The reader will be mistaken if, from what has been said of good roads and fine weather, he supposes we meet with nothing else; from a few miles off Wheeling until this day or two, the air has been filled with what in England would be thought a thick fog,--here they say it is smoke arising from burning barrens and prairies which are yearly at this time set on fire; indeed we have lately passed near enough to woodland on fire to see the flames and to hear the crackling of the timber; to our eyes a melancholy sight, accustomed as they have been to value and admire the forest growth. This brings to remembrance what has been told me of the great danger, and of lives lost in the Prairie country, from the custom of setting fire to the long grass in order to obtain a fine beautiful herbage, which, in a few weeks after succeeds it: the devouring element assisted by the wind advances so quickly that the speed of a horse has sometimes proved unavailing. The effect upon the long rushy grass as the fire reaches it, is frightfully grand; the heat first elevates and then throws it forward like waves, thus crossing the country at a rate inconceivably rapid;--instances have occurred of houses, cattle, and people suddenly falling a sacrifice to this rash {152} method of clearing the ground: the way to avoid such a catastrophe, the neglect of which occasioned to Mr. Flower the loss of some stacks, is to mow the herbage to a sufficient distance round the premises. Nor is this danger to be apprehended only in the Prairie country. An emigrant, crossing the mountains some few years ago, wrote thus back to his alarmed friends, "the fire is before and behind me, I dare neither go forward nor return, and what will become of me I know not:" as his letter came safe we will hope he escaped. Within this week a considerable number of waggons laden with goods and people have passed on their way to the Western country: as this Indian summer cannot last much longer, these parties would seem to be some of the improvident of the earth not to have moved earlier to their destination. _November 13th._ The journey to-day, though over high hills and tremendous rocky ways, has been one of the pleasantest drives we have experienced: the clouds were just sufficiently broken to throw as they flew, endless and varied light and shade over the most beautiful and extensive views; rocks of various forms presented their rugged surfaces amongst the thick growing Pines and Oaks which, though small and stunted compared {153} to those in the Western country, are not on that account the less picturesque; and though the land is also equally inferior, yet such scenery, healthy air, and good water, must I conceive render Maryland a desirable residence to the man of refinement and property, in preference to any part that I have seen.