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 *ing the apparent elegance of the house, my other landlord's (Wilson) suffered nothing in the comparison.

I whiled away the day in expectation of the post, which was to decide whether or not I should have the pleasure of my friend A's company on my return to Pittsburgh, but owing to some unaccountable irregularity, which is a cause of general complaint in this country against the post-office department, it did not arrive until ten at night, although it was due at eleven in the morning. Another very just cause of complaint against the same department is the slowness with which the mail is conveyed. A trifling improvement and a very small additional expence, would forward the mails through the whole western country, where the roads are comparatively good, and the climate very fine, at the rate of fifty or sixty miles a day, except during floods in the winter, where, for want of bridges, the roads are sometimes impassable in particular spots for a few days, whereas, now, in the best season, the average progress of the mails, does not exceed thirty miles daily.

Mr. A having an engagement, the day would have passed very heavily, had it not been for the coffee house, where I amused myself with the wonderful mass of political contradiction to be found in forty different newspapers, where scarcely any two editors coincided in opinion.

{175} CHAPTER XXVIII

Departure from Lexington—Bryan's station—Wonderful fertility of soil—Paris—Sameness of prospect—Simplicity of election of state representatives—Frank bird—Hasten on—Violent attack of fever at May's-lick—Washington—Occasional remarks on hospitality—Maysville—Good effects of fortitude and abstinence.

I left Lexington on Tuesday the 4th August, by a different road to that by which I had first entered it, now taking the stage and post road direct to Paris.