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Show 368 Early Western Travels [ Vol. 26 perhaps, be a pleasant town enough were its site more elevated, its buildings larger, and disposed with a little more of mathematical exactness, or its streets less lanelike and less filthy. As it is, it will require some years to give it a standing among its fdlows. It is laid out on the roll of a small prairie of moderate fertility, but has quite an extensive settlement of enterprising farmers, a circumstance which will conduce far more to the ultimate prosperity of the place. The most prominent structure is a blood- red jail of brick, standing near the centre of the village; rather a savage- looking concern, and, doubtless, so designed by its sagacious architect for the purpose of frightening evil doers. Having taken these observations from the tavern door during twilight, the traveller retired to his chamber, nothing loath, after a ride of nearly fifty miles, to bestow his tired frame to rest. But, alas! that verity compels him to declare it - " Tis true, and pity ' tis ' tis true," the " Traveller's Inn" was anything, nay, everything but the comfort- giving spot the hospitable cognomen swinging from its signpost seemed to imply. Ah! the fond visions of quietude and repose, [ 124] of plentiful feeding and hearty sleeping, which those magic words, " Traveller's Inn" had conjured up in the weary traveller's fancy when they first delightfully swung before his eye. " But human pleasure, what art thou, in soothl The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below! 1" Well - exhausted, worn down, tired out, the traveller yet found it as utterly impossible quietly to rest, as does, doubtless, " a half- assoilzed soul in purgatory;" and, hours before the day had begun to break, he arose and ordered out his horse. Kind reader, hast ever, in the varyings of thy pilgrimage through this troublous world of ours, when faint, |
