[[[Departure from Trenton.--Buck's County.--St. Tammany.--Old Villages.--Frankford.]]]
```"The autumnal glories all have pass'd away!
````The forest leaves no more in hectic red
```Give glowing tokens of their brief decay,
````But scatter'd lie, or rustle to the tread,
```Like whisper'd warnings from the moldering dead.
````The naked trees stretch out their arms all day.
```And each bald hill-top lifts its reverend head
````As if for some new covering to pray."
HE sun was shining in its noontide glory when I crossed the great Trenton Bridge over the Delaware to Morrisville, and reined my horse to the right into the Falsington road, for Philadelphia, twenty-eight miles distant. Unlike a summer rain, the storm developed no new beauties in the fields and orchards, but "a mantle dun" continued to overspread the landscape, and a cold north wind was heralding the approach of winter. I was now in the fertile region of "old Bucks" * in Pennsylvania, and with a loose rein traversed the gentle undulating country over which the Continental battalions often marched and countermarched. It was the anniversary of the evacuation of New York by the British--the departure of the last hostile foot from [[November 25, 1783]] our free shores. The mind, laden with the associations of the place and hour, its soul-stirring thoughts kept me such entertaining company, that the sun went down, and I entered the suburban district of Kensington, in the "Northern Liberties" of Philadelphia, before I was fairly conscious that a dozen miles had been traveled. It was but little more than four hours' journey with my strong and vigorous horse.
After leaving Falsington, the traveler obtains frequent glimpses of the Delaware and its white sails, on the left. The several small villages on the way (Falsington, Hulmeville, and Frankford being the largest) bear marks, in their dwellings, of considerable antiquity, if that word may properly be applied to American edifices. Many of them are small, steep-roofed stone houses, with little windows and wide doors, built before the war of the Revolution broke out, and presenting a great contrast with the New England villages, which seem as if just finished, with the white paint scarcely dry. It was almost sunset when I arrived at Frankford, quite a large town upon the Tacony Creek, five miles northeast of