le on a winding river, and will be the occasion of many
disasters. Had they ordered the boats to be provided with iron chains
or rods, to be used as preventive wheel-ropes, it would have answered
the purpose. In case of fire they could easily be hooked on; but to
steer with them in tide-ways and rapid turns is almost impossible. The
last clause, No. 13, (page 170, Report) is too harsh, as a flue may
collapse at any time, without any want of care or skill on the part of
the builders or those on board.

It is to be hoped that some good effects will be produced by this act of
the legislature. At present, it certainly is more dangerous to travel
one week in America than to cross the Atlantic a dozen times. The
number of lives lost in one year by accidents in steam boats,
rail-roads, and coaches, was estimated, in a periodical which I read in
America, at _one thousand seven hundred and fifty_.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.

TRAVELLING.

To one who has been accustomed to the extortion of the inns and hotels
in England, and the old continent, nothing at first is more remarkable
than to find that there are more remains of the former American purity
of manners and primitive simplicity to be observed in their
establishments for the entertainment of man and horse, than in any
portion of public or private life. Such is the case, and the causes of
the anomaly are to be explained.

I presume that the origin of hotels and inns has been much the same in
all countries. At first the solitary traveller is received, welcomed,
and hospitably entertained; but, as the wayfarers multiply, what was at
first a pleasure becomes a tax. For instance, let us take Western
Virginia, through which the first irruption to the Far West may be said
to have taken place. At first every one was received and accommodated
by those who had settled there; but as this gradually became
inconvenient, not only from interfering with their domestic privacy, but
from their not being prepared to meet the wants of the travellers, the
inhabitants of any small settlement met together and agreed upon one of
them keeping the house of reception; this was not done with a view of
profit, the travellers being only charged the actual value of the
articles consumed. Such is still the case in many places in the Far
West; a friend of mine told me that he put up at the house of a widow
woman; he supped, slept, had his breakfast, and his horse was also well
supplied.