TOWNS. 
823 
mountains possessing large farms; nor are 
there any eminently - distinguished by their 
education or knowledge from the rest of their 
fellow citizens. Poverty also is as much un¬ 
known in this country as great wealth. Each 
man owns the house he lives in and the land 
which he cultivates, and every one appears to 
be in a happy state of mediocrity, and unam¬ 
bitious of a more elevated situation than what 
he himself enjoys. 
The free inhabitants consist for the most 
part of Germans, who here maintain the same 
character as in Pennsylvania and the other 
•states where they have settled. About one 
*ixth of the people, oo on average, are slaves, 
but in some of the counties the proportion is 
much less ; in Rockbridge the slaves do not 
amount to more than an eleventh, and in She¬ 
nandoah County not to more than a twentieth 
part of the whole. 
Between Fincastle and the Palowmac there 
are several towns, as Lexington, Staunton, 
Newmarket, Woodstock, Winchester, Stras- 
burgh, and some others. These towns all stand 
on the great road, running north and south 
•behind the Blue Mountains, and which is the 
high road from the northern states to -Ken¬ 
tucky. 
As I passed along it, I met with great num¬ 
ber* of people from Kentucky and the ;ne# 
