Athens, a town of twenty or thirty log-cabins, to Cambridge, a village of four or five, where we breakfasted. Our host was from South Carolina. He said there were several ministers and a school in the neighbourhood: that at a camp-meeting of seceders from the Methodists a week before, 4000 people were collected. We passed, in the afternoon, through Huntsville, a small town, full of stores, or shops. It is finely situated near the foot of the spurs of the Cumberland mountain. We then proceeded to a comfortable inn, commanding a delightful view, Here I had proposed to spend Sunday; but found our landlord such a sporting character, and was told the house was such a Sunday lounge, that I determined to proceed to one of a different stamp. While resting our horses, we saw a Negro boy, of ten years old, nearly killed in a fall from one of his master's racehorses, which he was training, in company with another, ridden by one of his companions. It is very common to have private courses, and racers of the English breed. Our host of the preceding night was training three.

We set off again by moonlight, and reached our resting-place about midnight, after the family were gone to bed. It was a respectable family, and a quiet house; but there was no

regular service, except on three Sundays out of four, and this was the fourth. I found there was a school in the neighbourhood; indeed, this district has been settled ten years.

We were now in the high road from Huntsville to Knoxville, which is really a road, the Kentucky Trace being little more than a broad grass path. We left our hosts on the 29th, and in a few miles crossed into Tennessee.

At night we reached this place, at the foot of the Cumberland mountain, taking rather a shorter road to Knoxville by a horse-path which→ leads us past Brainerd, the other Missionary settlement among the Cherokees. We were detained this morning by rain, which is falling on my paper as I am writing under the shade of a miserable cabin. The Cumberland mountain, thus far, really resembles some of the more tame of our Cumberland moors, except that it is covered with wood.

T

Letter XVI.

Near Knoxville, Tennessee, 5th June, 1820.

WE began to ascend the Cumberland mountain on the 30th ult. about noon. After riding and walking for two miles up a steep rocky path, we reached the summit, and travelled on a level road for nearly 16 miles, when we descended very precipitously into the valley on the other side. The trees which overhung the road, afforded us a tolerable protection from the rain which was falling at the time; but they also contracted the prospect, and prevented our seeing, except at intervals, the clouds which were rolling beautifully along the distant hills. Our ride was nevertheless rendered very agreeable by the fragrance of the woods, the freshness of the dripping leaves, and the sound of the mountain torrents falling into the river below. At the foot of the mountain we found a solitary log-hut, where a very neat old woman, upwards of seventy years old, was busily engaged in spinning. She gave me a polite reception, and her manners and conversation would really have

surprised you. In her chimney-corner was a young clergyman from New York, who had been visiting Brainerd, and whose offers to conduct family worship were thankfully accepted by our hostess and her son. This young divine was making a long tour through the wilder parts of America to harden himself, as our hostess said, before he took the charge of a regular congregation. We set off the next morning soon after four o'clock, and after crossing the Sequotchy and Tennessee rivers, entered the Cherokee nation, in the State of Georgia. We breakfasted at the house of a very intelligent farmer, whose wife was a halfbreed Cherokee, and whose children were wellbehaved, and better educated than those of many of our respectable farmers. On his book-shelves I observed Robertson's America, the Spectator, and several periodical publications; a Bible, hymn-book, and other religious works. In the afternoon we crossed the Racoon and Look-out mountain; and for the first time I came to an open quarrel with my favourite woods, which prevented me from getting one tolerable view of the most magnificent scenery we have met with since our arrival in America. I was delighted, however, to find myself once

more in the midst of mountains, and would have ascended to the summit of the Look-out mountain by day-break the following morning, if the weather had not rendered it almost impracticable. We slept at the foot of it, at the house of a Highlander, who married a Cherokee about thirty years since, and who lives very much like a gentleman. Here we found a good library, maps, and American and English newspapers the latter were most acceptable. The daughters who drank tea and breakfasted with us, were pleasing well-behaved girls, who had been educated at distant boarding-schools; the father, from his manners and information, might have been living the last twenty years in England or Scotland, instead of among the Cherokees. Here I met a young invalid from Ohio, going to the south for his health. He had been detained some days by the rain, which kept us till after breakfast, contrary to our usual custom. We then proceeded through the woods to Brainerd, six miles distant; where we stopped during the remainder of the day, the rain falling in torrents.

The proceedings here were so similar to those at Elliot, that it is unnecessary to describe them. Indeed, this Institution was originally