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It may safely be affirmed, that between the Alleganies and the Missouri, every degree of civilization is to be met with which shades the character of social man, from a state of considerable luxury and refinement, until on the very verge of the pale, he almost ceases to be gregarions, and attaches himself to a life of savage independence. There are settlers, if they may be so called, who are continually pushing forward, abandoning their recent improvements as fast as neighbourhood overtakes them, and plunging deeper into primeval wildernesses.

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It seems a very simple process to go and settle in a fertile country, where land may be procured for two dollars the acre; a glance, however, over an uncleared, and heavily-timbered tract, is sufficient, not only to correct our notions of the facility of the enterprise, but to render it. astonishing, that men are found sufficiently venturesome and enduring to undertake the task. The stoutest labourer might well shrink at the prospect, but hope and freedom brace both soul and sinews: there is something almost poetical in the confidence and hardihood of such undertakings.

To enlightened industry, this virgin continent offers undiminished resources; nor where success is in prospect will the American turn his foot aside, however rugged the path to it; with his axe on his shoulder, his family and stock in a light waggon, he plunges into forests which have never heard the woodman's stroke, clears a space sufficient for his dwelling, and first year's consumption, . and gradually converts the lonely wilderness into a flonBishing farm. This almost national genius, has been ably delineated by Talleyrand, Volney, and other writers; and a humorous, but faithful account of the American vis migratoria, is given by Knickerbocker, 1, c. vii." The most prominent habit is a certain rambling propensity, with which, like the sons of Ishmael, they seem to have been gifted by heaven, and which perpetually goads them on, to shift their residence from place to place, so that they are in a constant state of migration; tarrying awhile here and there, clearing lands for other people to enjoy, building houses for others to inhabit, and in a manner, may be considered the wandering Arab of America. His first thought on coming to the years of manhood, is to settle himself in the world, which means nothing more or less,

than to begin his rambles; to this end, he takes unto him. self for a wife, some dashing country heiress, that is to say, a buxom rosy cheeked wench, passing rich in red ribands, glass beads, and mock tortoise-shell combs, with a white gown and Morocco shoes, for Sunday, and deeply skilled in the mystery of making apple sweetmeats, long sauce, and pumpkin pie. Having thus provided himself, like a true pedlar, with a heavy knapsack, wherewith to regale his shoulders through the journey of life, he literally sets out on the peregrination. His whole family, household furniture and farming utensils, are hoisted into a covered cart; his own and his wife's wardrobe packed up in a firkin; which done, he shoulders his axe, takes staff in hand, and trudges off to the woods, as confident of the protection of Providence, and relying as cheerfully upon his own resources as ever did a patriarch of yore, when he journeyed into a strange country of the Gentiles. Having buried himself in the wilderness, he builds himself a loghut, clears away a corn-field and potatoe patch; and Providence smiling upon his labours, is soon surrounded by a snug farm, and some half-a-score of flaxen-headed urchins, who by their size, seem to have sprung all at once out of the earth, like a crop of toad-stools."

The pale of civilized life widens daily, and plainly intimates to the indignant and retiring Indian, that it will finally know no limit but the Pacific. Cultivators have begun to discover the superiority of the soil, westward of the Alleghany ridges: the tide of emigration is accordingly turned to the neighbourhood of the Ohio. Settlements are creeping along the Missouri, and the mouth of the Columbia is already designated to connect the Asiatic with the European commerce of the States.

Such is the growth, and such the projects of this transatlantic republic, great in extent of territory, in an active and well-informed population; but above all, in a free government, which not only leaves individual talent unfettered, but calls it into life by all the incitements of ambition most grateful to the human mind.

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