erity and improvement: on the one side it
is degraded, on the other it is honoured. On the former territory no
white labourers can be found, for they would be afraid of assimilating
themselves to the negroes; on the latter no one is idle, for the white
population extends its activity and its intelligence to every kind of
improvement. Thus the men whose task it is to cultivate the rich soil
of Kentucky are ignorant and lukewarm; while those who are active and
enlightened either do nothing or pass over into the State of Ohio,
where they may work without dishonour."

March the 9th was a dull day; but the scenery was of surpassing beauty.
At night a terrible storm of thunder and lightning, accompanied with
rain, compelled us to "lie to." A charming morning succeeded. During
the forenoon, we passed a small town on the Virginia side called
Elizabeth Town. An Indian mound was pointed out to me, which in size
and shape resembled "Tomen y Bala" in North Wales. These artificial
mounds are very numerous in the valleys of the Ohio and the
Mississippi. The ancient relics they are sometimes found to contain
afford abundant proofs that these fertile regions were once peopled by
a race of men in a far higher state of civilization than the Indians
when first discovered by the white man. The innocent and imaginative
speculations of a Christian minister in the State of Ohio on these
ancient remains laid the foundation of the curious book of "Mormon."

Nature being now arrayed in her winter dress, we could form but a faint
conception of her summer loveliness when clothed in her gayest green.
Hills were seen rising up, sometimes almost perpendicularly from the
stream, and sometimes skirted with fertile fields extending to the
river's edge. Here a house on the brow of a hill, and there another at
its base. Here the humble log hut, and there the elegant mansion, and
sometimes both in unequal juxtaposition. The hills are in parts
scolloped in continuous succession, presenting a beautiful display of
unity and diversity combined; but often they appear in isolated and
distinct grandeur, like a row of semi-globes; while, in other
instances, they rise one above another like apples in a fruit-vase.
Sometimes the rivulets are seen like silver cords falling
perpendicularly into the river; at other times, you discern them only
by their musical murmurs as they roll on through deep ravines formed by
their own action. These hills, for more than 100 miles