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VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES BANK, PHILADELPHIA.

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tains and lovely prospects around them. As a people, we have no habit of amusement in America. Business and repose are the only two states of existence we know. How far Europeans have the better of us in this respect-how much our morals improve, or our health suffers, from the distaste for places of public relaxation and resort, are questions the political economists have not yet condescended to settle.

VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES BANK,

PHILADELPHIA.

THIS is one of those chaste and beautiful buildings which have given the public architecture of Philadelphia a superiority over that of every other city of our country. It needs but that its fair marble should be weather-fretted and stained, to express perfectly to the eye the model of one of the most graceful temples of antiquity. The severe simplicity of taste which breathes through this Greek model, however, is not adapted to private buildings; and in a certain kind of simplicity, or rather of want of ornament, lies the fault found by every eye in the domestic architecture of this city. The chess-board regularity of the streets, so embarrassing to a stranger, as well as tiresome to the gaze, require a more varied, if not a more ornate style. The hundreds of houses that resemble each other in every distinguishable particular, occasion a bewilderment and fatigue to the unaccustomed eye, which a citizen of Philadelphia can scarcely comprehend.

The uniformity and plainness which William Penn has bequeathed in such an abiding legacy to Philadelphia, however, is seen but by a faint penumbra in the dress of the inhabitants, or in their equipages, style of living, and costliness of furniture and entertainment. A faint shadow of original simplicity there still certainly exists, visible through all the departures from the spirit of Quakerism; and it is a leaven of taste and elegance in the ferment of luxury which has given Philadelphia emphatically a character for refinement. A more delightful temper and tone of society, a more enjoyable state of the exercise and mode of hospitality,

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VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES BANK, PHILADELPHIA.

or a more comfortable metropolis to live in, certainly does not exist this side the water. A European would prefer Philadelphia to every other residence in the United States.

Is it possible to realize, that, on the site of this refined capital, only a hundred and fifty years ago, lived a people in such strong contrast to the above, (save only in hospitality,) as are described by William Penn in the following terms !—

"The natives I shall consider in their persons, language, manners, religion, and government, with my sense of their original. For their persons, they are generally tall, straight, well-built, and of singular proportion; they tread strong and clever, and mostly walk with a lofty chin. Of complexion, black, but by design, as the gypsies in England: they grease themselves with bear's fat, clarified; and using no defence against sun or weather, their skins must needs be swarthy. Their eye is little and black, not unlike a straight-looked Jew. The thick lip and flat nose, so frequent with the East Indians and Blacks, are not common to them; many of them have fine Roman noses.

"Their language is lofty, yet narrow; but like the Hebrew, in signification full. Like short-hand in writing, one word serveth in the place of three, and the rest are supplied by the understanding of the hearer; imperfect in their tenses, wanting in their moods, participles, adverbs, conjunctions, and interjections.

"Of their customs and manners there is much to be said: I will begin with children. So soon as they are born, they wash them in water; and while very young, and in cold weather, they plunge them in the rivers, to harden and embolden them. The children will go very young-at nine months, commonly if boys, they go a fishing till ripe for the woods, which is about fifteen; then they hunt, and after having given some proofs of their manhood by a good return of skins, they may marry; else it is a shame to think of a wife. The girls stay with their mothers, and help to hoe the ground, plant corn, and carry burdens: and they do well to use them to that young, which they must do when they are old; for the wives are the true servants of the husbands, otherwise the men are very affectionate to them.

"When the young women are fit for marriage, they wear something upon their heads for an advertisement, but so as their faces are hardly to be seen but when they please. The age they marry at, if women, is about thirteen and fourteen; if men, seventeen and eighteen; they are rarely elder.

"Their houses are mats, or barks of trees, set on poles, in the fashion of an English barn, but out of the power of the winds, for they are hardly higher than a man they lie on reeds, or grass. In travel, they lodge in the woods, about a great fire, with the mantle of duffils they wear by day wrapt about them, and a few boughs stuck round them.

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"Their diet is maize, or Indian corn, divers ways prepared; sometimes roasted in the ashes; sometimes beaten and boiled with water, which they call homine; they also make cakes not unpleasant to eat. They have likewise several sorts of beans and peas that are good nourishment; and the woods and rivers are their larder."

BROCK'S MONUMENT

FROM THE AMERICAN SIDE.

LEWISTON is seldom seen to advantage by the traveller, who, in his eagerness to reach Niagara, if going thither, or in the fulness of his recollections, if returning, pays it very little attention. The village itself is as dull and indifferent-looking a place as one would chance to see; but it stands at the outlet of Niagara river into Lake Ontario, and its neighbourhood on all sides is picturesque and beautiful.

Across the river, on the heights of Queenstown, stands the Monument of General Brock, who died fighting very gallantly on this spot. A slight resumer of the hardfought battle of Queenstown, which was creditable to the courage and spirit of both countries, will be in place accompanying this view.

The American forces on the Niagara river consisted of about five thousand eight hundred men, under the command of Colonel Van Reusellaer. Eighteen hundred of these were at Black Rock, twenty-eight miles distant, and the remainder at Fort Niagara, under the General's personal command. Several skirmishes on the St. Lawrence had resulted in favour of the Americans, and the forces at Lewiston were very anxious to have an opportunity for action.

Directly opposite to the camp, on the other side of the river, lay Queenstown, strongly fortified, and garrisoned by a large force, waiting the orders of General Brock, then in Michigan. It was supposed that preparations were making for a general attack on the frontier. The possession of this place was considered very important to the Americans, as it was the port for all the merchandise of the country above, and a depôt of public stores for the line of English posts on Niagara and Detroit rivers. It has besides, an excellent harbour, and good anchorage

An attack on Queenstown was projected for the night of the 11th of October.

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