LIFE OF WILSON. 
cxxxi 
To Mr. ALEXANDER LAWSON. 
Nashville, Tennessee, April 2%th, 1810. 
“ My Dear Sir, 
“ Before setting out on my journey through the wilderness to 
Natchez, I sit down to give you, according to promise, some ac- 
count 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 par- 
ticulars 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 be- 
fore 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 built of brick ; others of frame, 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 
piled 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 exhilarating effect on my 
spirits, after being so long immured in the forest. My own appear- 
ance, I believe, was to many equally interesting; and the shopkeep- 
ers and other loungers interrogated me with their eyes as I passed, 
