. 



" I saw nothing of Lexington till I had approached within half 

 a mile of the place, when, the woods opening, I beheld the town 

 before me on an irregular plain, ornamented with a small white 

 spire, and consisting of several parallel streets, crossed by some 

 others. Many of the houses are built of brick, others of stone, 

 neatly painted; but a great proportion wore a more humble and 

 inferior appearance. The fields around looked clean and well 

 fenced ; gently undulating, but no hills in view. In a hollow 

 between two of these parallel streets, ran a considerable brook, that, 

 uniting with a larger a little below the town, drives several mills. 

 A large quarry of excellent building stone also attracted my notice 

 as I entered the town. The main street was paved with large 

 masses from this quarry, the foot-path neat, and guarded by wooden 

 posts. The numerous shops filled with goods, and the many well 

 dressed females I passed in the streets, the sound of social industry, 

 and the gay scenery of ' the busy haunts of men,' had a most exhi- 

 larating effect upon my spirits, after being so long immured in the 

 forest. My own appearance, I believe, was to many equally interest- 

 ing ; and the shopkeepers and other loungers interrogated me with 



