Between Nashville and Swampville extends a distance of more than a hundred miles--just three days' travel on horseback. For the first ten miles--to Harpeth River--I found an excellent road, graded and macadamised, running most of the way between fenced plantations. My next point was _Paris_; and forty miles further on, I arrived in _Dresden_! So far as the nomenclature was concerned, I might have fancied myself travelling upon the continent of Europe. By going a little to the right, I might have entered Asia: since I was told of _Smyrna_ and _Troy_ being at no great distance in that direction; and by proceeding in a south-westerly course, I should have passed through _Denmark_, and landed at _Memphis_--certainly an extensive tour within the short space of three days! Ugh! those ugly names! What hedge-schoolmaster has scattered them so loosely and profusely over this lovely land? Whip the wretch with rattlesnakes! Memphis indeed!--as if Memphis with its monolithic statues needed commemoration on the banks of the Mississippi! A new Osiris--a new Sphinx, "half horse, half alligator, with a sprinkling of the snapping turtle." At every forking of the roads, whenever I inquired my way, in my ears rang those classic homonyms, till my soul was sick of sounds. "Swampville" was euphony, and "Mud Creek" _soft_ music in comparison! Beyond Dresden, the titles became more appropriate and much more rare. There were long stretches having no names at all: for the simple reason, that there were no _places_ to bear them. The numerous creeks, however, had been baptised; and evidently by the backwoodsmen themselves, as the titles indicated. "Deer Creek" and "Mud"--"Coon" and "Cat"--"Big" and "Little Forky"--told that the pioneers, who first explored the hydrographic system of the Western Reserve, were not heavily laden with classic lore; and a pity it is that pedantry should be permitted to alter the simple, but expressive and appropriate, appellatives by them bestowed. Unfortunately, the system is followed up to this hour by the Fremonts and other pseudo-explorers of the farthest west. The soft and harmonious sound of Indian and Spanish nomenclature--as well as the more striking titles bestowed by the trappers--are rapidly being obliterated from the maps; their places to be supplied--at the instigation of a fulsome flattery-- by the often vulgar names of demagogic leaders, or the influential heads of the employing _bureau_. "I know the old general will be pleased--perhaps reciprocate the compliment in his next despatch--if I call this beautiful river `Smith.'"