The first town you come to, going northward from Bottetourt County, is Lexington, a neat little place, that did contain about one hundred houses, a court-house, and gaol; but the greater part of it was destroyed by fire just before I got there. Great numbers of Irish are settled in this place. Thirty miles farther on stands Staunton. This town carries on a considerable trade with the back country, and contains nearly two hundred dwellings, mostly built of stone, together with a church. This was the first place on the entire road from Lynchburgh, one hundred and fifty miles distant, and which I was about ten days in travelling, where I was not able to get a bit of fresh meat, excepting indeed on passing the Blue Mountains, where they brought me some venison that had been just killed. I went on fifty miles further, from Staunton, before I got any again. Salted pork, boiled with turnip tops by way of greens, or fried bacon, or fried salted fish, with warm sallad, dressed with vinegar and the melted fat which remains in the frying-pan after dressing the bacon, is the only food to be got at most of the taverns in this country; in spring it is the constant food of the people in the country; and indeed, throughout the whole year, I am told, salted meat is what they most generally use. In every part of America a European is surprised at finding so many men with military titles, and still more so at seeing such numbers of them employed in capacities apparently so inconsistent with their rank; for it is nothing uncommon to see a captain in the shape of a waggoner, a colonel the driver of a stage coach, or a general dealing out penny ribbon behind his counter; but no where, I believe, is there such a superfluity of these military personages as in the little town of Staunton; there is hardly a decent person in it, excepting lawyers and medical men, but what is a colonel, a major, or a captain. This is to be accounted for as follows: in America, every freeman from the age of sixteen to fifty years, whose occupation does not absolutely forbid it, must enrol himself in the militia. In Virginia alone, the militia amounts to about sixty-two thousand men, and it is divided into four divisions and seventeen brigades, to each of which there is a general and other officers. Were there no officers therefore, excepting those actually belonging to the militia, the number must be very great; but independent of the militia, there are also volunteer corps in most of the towns, which have likewise their respective officers. In Staunton there are two of these corps, one of cavalry, the other of artillery. These are formed chiefly of men who find a certain degree of amusement in exercising as soldiers, and who are also induced to associate, by the vanity of appearing in regimentals. The militia is not assembled oftener than once in two or three months, and as it rests with every individual to provide himself with arms and accoutrements, and no stress being laid