ics can here obtain full employment, and they are
able to earn from forty to fifty-four shillings a week. Every article of
clothing is excessively expensive; and the rents of houses are very
high. This place was formerly very unhealthy, the inhabitants being
subject to fevers, agues, and other complaints; but it is said to be
improving in healthiness. Mr. Fearon, who visited this place in the year
1817, does not speak favourably of the character of the Kentuckians. He
says they drink a great deal, swear a great deal, and gamble a great
deal; and that even their amusements are sometimes conducted with
excessive barbarity. The expence of sending goods, by water, from New
Orleans to Louisville, is about twenty shillings per hundred weight; and
down the stream, to New Orleans, about four shillings. The boats usually
make the voyage upward in about ninety days; and downward in
twenty-eight days. Steam-vessels accomplish the former voyage in
thirty-six, and the latter in twenty-eight days.

There are in Louisville, two great hotels, one of which has, on an
average, one hundred and forty, and the other eighty boarders. A person,
on going to either of them, applies to the bar-keeper for admittance:
and the accommodations are very different from those in an English
hotel. The place for washing is not, as with us, in the bed-rooms; but
in the court-yard, where there are a large cistern, several towels and a
negro in attendance. The sleeping-room usually contains from four to
eight bedsteads, having mattresses and not feather-beds; sheets of
calico, two blankets, and a quilt: the bedsteads have no curtains. The
public rooms are, a news-room, a boot-room, (in which the bar is
situated,) and a dining-room. The fires are generally surrounded by
parties of about six persons. The usual custom with Americans is to pace
up and down the news-room, in a manner similar to walking the deck of a
ship at sea. Smoking segars is practised by all, and at every hour of
the day. Argument or discussion, in this part of the world, is of very
rare occurrence; social intercourse seems still more unusual;
conversation on general topics, or taking enlarged and enlightened views
of things, rarely occurs: each man is in pursuit of his own individual
interest. At half past seven, the first bell rings for the purpose of
collecting all the boarders, and, at eight, the second bell rings;
breakfast is then set, the dining-room is unlocked, a general rush
commen