PHILADELPHIA.
I pity the man who, on a fine morning, can walk through the shady and clean streets of Phildelphia and cry, "all is barren!" In my eyes, it appeared, even at first sight,—and no place improves more upon acquaintance,—one of the most attractive-looking towns I had ever beheld.
Coming immediately out of the noise, bustle, and variety of Broadway, its general aspect appears quiet, almost triste; but the cleanliness, the neatness, the air of comfort, propriety, and health, that reigns on all sides, bespeaks immediate favour.
The progress of improvement, and enlargement too, are sufficiently evident, for at either extremity of the city, the fall of hammer and chisel give unceasing note of preparation. The circle designed and marked out as the limit of its future greatness by the sanguine mind of its sagacious founder has long since been overleaped; the wide Delaware on one side, and on the other the Schuylkill, seem incapable of bounding the ambitious city. Already does Market-street rest upon these two points, which cannot be less than three miles apart.
Touching Market-street I ought to know something, since, on two occasions, I got out of my bed to visit it at four A.M. I am curious in looking upon these interesting entrepôts whence we cull the dainties of a well-furnished larder, and a view over this was truly worth the pains; for in no place have I ever seen more lavish display of the good things most esteemed by this eating generation, nor could any market offer them to the amateur in form more tempting. Neatness and care were evident in the perfect arrangement of the poultry, vegetables, fruit, butter, &c.; and the display of well-fed beef, with the artist-like way in which it was dressed, might have excited our Giblets' spleen even in the Christmas week.
Poultry of all kinds here is equal to that of any country, and the butter almost as good as the best Irish, which I think the sweetest in the world. The market, at the early time I mentioned, offered a busy and amusing scene, and I passed away a couple of hours here very much to my satisfaction, besides cheating those souls of d——d critics, the musquitoes, out of a breakfast; for each day, about the first light, I used to be awakened by their assembling for a little déjeuner dânsant, whereat I was victim.
One of the pleasantest visits a man can pay in Philadelphia on a hot day, is to the water-works at Fair-mount, on the Schuylkill: the very name is refreshing with the mercury at 96° in the shade; and, if there be a breeze in Pennsylvania, you will find it here. No city can be better supplied with water than this; and I never looked upon the pure liquid, welling through the pipes and deluging the thirsty streets, without a feeling of gratitude to these water-works, and of respect for the pride with which the Philadelphians regard their spirited public labour. They have evinced much taste, too, in the quiet, simple disposition of the ground and reservoirs connected with the machinery; the trees and plants are well selected for the situation, and will soon add to the natural beauty of this very fine reach of the river.
Mounting the east bank of the stream, from this to the village of Manayunk, you have a very pretty ride; and crossing the bridge at the "Falls of the Schuylkill,"—falls no longer, thanks to the dam at Fair-mount,—the way back winds along by, or hangs above, the canal and river, here marching side by side; offering, in about four miles, as charming a succession of river views as painter or poet could desire. It is a lovely ramble by all lights, and I have viewed it by all,—in the blaze of noon, and by the sober grey of summer twilight; I have ridden beneath its wooded heights, and through its overhanging masses of rare foliage, in the alternate bright cold light and deep shade of a cloudless moon; and again, when tree, and field, and flower were yet fresh and humid with the heavy dew, and sparkling in the glow of early morning.