Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/206

 brick court house, a small but strong gaol, and a market house. It is the seat of justice of Bourbon county, and has much appearance of prosperity. From the cupola of the court house, there is an extensive view of a very rich country as far as the eye can reach in every direction, but though it is a country of hills and dales, there is too great a sameness to please the eye.

Perhaps there is not on the earth a naturally richer country than the area of sixteen hundred square miles of which Lexington is the centre, yet there is a something wanting to please the eye of taste—a variety, like the fertile plains of the Milanese, contrasted with the neighbouring Alpine scenery, and studded with the noble lakes, and streaked with the meandering rivers of that delightful region, which has given such inimitable taste and execution to the pencils of so many eminent painters.

It was the day of election for representatives in the legislature of the state. The voting was very simple. The county clerk sat within the bar of the court house, and the freeholders as they arrived, gave him their names and the names of those they voted for, which he registered in a book.—That done, the voter remounted his horse and returned to his farm.

The hostler at Buchanan's inn, where I stopped to breakfast, is a free negro man named Frank Bird. {177} He was formerly owned by the great and good Washington, whom he accompanied and served in all his campaigns. He had learned farriery, cooking and hairdressing in England in his youth, so that he must have been a useful servant. He was liberated and got some land near Mount Vernon, by the general's will, and now at the age of fifty-seven, he is hostler here, and enjoys such health and strength, that a few days ago he carried eight bushels of salt, exceeding four hundred pounds weight. The old man repaid