life, especially when commenced in early years, has a tendency to produce a physical change in the organ of vision. That a mercantile life, long and intently pursued, has a tendency to stamp a peculiar character upon the features, is equally certain, in the opinion of those whose habits of observation may have led them to such physiognomical investigations. Among the remainder, are two or three in white blanket coats, broad-brimmed white hats, with slender riding-whips in their hands, who will be readily designated as planters. A circumstance that very soon arrests the attention of the stranger, is the number of gentlemen with riding-whips in their hands to be met with in all parts of the city, particularly on days when any public meeting is held. Every third or fourth person is thus, to a northerner, singularly armed. At the north few ride except in gigs. But here all are horsemen; and it is unusual to see a gentleman in a gig or carriage. If his wife rides out, he attends her à cheval. Instead of gigs, therefore, which would fill the streets of a northern town, saddle-horses, usually with high pummelled Spanish saddles, and numerous private carriages, in which are the ladies of the family, drawn by long-tailed horses, throng the streets and line the outside of the pave. At least a third of the persons who fill the streets are planters and their families from the country, which every day pours forth its hundreds from many miles around the city, that like a magnet attracts all within its influence.

There are several public buildings in this street of which I shall make more particular mention hereafter. My object now is merely to give you some idea of things as, when presented to it in the novel hues of "first impressions," they strike the eye of a stranger.

XXVII.