Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/199

 *gress. The house is pleasantly situated on fine land about two miles from the city, but is far inferior to the old house of my matrimonial cousin, G. Thompson, Esq. of Somersham, Hants. The windows are broken, and the frames and doors are rotten for want of paint or tar; the gardens in a piggish state, full of weeds, the walks gullied by heavy rains; the grass borders and lawn, wild, dirty, and unmown, and every thing else inelegant; although the soil is rich to excess, and almost all kinds of vegetables spring spontaneously and grow luxuriantly, and the house is brimful of negroes, who might keep all in the neatest order. I saw in one enclosure {197} near the house, the finest after-grass and the coarsest hay in the world. The grass is so tough and old before it is mown that it is little better than dry straw after. Mr. Clay is the pride and glory of Kentucky, whose inhabitants think their state monopolizes talent and intelligence. They are gay and voluptuous to a proverb, and seem, it is said, better abroad than they are at home.

Cheap living.—Visited the market. Beef, best cuts, six cents—common cuts, three cents per lb.; a whole fat mutton, for two and a half dollars, one hundred pounds weight. Fowls, fat, three quarters of a dollar per dozen. Good nag horses fit for any man, from 80 to 100 dollars. No money is now to be had or raised on mortgage of land or houses, however good, nor from any thing else but negroes; nothing but black flesh and blood can command money. A fine English family from Lincolnshire passed yesterday through this city on their return from Birkbeck's settlement, with which they seem quite disgusted, and fully satisfied and assured that it would not, could not do. They were quite out of funds, pennyless strangers in a