I have resigned my place in the exploring expedition! So that job is got along with. I have been long in a state of uncertainty and perplexity about the matter; but I believe that I have taken the right course. I leave here to-morrow, and am obliged to travel as fast as I can go to Detroit. I shall drop this note on the road somewhere: probably at Utica. I must get as near to Detroit as possible by Saturday evening. I hope to return in the latter part of the month; and intend to make you a visit on my way back. TO MRS. TORREY. BATAVIA, GENESEE COUNTY, N. Y. Friday morning, August 10, 1838. MY DEAR MRS. TORREY,--The place from which I write is a very pleasant and flourishing country village; the shire-town of Genesee County, forty-four miles from Buffalo and about thirty-four from Rochester. Here is your humble servant and correspondent “laid up for repairs.” This is, you may say, my first stopping-place since I left New York, from which place I am distant 418 miles. But I may as well begin at the beginning. I left home, as you remember, on Tuesday evening; breakfasted in Albany, dined at Utica, took stage immediately for Buffalo. We took our supper at Chittenango, which Dr. T. will recollect as the Ultima Thule of our peregrinations in the summer of 1826, and near which place we found the Scolopendrium. Riding all night we were at Auburn (a lovely village) by daybreak, and, passing through Geneva, arrived at Canandaigua in time for dinner. We reached Avon, on the Genesee River, by sunset. Here is a famous sulphur spring; and people crowd the dirty hotels and boarding-houses to drink nasty water. We reached the next considerable village, LeRoy, early in the evening; but our next stage, which brought us to this place, only ten miles, was two and a half hours; so it was about midnight when I arrived here, in a very pitiable plight, so thoroughly exhausted I was obliged to leave the coach and betake myself to rest. I was very unwilling to do this so long as I was able to ride, as, had I continued with the coach, I should have reached Buffalo early in the morning and in time for the steamboat, in which case I could expect to reach Detroit Saturday afternoon, making only four days from New York. I find myself much better this morning, though weak, and so unstable about the epigastrium that I scarcely dare take any food. I have been debating with myself whether to go on directly to Buffalo to-day, and take the steamboat of to-morrow morning for Cleveland, or some other port in Ohio that I may be able to reach by Saturday evening; or to go from this place directly to Niagara Falls, which I could reach before evening, and remain there until Monday morning. I have pretty nearly decided upon taking the former course, as I shall save some time thereby. But I dread a tedious ride in a stagecoach. In either case I hope to have an opportunity of writing again to-morrow evening.