ALEXANDER WILSON. lxxxiii 



master. Lexington, however, with, all its faults, which a few years 

 will gradually correct, is an honourable monument of the enterprise, 

 courage, and industry of its inhabitants. Within the memory of 

 a middle-aged man, who gave me the information, there were only 

 two log huts on the spot where the city is now erected ; while the 

 surrounding country was a wilderness, rendered hideous by skulk- 

 ing bands of bloody and ferocious Indians. Now, numerous excel- 

 lent institutions for the education of youth, a public library, and 

 a well-endowed university, under the superintendence of men of 

 learning and piety, are in successful operation. Trade and manu- 

 factures are also rapidly increasing. Two manufactories for spin- 

 ning cotton have lately been erected ; one for woollen ; several 

 extensive ones for weaving sailcloth and bagging ; and seven rope 

 walks, which, according to one of the proprietors, export annually 

 rope-yarn to the amount of 150,000 dollars. A taste for neat and 

 even elegant buildings is fast gaining ground, and Lexington at 

 present can boast of men who do honour to science, and of females 

 whose beauty and amiable manners would grace the first circles 

 of society. On Saturday, April 14th, I left this place for Nash- 

 ville, distant about two hundred miles. I passed through Nicholas- 

 ville, the capital of Jessamine county, a small village begun about 

 ten years ago, consisting of about twenty houses, with three shops 

 and four taverns. The woods were scarcely beginning to look 

 green, which to me was surprising, having been led, by common 

 report, to believe that spring here is much earlier than in the lower 

 parts of Pennsylvania. I must farther observe, that, instead of 

 finding the woods of Kentucky covered with a profusion of flowers, 

 they were, at this time, covered with rotten leaves, and dead timber 

 in every stage of decay and confusion ; and I could see no dif- 

 ference between them and our own, but in the magnitude of the 

 timber, and superior richness of the soil. Here and there the 

 white blossoms of the Sanguinaria Canadensis, or red root, were 

 peeping through the withered leaves ; and the buds of the buckeye, 

 or horse chestnut, and one or two more, were beginning to expand. 

 Wherever the hackberry had fallen, or been cut down, the cattle 

 had eaten the whole bark from the trunk, even to that of the roots. 

 " Nineteen miles from Lexington, I descended a long, steep, and 

 rocky declivity, to the banks of Kentucky river, which is here about 



