each a separate dwelling. The women are occupied in various domestic employments; in fancy and ornamental works; and, occasionally, in musical practice, under the direction of a superintendant. The walls of the large hall, where the society dine, are adorned with paintings, chiefly Scripture pieces, executed by members. Various branches of trade and manufacture are carried on, the profits of which go to the general stock; and, from this, all are supplied with the necessaries of life. Their whole time is spent in labour, and in prayer; except an hour in the evening, which is allotted for a concert. Among the Moravians marriage is contracted in a singular manner. If a young man has an inclination to marry, he makes application to the priest, who presents a young woman, designated by the superintendant as the next in rotation for marriage. Having left the parties together for an hour, the priest returns, and, if they consent to live together, they are married the next day; if otherwise, each is put at the bottom of the list, containing perhaps sixty or seventy names; and, on the part of the girl, there is no chance of marriage, unless the same young man should again feel disposed for matrimony. When united, a neat habitation, with a pleasant garden, is provided; and their children, at the age of six years, are placed in the seminary. If either of the parties die, the other returns to the apartment of the single people. In the Moravian establishment at Bethlehem, there is a tavern, with extensive and excellent accommodations.]
Madame de Stael, in describing the Moravians, says, "Their houses and streets are peculiarly neat. The women all dress in the same manner, conceal their hair, and surround their heads with a ribbon, the colour of which indicates whether they are single, married, or widows. The men dress in brown, somewhat like quakers. A mercantile industry occupies nearly the whole community; and all their labours are performed with peculiar regularity and tranquillity." Mr. Hall attended one of the meetings which the inhabitants of Bethlehem commonly hold every evening, for the joint purposes of amusement and devotion. The women were ranged at one end of the room, and the men at the other. Their bishop presided: he was an old man, dressed in the plainest manner, and possessed a countenance singularly mild and placid. He gave out a psalm, and led the choir; and the singing was alternately in German and English.
There is another Moravian settlement about a mile and a half from Nazareth. This, though small, exceeds both the others, in the calm and pensive beauty of its appearance. The houses are built of limestone: they are all on a similar plan, and have their window-frames, doors, and other wood-work, painted fawn-colour: before each house are planted weeping willows, whose luxuriant shade seems to shut out worldly glare, and throws an air of monastic repose over the whole village.
The Lehigh Mountain is the last of the Allegheny Ridges; the country is thenceforth level, fertile, and thickly inhabited, by steady Germans, who wear broad hats, and purple breeches; and whose houses and villages have the antique fashion of Flemish landscape. German is so generally spoken here, that the newspapers and public notices are all printed in that language.
The approach to Philadelphia is announced by a good turnpike road. German Town is a large suburb to the city, and the traveller here feels himself within the precincts of a populous and long-established capital.
A Description of Philadelphia.
The first impressions, on entering this city, are decidedly favourable. It possesses a character essentially different from that of New York. It has not so much business, nor so much animation; but there is, in Philadelphia, a freedom from mere display; an evidence of solidity, of which its more commercial rival is nearly destitute.
All the streets are spacious; the names of many of them, as Sassafras, Chesnut, and Locust, record their sylvan origin: rows of Lombardy poplars are planted in them. The private houses are characterized by elegant neatness; the steps and window-sills of many of them are of grey marble, and they have large mats placed before the doors. The streets are carefully swept, as well as the foot-paths, which are paved with brick. The shops do not yield, in display, to those of London. The principal street is one hundred feet wide; and the others vary from eighty to fifty. In the foot-paths a great inconvenience is experienced by the injudicious mode in which cellars are constructed, the openings of which project into the street; and also by the slovenly practice of the store or shopkeepers placing great quantities of loose goods on the outside of their doors.
Philadelphia stands on the bank of the river Delaware; and, in 1795, when Mr. Weld was there, its appearance, as approached from the water, was not very prepossessing. Nothing was visible but confused heaps of wooden store-houses, crowded upon each other, and wharfs, which projected a considerable way into the river. The wharfs were built of wood; they jutted out, in every direction, and were well adapted for the accommodation of shipping; the largest merchant vessels being able to lie close alongside of them. Behind the wharfs, and parallel to the river, runs a street called Water-street. This is the first street which the stranger in America usually enters, after landing; and (says Mr. Weld) it will not give him a very favourable opinion either of the neatness or commodiousness of the public ways of Philadelphia. Such stenches, at times, prevail in it, owing in part to the quantity of filth and dirt that is suffered to remain on the pavement, and in part to what is deposited in waste-houses, of which there are several in the street, that it is really dreadful to pass through it. It was here, in the year 1793, that the malignant yellow fever broke out, which made such terrible ravages among the inhabitants; and, in the summer season, in general, this street is extremely unhealthy.
Few of the public buildings in Philadelphia pretend to great architectural merit. The churches are neat, but plain. The Masonic Hall is an unsightly combination of brick and marble, in the Gothic style. The Philadelphia bank is in a similar style. The United States and Pennsylvania banks are the finest edifices in the city: the first has a handsome portico, with Corinthian columns of white marble, and the latter is a miniature representation of the temple of Minerva at Athens, and is the purest specimen of architecture in the states: the whole building is of marble.
The State House is a plain brick building, which was finished in 1735, at the cost of £.6000. The most interesting recollections of America are attached to this edifice. The Congress sat in it during the greatest part of the war; and the Declaration of Independence was read, from its steps, on the 4th of July, 1776. The Federal Convention also sat in it, in 1787. It is now occupied by the supreme and district courts below, and by Peale's Museum above. This museum, among other articles, contains an immense fossil skeleton of the great Mastodon, or American Mammoth, which, some years ago, was publicly exhibited in London.
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