Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/180

 continually passing to and fro. Here is kept a folio register, in which travellers write their names, from whence they come, and whither they are bound, with any news which they bring with them. The bank paper of this town is 20 or 30 per cent. below par. The supreme court of assize is now sitting, and the supreme judge, Wilson, who lodges at my quarters, is now to be my nightly companion in table-talk.[48] His lordship calls me "stranger," and guesses me to be an Irishman. He is surprised that I speak so well, and wonders how many "dialects," we have in England. "I saw," says he, "lately, a lady from your country, who wondered at hearing the English language so well {174} spoken here."—"We seem, sir," said I, "a wonder unto each other! In this western country you see emigrants only of an uneducated class, a low grade, full of provincialisms in their talk." Judge Wilson is intimately known to and acquainted with several nations of Indians. "Several persons," says he, "have in my time voluntarily turned Indians; one, a child taken from Virginia, is now a squaw, but more delicate in her conduct: she of course retains her original colour, and seems the better for her civilized origin."

14th.—Rambling round and through the town I saw a glass-house, and several fine mills, having at command all the water of the river, which might be made to work mills without number, and machinery of an infinite variety. I wandered in the fields shooting pigeons, which is here fine sport; they fly and alight around you on every tree, in immense flocks, and loving to be shot. They are