In going upon the road, in the United States, it is looked upon as a sort of slur on one, if another pass him, going in the same direction; and this folly prevails to as great a degree as amongst our break-neck coachmen; and you will see an old Quaker, whom, to look at, as he sits perched in his wagon, you would think had been cut out of stone a couple of hundred years ago; or hewed out of a log of wood, with the axe of some of the first settlers--if he hear a rattle behind him, you will see him gently turn his head; if he be passing a tavern at the time he pays little attention, and refrains from laying the whip upon the "creatures," seeing that he is morally certain that the rattler will stop to take "a grog" at the tavern; but if no such invitation present itself, and especially if there be a tavern two or three miles a-head, he begins immediately to make provision against the consequences of the impatience of his rival, who, he is aware, will push him hard, and on they go as fast as they can scamper, the successful driver talking of the "_glorious achievement_" for a week.-- _Cobbett_.
------'To the heart the solemn sweetness steals, Like the heart's voice, unfelt by none who feels That God is love, that man is living dust; Unfelt by none, whom ties of brotherhood Link to his kind; by none who puts his trust In naught of earth that hath surviv'd the flood, Save those mute charities, by which the good Strengthen poor worms, and serve their Maker best.
In the Pampas, when the natives want a granary, they sew the legs of a whole skin up, and fill it full of corn; it is then tied up to four stakes, with the legs hanging downwards, so that it has the appearance of an elephant hanging up; the top is again covered with hides, which prevent the rats getting in. In stretching a skin to dry, wood is so scarce in many parts of the Pampas, that the rib bones are carefully preserved to supply its place, and used as pegs to fix it in the ground. When a new-born infant is to be cradled, a square sheepskin is laced to a small rude frame of wood, and suspended like a scale to a beam or rail.--_Brand's Peru._
A recent traveller thus describes a dinner party at Mendoza:--The day of days arrived; the carriage was flying about the town with a couple of mules, to bring all the ladies to dinner, in order to meet the foreign gentlemen. We were all seated higgledy-piggledy at table, dish after dish came in; every one helped themselves, no carving was required, being all made dishes. The master of the house was walking round the room with his coat off, very comfortably smoking his cigar, and between every fresh dish, of which there were some thirty or forty, the ladies amused themselves with eating olives soaked in oil, and the colonel, (one of the military pedlars), to prove that he understood foreign manners and customs, got the ladies one after another to ask the foreign gentlemen to drink wine with them, which was no small ordeal for us to run through. After these half hundred dishes, came the sweets; then the gentlemen's flints and steels were going, the room soon filled with smoke, and the ladies retired to dress for the ball.