ms, to knit, as it were, in a straiter
embrace her neighbours; and I have not a doubt but, in a very short
time, a man may journey from the St. Lawrence to the gulf of Mexico
coastwise with as much facility as he now does from Boston to
Washington, a distance of four hundred and fifty miles, which may be at
this day performed within forty hours, out of which you pass a night in
New York.

But to leave anticipations and imaginings,--which, by the way, is a
forbearance hard of practice in a region where all things are on the
whirl of speculative change, and where practical results outrun the
projections of even the most visionary theorist,--and return to make
such rapid survey of this interesting city as may be ventured on during
a first visit of some twenty days. I feel, indeed, that but little can
be really known in so short a time of a place containing two hundred and
twenty thousand souls, and having in a rapid state of advancement
various alterations and improvements, including nearly five thousand new
buildings all immediately required: although there are persons gifted
with such power of intuition, that, as I learn from their own showing,
they are enabled in half the period to decide upon the condition of the
whole state of Pennsylvania; to discover the wants of its capital, the
defects of its institutions, the value of its commerce, the drift of its
policy; to gauge its morals, become intimate with its society, and make
out a correct estimate of its relative condition and prospects compared
with the other great divisions of the Union, surveyed, I presume, with
equal rapidity, judged with equal candour, and estimated with equal
correctness.

Each in his degree: and so, in my way, good reader, I will endeavour to
give you some notion of this capital of old Penn's Sylvania; but if your
own imagination come not to the help of my outline, I fear, after all my
painstaking, your notion of the subject will be only a faintish one.

Philadelphia is built upon a peninsula formed by two rivers, the
Delaware and the Schuylkill, having a long graduated rise from each, the
highest point being about the centre of the city. It is laid out in
squares, and the streets run in parallel lines of two and three miles in
length, retaining the same names throughout, only divided by
Market-street into north, and south: with the exception of this dividing
street, those running east and west are named after trees, flowers, and
fruits,--as