We arrived here, not the least tired with our long journey, though it occupied twelve hours, and were so fresh afterwards, that we started after tea, this being the great annual Thanksgiving-day, to the nearest place of worship we could find, which turned out to be a Baptist "Church," as it is called here, where we heard a most admirable sermon, and felt we had reason to offer up our thanks with as much earnestness as any one of the congregation, for having been spared to make this journey to the Far West, and to have returned to civilised life, without encountering a single difficulty or drawback of any kind. I may as well state, that this Thanksgiving-day was established by the Puritans, and is still kept up throughout the whole of the United States, its object being to return thanks for the blessings of the year, and more especially for the harvest. There are services in all the churches, and we much regretted not finding out till late yesterday, that this was the day set apart for it, for had we known this, we should not have travelled to-day; but once on our journey, with the fear of snow accumulating in the mountains, we were afraid of stopping on the road, and we were very glad to be able to attend the service this evening. There is something very beautiful, I think, in thus setting apart one day in the year for such a purpose, and it is interesting too, as being a relic left by the Puritans. _November 19th._--We are quite charmed with this place, which is a rare exception to all the other capitals we have seen, inasmuch as more has not been undertaken than has been carried out; in fact, it has much more the appearance of a village than of a large city. The beauty of the river surpasses all description. It is a mile wide, and bends gracefully towards the direction of the mountains through the gorge from which it issues forth in its course towards Chesapeake Bay, and here, where the hills recede to a distance, it expands into a great width, and its face is covered with islands. The only drawback to its being a grand river is its shallowness, and want of adaptation, therefore, to the purpose of navigation. There are no splendid steamboats to be seen here as on the Ohio, which make one feel that river, at the distance of more than 2000 miles from the sea, to be a noble highway of commerce, linking together with a common interest distant portions of this vast continent. In the Susquehanna, one feels that there is nothing but its beauty to admire, but this _is_ perfect.