creatures, so this word Susquehanna was at once accepted by the
fancy. That was the name, as no other could be, for that shining
river and desirable valley.

None can care for literature in itself who do not take a special
pleasure in the sound of names; and there is no part of the world
where nomenclature is so rich, poetical, humorous, and picturesque
as the United States of America. All times, races, and languages
have brought their contribution. Pekin is in the same State with
Euclid, with Bellefontaine, and with Sandusky. Chelsea, with its
London associations of red brick, Sloane Square, and the King's
Road, is own suburb to stately and primeval Memphis; there they
have their seat, translated names of cities, where the Mississippi
runs by Tennessee and Arkansas; and both, while I was crossing the
continent, lay, watched by armed men, in the horror and isolation
of a plague. Old, red Manhattan lies, like an Indian arrowhead
under a steam factory, below anglified New York. The names of the
States and Territories themselves form a chorus of sweet and most
romantic vocables: Delaware, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Dakota, Iowa,
Wyoming, Minnesota, and the Carolinas; there are few poems with a
nobler music for the ear: a songful, tuneful land; and if the new
Homer shall arise from the Western continent, his verse will be
enriched, his pages sing spontaneously, with the names of states
and cities that would strike the fancy in a business circular.

Late in the evening we were landed in a waiting-room at Pittsburg.
I had now under my charge a young and sprightly Dutch widow with
her children; these I was to watch over providentially for a
certain distance farther on the way; but as I found she was
furnished with a basket of eatables, I left her in the waiting-room