The horses in common use in Virginia are all of a light description, chiefly adapted for the saddle; some of them are handsome, but they are for the most part spoiled by the false gaits which they are taught. The Virginians are wretched horsemen, as indeed are all the Americans I ever met with, excepting some few in the neighbourhood of New York. They sit with their toes just under the horse’s nose, their stirrups being left extremely long, and the saddle put about three or four inches forward on the mane. As for the management of the reins, it is what they have no conception of. A trot is odious to them, and they express the utmost astonishment at a person who can like that uneasy gait, as they call it. The favourite gaits which all their horses are taught, are a pace and a _wrack_. In the first, the animal moves his two feet on one side at the same time, and gets on with a sort of shuffling motion, being unable to spring from the ground on these two feet as in a trot. We should call this an unnatural gait, as none of our horses would ever move in that manner without a rider; but the Americans insist upon it that it is otherwise, because many of their foals pace as soon as born. These kind of horses are called “natural pacers,” and it is a matter of the utmost difficulty to make them move in any other manner but it is not one horse in five hundred that would pace without being taught. In the wrack, the horse gallops with his fore feet, and trots with those behind. This is a gait equally devoid of grace with the other, and equally contrary to nature; it is very fatiguing also to the horse; but the Virginian finds it more conducive to his ease than a fair gallop, and this circumstance banishes every other consideration. The people in this part of the country, bordering upon James River, are extremely fond of an entertainment which they call a barbacue. It consists in a large party meeting together, either under some trees, or in a house, to partake of a sturgeon or pig roasted in the open air, on a sort of hurdle, over a slow fire; this, however, is an entertainment chiefly confined to the lower ranks, and, like most others of the same nature, it generally ends in intoxication.