US 10048.38.30 (3)

LONDON:

Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
Stamford Street.

RETROSPECT

OF

WESTERN TRAVEL.

VILLAGES.

"These ample fields

Nourished their harvests: here their herds were fed,

When haply by their stalls the bison lowed,
And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke.
From the ground

Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice
Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn
Of Sabbath worshippers."

Bryant.

THE villages of New England are all more or less beautiful; and the most beautiful of them all is, I believe, Northampton. They have all the graceful weeping elm; wide roads overshadowed with wood; mounds or levels of a rich verdure; white churches and comfortable and picturesque frame dwellings. Northampton has these beauties and more. It lies in the rich meadows which border the Connecticut, beneath the protection of high wooded hills. The habitations of its gentry crown

VOL. III.

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