have induced me to pay you a visit, which I hope you will not think troublesome:  I should be glad to spend a few hours in your garden.  “The greatest advantage,” replied he, “which I receive from what thee callest my botanical fame, is the pleasure which it often procureth me in receiving the visits of friends and foreigners:  but our jaunt into the garden must be postponed for the present, as the bell is ringing for dinner.”  We entered into a large hall, where there was a long table full of victuals; at the lowest part sat his negroes, his hired men were next, then the family and myself; and at the head, the venerable father and his wife presided.  Each reclined his head and said his prayers, divested of the tedious cant of some, and of the ostentatious style of others.  “After the luxuries of our cities,” observed he, “this plain fare must appear to thee a severe fast.”  By no means, Mr. Bertram, this honest country dinner convinces me, that you receive me as a friend and an old acquaintance.  “I am glad of it, for thee art heartily welcome.  I never knew how to use ceremonies; they are insufficient proofs of sincerity; our society, besides, are utterly strangers to what the world calleth polite expressions.  We treat others as we treat ourselves.  I received yesterday a letter from Philadelphia, by which I understand thee art a Russian; what motives can possibly have induced thee to quit thy native country and to come so far in quest of knowledge or pleasure?  Verily it is a great compliment thee payest to this our young province, to think that anything it exhibiteth may be worthy thy attention.”  I have been most amply repaid for the trouble of the passage.  I view the present Americans as the seed of future nations, which will replenish this boundless continent; the Russians may be in some respects compared to you; we likewise are a new people, new I mean in knowledge, arts, and improvements.  Who knows what revolutions Russia and America may one day bring about; we are perhaps nearer neighbours than we imagine.  I view with peculiar attention all your towns, I examine their situation and the police, for which many are already famous.  Though their foundations are now so recent, and so well remembered, yet their origin will puzzle posterity as much as we are now puzzled to ascertain the beginning of those which time has in some measure destroyed.  Your new buildings, your streets, put me in mind of those of the city of Pompeia, where I was a few years ago; I attentively examined everything there, particularly the foot-path which runs along the houses.  They appeared to have been considerably worn by the great number of people which had once travelled over them.  But now how distant; neither builders nor proprietors remain; nothing is known!  “Why thee hast been a great traveller for a man of thy years.”  Few years, Sir, will enable anybody to journey over a great tract of country; but it requires a superior degree of knowledge to gather harvests as we go.