the landscape on
fire.

In reading this celebrated description in America, and observing
how admirably true it was to nature there, I seemed to get a
glimpse at a poet's machinery, and to perceive, that in order to
produce effect he must give his images more vast than he finds
them in nature; but the proportions must be just, and the
colouring true. Every thing seems colossal on this great
continent; if it rains, if it blows, if it thunders, it is all
done _fortissimo_; but I often felt terror yield to wonder and
delight, so grand, so glorious were the scenes a storm exhibited.
Accidents are certainly more frequent than with us, but not so
much so as reasonably to bring terror home to one's bosom every
time a mass of lurid clouds is seen rolling up against the wind.

It seems hardly fair to quarrel with a place because its staple
commodity is not pretty, but I am sure I should have liked
Cincinnati much better if the people had not dealt so very
largely in hogs. The immense quantity of business done in this
line would hardly be believed by those who had not witnessed it.
I never saw a newspaper without remarking such advertisements as
the following:

"Wanted, immediately, 4,000 fat hogs."
"For sale, 2,000 barrels of prime pork."

But the annoyance came nearer than this; if I determined upon
a walk up Main-street, the chances were five hundred to one
against my reaching the shady side without brushing by a snout
fresh dripping from the kennel; when we had screwed our courage
to the enterprise of mounting a certain noble looking sugar-loaf
hill, that promised pure air and a fine view, we found the brook
we had to cross, at its foot, red with the stream from a pig
slaughter house; while our noses, instead of meeting "the thyme
that loves the green hill's breast," were greeted by odours
that I will not describe, and which I heartily hope my readers
cannot imagine; our feet, that on leaving the city had expected
to press the flowery sod, literally got entangled in pigs' tails
and jaw-bones: and thus the prettiest walk in the neighbourhood
was interdicted for ever.

One of the sights to stare at in America is that of houses
moving from place to place. We were often amused by watching
this exhibition of mechanical skill in the streets. They make
no difficulty of moving dwellings from one part of the town to
another. Those I saw travelling were all of them frame-houses,
that is, built wholly of wood,