The country immediately west of the Susquehana is truly delightful. The soil, whether occupied by the natural woods, orchards, or crops, is covered with a profuse vegetation; and the superficial aspect altogether agreeable. The best sort of houses are of limestone; they shew nothing of fine taste or neat workmanship, but are far superior in durability and appearance to the wooden erections so common here. Barns are much larger, and frequently neater than the adjoining dwellings. Towards Carlisle, the road passes through lands inferior to the lower country, seen in the forenoon. The surface of limestone rocks, and large detached blocks of the same mineral, interrupt the plough in the field, and the wheeled carriage on the road. Carlisle, though in a newly settled country, has an appearance somewhat antiquated. With so much grass growing in the streets, a suspicion arises that there is not much traffic here. Shippensburg is a place more recently founded than the last, but has, notwithstanding, contracted something like the rust of time. Wooden {44} erections soon acquire a weather-beaten appearance. The subsidence of log houses discloses chinks, shewing that they are well ventilated in summer, but not the most comfortable lodgments for the winter. At Chambersburg the coach halted during the night. The rough roads already surmounted, and the report of worse still before us, determined two of the passengers, besides myself, to walk, as an easier mode of travelling over the mountains. Chambersburg is 143 miles from Philadelphia, and 155 from Pittsburg; and lies in the intersection of the roads from York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Several branches of what has been very properly called the current of emigration, being here united, strangers from the eastern country, and from Europe, are passing in an unceasing train. An intelligent gentleman, at this place, informed me, that this stream of emigration has flowed more copiously this year, than at any former period; and that the people now moving westward, are ten times more numerous than they were, ten years ago. His computation is founded on the comparative amount of the stage-coach business, and on careful observation. This astonishing statement is, in some degree, countenanced by a late notice in a New York newspaper, that stated the number of emigrants which arrived in that port during the week, ending the 31st of August last, to be 2050. The gentleman alluded to, says, that shades of character, sensibly different from one another, are forming in the western States. He represents the Kentuckians to be a high-toned people, who frequently announce their country, as if afraid of being mistaken for inhabitants of Ohio State; and the Ohians, as having less pride of country, being less assuming in their {45} demeanour, but not less agreeable in conversation, nor less punctual in business transactions. Were it not for the intelligence of my penetrating informant, and for his great