From Frederic I proceeded in a southerly course through Montgomery county in Maryland. In this direction the soil changes to a yellowish sort of clay mixed with gravel, and continues much the same until you come to the federal city, beyond which, as I have before mentioned, it becomes more and more sandy as you approach the sea coast. The change in the face of the country after leaving Frederic is gradual, but at the end of a day’s journey a striking difference is perceptible. Instead of well cultivated fields, green with wheat, such as are met with along that rich track which runs contiguous to the mountains, large pieces of land, which have been worn out with the culture of tobacco, are here seen lying waste, with scarcely an herb to cover them. Instead of the furrows of the plough, the marks of the hoe appear on the ground; the fields are overspread with little hillocks for the reception of tobacco plants, and the eye is assailed in every direction with the unpleasant sight of gangs of male and female slaves toiling under the harsh commands of the overseer. The difference in the manners of the inhabitants is also great. Instead of being amongst the phlegmatic Germans, a traveller finds himself again in the midst of an inquisitive and prying set of Americans, to gratify whose curiosity it is always necessary to devote a certain portion of time after alighting at a tavern. [Sidenote: FALLS OF THE PATOWMAC.] A traveller on arriving in America may possibly imagine, that it is the desire of obtaining useful information which leads the people, wherever he stops, to accost him; and that the particular enquiries respecting the object of his pursuits, the place of his abode, and that of his destination, &c. are made to prepare the way for questions of a more general nature, and for conversation that may be attended with some amusement to him; he therefore readily answers them, hoping in return to gain information about the country through which he passes; but when it is found that these questions are asked merely through an idle and impertinent curiosity, and that by far the greater part of the people who ask them are ignorant, boorish fellows; when it is found that those who can keep up some little conversation immediately begin to talk upon politics, and to abuse every country excepting their own; when, lastly, it is found that the people scarcely ever give satisfactory answers at first to the enquiries which are made by a stranger respecting their country, but always hesitate, as if suspicious that he was asking these questions to procure some local information, in order to enable him to overreach them in a bargain, or to make some speculation in land to their injury; the traveller then loses all patience at this disagreeable and prying disposition, and feels disposed to turn from them with disgust; still, however, if he wishes to go through the country peaceably, and without quarrelling at every place where he stops, it is