But to leave anticipations and imaginings,--which, by the way, is a forbearance hard of practice in a region where all things are on the whirl of speculative change, and where practical results outrun the projections of even the most visionary theorist,--and return to make such rapid survey of this interesting city as may be ventured on during a first visit of some twenty days. I feel, indeed, that but little can be really known in so short a time of a place containing two hundred and twenty thousand souls, and having in a rapid state of advancement various alterations and improvements, including nearly five thousand new buildings all immediately required: although there are persons gifted with such power of intuition, that, as I learn from their own showing, they are enabled in half the period to decide upon the condition of the whole state of Pennsylvania; to discover the wants of its capital, the defects of its institutions, the value of its commerce, the drift of its policy; to gauge its morals, become intimate with its society, and make out a correct estimate of its relative condition and prospects compared with the other great divisions of the Union, surveyed, I presume, with equal rapidity, judged with equal candour, and estimated with equal correctness. Each in his degree: and so, in my way, good reader, I will endeavour to give you some notion of this capital of old Penn's Sylvania; but if your own imagination come not to the help of my outline, I fear, after all my painstaking, your notion of the subject will be only a faintish one. Philadelphia is built upon a peninsula formed by two rivers, the Delaware and the Schuylkill, having a long graduated rise from each, the highest point being about the centre of the city. It is laid out in squares, and the streets run in parallel lines of two and three miles in length, retaining the same names throughout, only divided by Market-street into north, and south: with the exception of this dividing street, those running east and west are named after trees, flowers, and fruits,--as chestnut, walnut, peach, &c.; and those parallel with the rivers, first, Front-street, or that facing the water; next, Second-street, third, fourth, fifth, &c. distinguished as, divided by Market-street, into South-second, North-second, &c.; a simplicity of arrangement which is unique, and renders the stranger's course an exceeding easy one: all he has to do is, first, to run down the latitude of his street by any of the great avenues, and, having fairly struck it, steer north or south, as may be, till he hits upon the friendly number. The side-walks throughout are broad and well-ordered, neatly paved with brick, and generally bordered by rows of healthful trees of different kinds, affording in hot weather a most welcome shade, and giving to the houses an air of freshness and repose rarely to be met with in a populous city.