Pray, Mr. Bertram, what banks are those which you are making:  to what purpose is so much expense and so much labour bestowed?  “Friend Iwan, no branch of industry was ever more profitable to any country, as well as to the proprietors; the Schuylkill in its many windings once covered a great extent of ground, though its waters were but shallow even in our highest tides:  and though some parts were always dry, yet the whole of this great tract presented to the eye nothing but a putrid swampy soil, useless either for the plough or for the scythe.  The proprietors of these grounds are now incorporated; we yearly pay to the treasurer of the company a certain sum, which makes an aggregate, superior to the casualties that generally happen either by inundations or the musk squash.  It is owing to this happy contrivance that so many thousand acres of meadows have been rescued from the Schuylkill, which now both enricheth and embellisheth so much of the neighbourhood of our city.  Our brethren of Salem in New Jersey have carried the art of banking to a still higher degree of perfection.”  It is really an admirable contrivance, which greatly redounds to the honour of the parties concerned; and shows a spirit of discernment and perseverance which is highly praiseworthy:  if the Virginians would imitate your example, the state of their husbandry would greatly improve.  I have not heard of any such association in any other parts of the continent; Pennsylvania hitherto seems to reign the unrivalled queen of these fair provinces.  Pray, Sir, what expense are you at e’er these grounds be fit for the scythe?  “The expenses are very considerable, particularly when we have land, brooks, trees, and brush to clear away.  But such is the excellence of these bottoms and the goodness of the grass for fattening of cattle, that the produce of three years pays all advances.”  Happy the country where nature has bestowed such rich treasures, treasures superior to mines, said I:  if all this fair province is thus cultivated, no wonder it has acquired such reputation for the prosperity and the industry of its inhabitants.

By this time the working part of the family had finished their dinner, and had retired with a decency and silence which pleased me much.  Soon after I heard, as I thought, a distant concert of instruments.—­However simple and pastoral your fare was, Mr. Bertram, this is the dessert of a prince; pray what is this I hear?  “Thee must not be alarmed, it is of a piece with the rest of thy treatment, friend Iwan.”  Anxious I followed the sound, and by ascending the staircase, found that it was the effect of the wind through the strings of an Eolian harp; an instrument which I had never before seen.  After dinner we quaffed an honest bottle of Madeira wine, without the irksome labour of toasts, healths, or sentiments; and then retired into his study.