"But something too much of this." Some pages back I was entering the capital of Illinois. The town is approached from the north, through a scattered forest, separating it from the prairies; and its unusually large and isolated buildings, few in number as they are, stationed here and there upon the eminences of the broken surface, give the place a singularly novel aspect viewed from the adjacent {225} heights. There is but little of scenic attraction about the place, and, to the traveller's eye, still less of the picturesque. Such huge structures as are here beheld, in a town so inconsiderable in extent, present an unnatural and forced aspect to one who has just emerged from the wild waste of the neighbouring prairies, sprinkled with their humble tenements of logs. The scene is not in keeping; it is not picturesque. Such, at all events, were my "first impressions" on entering the village, and _first_ impressions are not necessarily false. As I drew nigh to the huge white tavern, a host of people were swarming the doors; and, from certain uncouth noises which from time to time went up from the midst thereof, not an inconsiderable portion of the worthy multitude seemed to have succeeded in rendering themselves gloriously tipsy in honour of the glorious day. There was one keen, bilious-looking genius in linsey-woolsey, with a face, in its intoxicated state, like a red-hot tomahawk, whom I regarded with special admiration as high-priest of the bacchanal; and so fierce and high were his objurgations, that the idea with some force suggested itself, whether, in the course of years, he had not screamed his lean and hungry visage to its present hatchet-like proportions. May he forgive if I err. But not yet were my adventures over. Having effected a retreat from the abominations of the bar-room, I had retired to a chamber in the most quiet corner of the mansion, and had seated myself to endite an epistle, when a rap at the door announced the presence of mine host, leading along an old {226} yeoman whom I had noticed among the revellers; and, having given him a ceremonious introduction, withdrew. To what circumstance I was indebted for this unexpected honour, I was puzzling myself to divine, when the old gentleman, after a preface of clearings of the throat and scratchings of the head, gave me briefly to understand, much to my admiration, that I was believed to be neither more nor less than an "Agent for a Western Land Speculating Company of the North," etc., etc.: and then, in a confidential tone, before a syllable of negation or affirmation could be offered, that he "owned a certain tract of land, so many acres prairie, so many timber, so many cultivated, so many wild," etc., etc.: the sequel was anticipated by undeceiving the old farmer forthwith, though with no little difficulty. The cause of this mistake I subsequently discovered to be a very slight circumstance. On the tavern register in the bar-room I had entered as my residence my