The chief amusement of the country girls in winter is sleighing, of which they are passionately fond, as indeed are the whole sex in this country. I never heard a woman speak of this diversion but with rapture. You have doubtless read a description of a _sleigh_, or sledge, as it is common in all northern countries, and can only be used on the snow. In British America this amusement may be followed nearly all the winter; but so far to the south as Pennsylvania, the snow seldom lies on the ground more than seven or eight days together. The consequence is, that every moment that will admit of sleighing is seized on with avidity. The tavern and inn-keepers are up all night; and the whole country is in motion. When the snow begins to fall, our planter's daughters provide hot sand, which at night they place in bags at the bottom of the sleigh. Their sweethearts attend with a couple of horses, and away they glide with astonishing velocity; visiting their friends for many miles round the country. But in large towns, in order to have a sleighing frolic in _style_, it is necessary to provide a _fiddler_ who is placed at the head of the sleigh, and plays all the way. At every inn they meet with on the road, the company alight and have a dance. But I perceive I am _dancing_ from my subject, which I suppose you are by this time heartily tired of; I shall therefore conclude, by assuring you, I am Yours sincerely, &c. * * * * * "There be also store of frogs, which in the spring time will chirp, and whistle like birds: there be also toads, that will creep to the top of trees, and sit there croaking, to the wonderment of strangers!" "To a stranger walking for the first time in these woods during the summer, this appears the land of enchantment: he hears a thousand noises, without being able to discern from whence or from what animal they proceed, but which are, in fact, the discordant notes of five different species of frogs!" _Philadelphia, April 27th, 1794._ DEAR FRIEND, Previous to my coming to this country, I recollect reading the foregoing passages, the first in a history of New England, published in London, in the year 1671; and the other in a similar production of a later date. Prepared as I was to hear something extraordinary from these animals, I confess the first frog _concert_ I heard in America was so much beyond any thing I could conceive of the _powers_ of these _musicians_, that I was truly astonished. This _performance_ was _al fresco_, and took place on the night of the 18th instant, in a large _swamp_, where there were at least ten thousand _performers_; and I really believe not two _exactly_ in the same pitch, if the octave can possibly admit of so many divisions or shades of semitones. An hibernian musician, who, like myself, was present for the first time at this _concert_ of _antimusic_, exclaimed, "By Jasus but they stop out of tune to a _nicety!"_