Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/19

Rh view with half-amused complacency, the book affords unwilling testimony to the vigor and energy of the young West, the vitality and freedom of its people, their prosperity and progress, and above all to the opportunity offered the poor but industrious emigrant to acquire a home and a competence in this land of promise.

Although Faux's journal commences in November, 1818, it was the following fourth of April before he landed at Boston. Taking ship thence to Charleston, South Carolina, he made a short visit there, returning by water to Philadelphia. He then passed on to Washington, making a short side-tour therefrom into the Shenandoah country. Retracing his steps to Philadelphia, and visiting New York, the traveller next went by way of Philadelphia and the Cumberland Road to Wheeling, in what is now West Virginia. Thence he proceeded to Vincennes, Indiana, and to the English Prairie, by way of Zanesville, Maysville, Lexington, and Louisville. Two months were spent with friends in Illinois, a hundred pages being devoted to this experience. Returning eastward, in January, 1820, by his outward route as far as Wheeling, our author journeyed to Pittsburg and Washington by way of the Pennsylvania Road. The next six months were spent in Washington, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and on July 21, 1820, he embarked from Alexandria, Virginia, for England.

Adlard Welby's book, A Visit to North America and the English Settlements in Illinois, with a Winter Residence at Philadelphia (London, 1821), was also employed as a weapon in the reviewers' warfare, and as a whole is unfavorable in its attitude toward American life. Welby gives evidence of having been a better type of man and author than Faux. Apparently a gentleman and trained