Thomson's description, however, will do: it is hardly possible that words can better paint the spectacle, or more truly echo to the sound, than his do.

The only point he does not reach is the vast blaze of rose-coloured light that ever and anon sets the landscape on fire.
In reading this celebrated description in America, and observing how admirably true it was to nature there, I seemed to get a glimpse at a poet's machinery, and to perceive, that in order to produce effect he must give his images more vast than he finds them in nature; but the proportions must be just, and the colouring true.

Every thing seems colossal on this great continent; if it rains, if it blows, if it thunders, it is all done _fortissimo_; but I often felt terror yield to wonder and delight, so grand, so glorious were the scenes a storm exhibited.
Accidents are certainly more frequent than with us, but not so much so as reasonably to bring terror home to one's bosom every time a mass of lurid clouds is seen rolling up against the wind.
It seems hardly fair to quarrel with a place because its staple commodity is not pretty, but I am sure I should have liked Cincinnati much better if the people had not dealt so very largely in hogs.

The immense quantity of business done in this line would hardly be believed by those who had not witnessed it.
I never saw a newspaper without remarking such advertisements as the following: "Wanted, immediately, 4,000 fat hogs." "For sale, 2,000 barrels of prime pork." But the annoyance came nearer than this; if I determined upon a walk up Main-street, the chances were five hundred to one against my reaching the shady side without brushing by a snout fresh dripping from the kennel; when we had screwed our courage to the enterprise of mounting a certain noble looking sugar-loaf hill, that promised pure air and a fine view, we found the brook we had to cross, at its foot, red with the stream from a pig slaughter house; while our noses, instead of meeting "the thyme that loves the green hill's breast," were greeted by odours that I will not describe, and which I heartily hope my readers cannot imagine; our feet, that on leaving the city had expected to press the flowery sod, literally got entangled in pigs' tails and jaw-bones: and thus the prettiest walk in the neighbourhood was interdicted for ever.
One of the sights to stare at in America is that of houses moving from place to place.

We were often amused by watching this exhibition of mechanical skill in the streets.