eshing, and a
house of three stories looked splendid. Of this splendour we
saw repeated specimens, and moreover a brick church, which,
from its two little peaked spires, is called the two-horned
church. But, alas! the flatness of reality after the imagination
has been busy! I hardly know what I expected to find in this
city, fresh risen from the bosom of the wilderness, but certainly
it was not a little town, about the size of Salisbury, without
even an attempt at beauty in any of its edifices, and with only
just enough of the air of a city to make it noisy and bustling.
The population is greater than the appearance of the town would
lead one to expect. This is partly owing to the number of free
Negroes who herd together in an obscure part of the city, called
little Africa; and partly to the density of the population round
the paper-mills and other manufactories. I believe the number of
inhabitants exceeds twenty thousand.

We arrived in Cincinnati in February, 1828, and I speak of the
town as it was then; several small churches have been built
since, whose towers agreeably relieve its uninteresting mass of
buildings. At that time I think Main street, which is the
principal avenue, (and runs through the whole town, answering to
the High street of our old cities), was the only one entirely
paved. The _troittoir_ is of brick, tolerably well laid, but it
is inundated by every shower, as Cincinnati has no drains
whatever. What makes this omission the more remarkable is, that
the situation of the place is calculated both to facilitate their
construction and render them necessary. Cincinnati is built on
the side of a hill that begins to rise at the river's edge, and
were it furnished with drains of the simplest arrangement, the
heavy showers of the climate would keep them constantly clean; as
it is, these showers wash the higher streets, only to deposit
their filth in the first level spot; and this happens to be in
the street second in importance to Main street, running at right
angles to it, and containing most of the large warehouses of the
town. This deposit is a dreadful nuisance, and must be
productive of miasma during the hot weather.

The town is built, as I believe most American towns are, in
squares, as they call them; but these squares are the reverse of
our's, being solid instead of hollow. Each consists, or is
intended to consist, when the plan of the city is completed, of
a block of buildings fron