The mail sleigh in which I found myself a passenger, was one of the most wretched vehicles imaginable. The wind—a north-wester—penetrated the curtains of the machine, at a thousand crevices, and, charged with particles of snow so fine as to be almost impalpable, communicated to the faces of the passengers the sensation of suffering under a hurricane of needles. Our route lay through a country flat and uninteresting, which presented no object to arrest the attention of a traveller. We breakfasted at a wretched cabaret, and the pretensions of the dinner house were not much greater. The fare, however, though coarse, was abundant; and proceeding on our journey about six o'clock, we reached Lancaster, a town of some note, and famous for its manufacture of rifles. After an hour's halt, we again started in a sort of covered sledge-Avaggon, and the number of passengers being reduced to myself, my servant, and a Hungarian pedlar, we without ceremony ensconced ourselves among the straw in the bottom of the cart.

This part of the journey was comparatively comfortable. I had passed the night before leaving Philadelphia in writing, and “ tired nature's kind restorer” now visited my eyelids very pleasantly. The rumbling of the waggon on the vast wooden bridge which crosses the Susquehanna at length broke my slumber. I rose to gaze on the scenery, which showed finely in the moonlight.