e
visible, and as you enter Baltimore-street, you feel that you are
arrived in a handsome and populous city.

We took up our quarters at an excellent hotel, where the coach
stopped, and the next day were fortunate enough to find
accommodation in the house of a lady, well known to many of my
European friends. With her and her amiable daughter, we spent a
fortnight very agreeably, and felt quite aware that if we had not
arrived in London or Paris, we had, at least, left far behind the
"half-horse, half-alligator" tribes of the West, as the
Kentuckians call themselves.

Baltimore is in many respects a beautiful city; it has several
handsome buildings, and even the private dwelling-houses have a
look of magnificence, from the abundance of white marble with
which many of them are adorned. The ample flights of steps, and
the lofty door frames, are in most of the best houses formed of
this beautiful material.

This has been called the city of monuments, from its having the
stately column erected to the memory of General Washington, and
which bears a colossal statue of him at the top; and another
pillar of less dimensions, recording some victory; I forget
which. Both these are of brilliant white marble. There are also
several pretty marble fountains in different parts of the city,
which greatly add to its beauty. These are not, it is true,
quite so splendid as that of the Innocents, or many others at
Paris, but they are fountains of clear water, and they are built
of white marble. There is one which is sheltered from the sun by
a roof supported by light columns; it looks like a temple
dedicated to the genius of the spring. The water flows into a
marble cistern, to which you descend by a flight of steps of
delicate whiteness, and return by another. These steps are never
without groups of negro girls, some carrying the water on their
heads, with that graceful steadiness of step, which requires no
aid from the hand; some tripping gaily with their yet unfilled
pitchers; many of them singing in the soft rich voice, peculiar
to their race; and all dressed with that strict attention to
taste and smartness, which seems the distinguishing
characteristic of the Baltimore females of all ranks.

The Catholic Cathedral is considered by all Americans as a
magnificent church, but it can hardly be so classed by any one
who has seen the churches of Europe; its interior, however, has
an air of neatness that amounts to elegance.