and conciseness was a true sample of back-wood eloquence. Fortunately the speaker took the judge’s hint; in less than half an hour he had done—in less than one hour the jurymen returned a verdict, the county transactions were finished, and the court broke up.

From Charleston to Louisville, the distance is fourteen miles. The lands are fertile. Several very well looking farms shew a higher degree of cultivation, especially near Jeffersonville. There the road turns into an extensive valley formed by the alluvions of the Ohio. Jeffersonville, the seat of justice for Floyd-county, three quarters of a mile above the falls of the Ohio, was laid out in 1802, and has since increased to 160 houses, among which are a bank, a Presbyterian church, a warehouse, a cotton manufactory, a court-house, and an academy, with a land office, for the disposal of the United States’ lands. The commerce of the inhabitants, 800 in number, is of some importance, though checked by the vicinity of Louisville, and by the circumstance, that the falls on the Indiana side are not to be approached, except at the highest rise. Two miles below this town, is the village of Clarksville, laid out in 1783, and forming part of the grant made to officers and soldiers of the Illinois regiment. It contains sixty houses and 300 inhabitants. New Albany, a mile below Clarksville, has a thousand inhabitants, and a great deal of activity, owing to its manufactory of steam engines, its saw mills, and the steam boats lying at anchor and generally repairing there. It is a place of importance, and though hitherto the resort of sailors, boatmen, and travellers, who go down the river in their own boats, it is annually on the increase.

The Ohio is generally crossed above the falls at Jeffersonville. The sheet of water dammed up here by the natural ledge of rocks which forms the falls, expands to 5,230 feet in breadth. The falls of the Ohio, though they should not properly be called falls, cannot be seen when crossing the river, and the waters do not pour like the falls of Niagara over an horizontal rock down a considerable depth, but press through a rocky bed, about a mile long, which spreads across the river, and causes a decline of twenty-two feet in the course of two miles. When the waters are high, the rocks and the falls disappear entirely. Seen from Louisville at low water, they have by no means an imposing appearance. The majestic and broad river branches off into several small creeks, and assumes the form of mountain torrents forcing their way through the ledge of rocks. When the river rises, and only three islands are to be seen, the immense sheet of water rushing down the declivity at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, must afford a magnificent spectacle. At the time I saw it, the river was lower than it had been for a series of years.

CHAPTER IV.

Louisville.—Canal of Louisville—its Commerce.—Surrounding Country.—Sketch of the State of Kentucky and its Inhabitants, &c.

The road from the landing-place to Louisville, leads through one of the finest and richest alluvial bottoms on the banks of the Ohio. They are here about seventy feet above the level of the water, and sufficiently high to protect the town from inundation, but there being no outlets for stagnant waters and ponds, epidemic diseases are frequent. A lottery is now established for the purpose of raising the necessary funds for draining these nuisances. Louisville extends in an oblong square about a mile down the river, and may be considered as the natural key to the Upper and Lower Ohio, and the most important staple for trade on this river, not excepting the city of Cincinnati. The commodities coming during the summer and autumn from southern states are landed here. Travellers who arrive by water, whether from the north or south, engage steam boats at this place either for New Orleans or for Cincinnati. These advantages made the inhabitants less desirous of having a canal, notwithstanding the solicitations of the states watered by the Ohio. The Congress has, at last, interposed; the canal is now contemplated. Probably this undertaking, in which not only the Upper states of the river Ohio, but the Union at large, are very much interested, is already commenced. By means of this canal, steam vessels will be enabled to avoid the falls, and to proceed to the upper Ohio at every season of the year. It is to be two miles and a half long; to open at the mouth of Beargrasscreek and to terminate at Shippingport. The highest ground is twenty-seven feet; upon an average twenty feet; and it is of a clayey substance, bottomed upon a rock. The expences are estimated at about 200,000 dollars, a trifle compared with the object to be accomplished.

Louisville, the seat of justice for Jefferson county, in Kentucky, in 38° 8′ north latitude, is about half the size of Cincinnati, and lies 105 miles below that city, by the Kentucky road through Newcastle, and 125 miles by the Kentucky and Indiana road. It is 1500 miles northeast of New Orleans. The town is laid out on a grand scale, the streets running parallel with the river, and intersected by others at right angles. The main street, about three quarters of a mile long, is elegant; most of the houses are three stories high; those of the other streets are of course inferior in size. The number of dwelling houses amounts to 700, inhabited by 4,500 souls, exclusive of travellers and boatmen. Louisville has no remarkable public buildings; the court-house and the Presbyterian church are the best. Besides these, the Episcopalians, Catholics, and Unitarians have their meeting houses. There are now three banks, including a branch bank of the United States, an insurance company, and four newspaper printing offices. A quay is now constructing which will greatly contribute to the security of the middle part of the town, opposite to the falls. The manufactories of Louisville are important; and the distilleries and rope walks on a large scale. Besides these there are soap, candle, cotton, glass, paper, and engine manufactories, all on the same principle, with grist and saw mills. The commerce of Louisville is still more important. Of the hundred steam boats plying on the Mississippi and Ohio, fifty at least are engaged during six months in the year in the trade with Louisville. They descend to New Orleans in six days, returning in double the time. Though the town is but half as large as Cincinnati, the credit of the merchants is more substantial, and the inhabitants are in general more wealthy. Luxury is carried to a higher pitch than in any other town on this side of the Alleghany mountains. Here is the only billiard-table[A] to be met with between Philadelphia and St. Louis. The owner has to pay a tax of 563 dollars—an enormous sum.

Notwithstanding the circulating library, the reading-room, and several houses where good society is to be met with, Louisville is not a pleasant town to reside in, owing to the character of the majority of its inhabitants, the Kentuckians. Louisville has an academy, but sends its youth to the college of Bairdstown, thirty miles to the southwest, where lectures are given by some French priests. Below Louisville, are the two villages of Shippingport and Portland; the former is two miles from the town, with 150 inhabitants, the latter at the distance of three miles, with fifty inhabitants, mostly boatmen and keepers of grog shops, for the lowest classes of people. The environs of Louisville