his person
during the night. Whatever their moral characteristics may be,
these Kentuckians are a very noble-looking race of men; their
average height considerably exceeds that of Europeans, and their
countenances, excepting when disfigured by red hair, which is not
unfrequent, extremely handsome.

The gentlemen in the cabin (we had no ladies) would certainly
neither, from their language, manners, nor appearance, have
received that designation in Europe; but we soon found their
claim to it rested on more substantial ground, for we heard them
nearly all addressed by the titles of general, colonel, and
major. On mentioning these military dignities to an English
friend some time afterwards, he told me that he too had made the
voyage with the same description of company, but remarking that
there was not a single captain among them; he made the
observation to a fellow-passenger, and asked how he accounted for
it. "Oh, sir, the captains are all on deck," was the reply.

Our honours, however, were not all military, for we had a
judge among us. I know it is equally easy and invidious to
ridicule the peculiarities of appearance and manner in people of
a different nation from ourselves; we may, too, at the same
moment, be undergoing the same ordeal in their estimation; and,
moreover, I am by no means disposed to consider whatever is new
to me as therefore objectionable; but, nevertheless, it was
impossible not to feel repugnance to many of the novelties that
now surrounded me.

The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table, the
voracious rapidity with which the viands were seized and
devoured, the strange uncouth phrases and pronunciation; the
loathsome spitting, from the contamination of which it was
absolutely impossible to protect our dresses; the frightful
manner of feeding with their knives, till the whole blade seemed
to enter into the mouth; and the still more frightful manner of
cleaning the teeth afterwards with a pocket knife, soon forced us
to feel that we were not surrounded by the generals, colonels,
and majors of the old world; and that the dinner hour was to be
any thing rather than an hour of enjoyment.

The little conversation that went forward while we remained in
the room, was entirely political, and the respective claims of
Adams and Jackson to the presidency were argued with more oaths
and more vehemence than it had ever been my lot to hear. Once a
colonel appeared on the verge of assa