and family parties: of these there are three or four taking place
every week; and I do not think the New-Yorkers are ever seen to better
advantage than in the exercise and enjoyment of the lavish hospitality
usually dispensed on these occasions. Here is no fobbing you off with a
meagre account of jellies and a cup of lemonade: you find, on the
contrary, without fail, a sensible supper, abounding with substantials
for the hungry as well as trifles for the sentimental; the best wines
of the cellar are paraded in abundance, together with a punch such as I
never elsewhere remember to have encountered. Now and then, a little set
would get drawn together at these suppers, which it was no easy matter
to disperse.

_Nov. 22nd._--Embarked for Charleston, South Carolina, on board the
William Gibbons, steamer. We had a series of hard blows until the
evening of the 24th, when, getting to the southward of Cape Hatteras,
the weather gradually moderated, and, early in the morning of the 25th,
we were landed in Charleston; but so excessive was the cold, that I
conceived it possible the captain had made a mistake, and that we were
at some Charleston, in Greenland, or Icy Cape. The weather either was,
or appeared to be, much colder than in New York when we departed.

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA.

Went to a hotel kept by a coloured family, named Jones, and was
appointed to comfortable summer-quarters in an outbuilding, where I
received an immediate call from Mr. R. R----d, a cousin of my friend, W.
R----d, of New York; and with this gentleman I dined at an excellent
boarding-house where there were three or four excellent Frenchmen
resident. Here I spent a pleasant evening, despite the severe cold.

_28th._--After two days of weather for the severity of which no people
can be worse provided, we are relieved by as lovely a day as can well be
imagined; the thermometer is at 77 degrees, the breeze bland, the
atmosphere of singular purity.

On this day I visited the theatre, a barn; the building originally
erected for this purpose being changed into a school of anatomy: so
cutting up is still the order of the day; only the practice is no longer
confined to the poets, but extended to subjects generally. After
arranging with my manager, I took a ride, making a rapid survey of the
town and its immediate vicinity.

Vegetation still appears in progress; the orange trees are flourishing,
the grass looking green, and only the forest app