Had a walk through the town and vicinity: it is situated on the southeast end Mahatten Island, which is apparently about two miles across, and several in length.  North or Hudson River runs on one side, and East River on the other, at the end of which they join.  A very great number of vessels, of all kinds and sizes, lying at the wharfs on both sides of the town, and a great deal of business going forward, more like London than any other place I have seen.  Broadway is a fine street, as are also some others.  Markets are well supplied, but appear to be much crowded.  At the back of the town there are evident marks of an overwhelming flood.  On the highest parts of the island the soil is washed off the rocks, and huge stones laid bare, or tumbled together in the ravines.  Another such a place near Trenton, on high land.  Almost all the roads leading to a town in America are full of houses on their sides, called "taverns," or "liquor," "beer and cake," or "grocery," stores.  My notice was attracted today by one with a small kitchen garden before it, with a few benches for seats, With WATERLOO GARDENS in printed capitals over the gate! as a magnet, I suppose, to attract the contents of Johnny Bull's purse.  New York is a place of great trade, and will still increase, it is so well situated.  Open at all times to the seat the confluence of several fine rivers, and the canal from Albany to Lake Erie greatly augments it.  The state of New York is the richest in the Union, and the climate the most genial and moderate for Europeans.  The price of wheat, flour, &c. here, at Baltimore and Philadelphia, are nearly the same.  As building in summer is always going on, house-carpenters, brick-makers, and brick-layers, generally find employment almost anywhere, except in the depth of winter, at 4s. 6d. to 7s. or 8s. per day; also shoemakers, tailors, and persons well acquainted with any useful trade, may meet with employ in some place or other.  I determined to proceed to Albany, and thence, if nothing offers, to Upper Canada, by canal.  A farmer would cut a sorry figure in a store amongst the Yankees, and there appears to be but few other situations vacant, and that occupation uncertain.

June 18.—On board the steam tugboat (a boat tugged along by a steamboat) for Albany; the fare was one dollar, or 4s. 6d. one trunk included, 1s. 1½d. for the other; in the steamboat the fare is higher.  The passengers consist principally of farmers, farmers' wives, and tradespeople, two or three of the former are "squires," as they are termed justices of the peace).  With this company I pass as a Yankee!  Like the rest of the passengers I carry provisions for twenty-four hours, and half a pint of rye whiskey (2d. only), a little of which, I find, with water, agrees with me better this hot weather than water alone, or even beer.

June 19, Sunday.—Warm last night and pleasant today.  The Hudson river, up which we are travelling, is a noble stream running between high romantic hills and mountains on each hand.  The Kaatskill mountains are the most conspicuous, making a grand appearance with the clouds flying far below their tops along their sides.  The Chancellor Livingstone, and another noble steamboat, two-deckers, past us down; they are really floating palaces.  The steamboats are larger, and more elegantly fitted up, than any I have seen in the Thames; indeed they are carried to excess, more fitted for voluptuaries than for cool, calculating Republicans.  Arrive in Albany, and stop at a tavern kept by an Hibernian, for the night.

June 20.—Finding I am not likely to procure any situation hereabouts, I have determined to continue westward by the canal (here pronounced canol), in company with an itinerant book-selling merchant, who is going to Canada.  He put his books, and I my trunks, on board a trading boat, and walked on a nearer way, to see the country and save expense, till the boat should overtake us.  Fare, something less than 1d. a mile for myself and one trunk, and 3s. 4½ d. for the other, 75 lb., to Lockport, near 300 miles.  The boats have relays of horses, and go night and day.  Albany is an old, large, and improving place, with but indifferent land about it, yet the trade by the Erie and east canals ensures great prosperity in trade.  Travelled twenty-five miles today, and stopped for the night at a plain Dutch farmer's tavern, seven miles above Schenectada, on the flats of the Mohawk river, on which, to nearly the whole extent, the Dutch are settled.  Flats are what would be termed meadows in England; but there is this difference, in England the meadows in general are subject to floods, but here in America there are but few rivers that overflow their banks, their banks being most high, and till the land is generally cleared, the woods and swamps preserve the heavy rains from running off in torrents.  The flats of the Mohawk river in many places are bounded on each side by high barren hills and mountains, covered with scrub timber, and brushwood.  The Mohawk flats are considered some of the very richest land in the Union; they are settled nearly, if not entirely, by Dutch.  It is a fact rather singular, that the Dutch (as farmers, which most of them. are) thrive best of all settlers; the reason is obvious; they are a close-living, hard-working, frugal people, and, what most ensures success, they always settle in companies, and generally on the richest land.  Corn, grain, &c. looking pretty well, and the farms in tolerably good order.  Green peas just coming in; they, and other crops, are three weeks later than in Maryland.  Heard the first whippoorwill, and the first bull frog, the latter I at first took to be the bellowing of a bull at a distance.

June 21.—Very warm today, the people say hot; the high hills keep off the cold breezes from these low confined grounds.  Walked thirty-two miles today in company with the merchant, a curious old bachelor of forty-five, and disciple of Malthus.  The canal, which runs all up the flats near the river, has a good deal of traffic on it.  The boatmen, in general, civil, and even respectable, a contrast to some of that class in England; but a good number of them are farmers, who carry their own produce to market, or leave their farms at the least busy time and go as captains and mates to the trading boats.  Some elegantly fitted up packet-boats, drawn by three horses on a trot, pass us today, full of fine ladies and gentlemen.  There is the same easy indifference, or nonchalance, in the American females as I before remarked in the males.  Some of them are fine figures, with handsome features, and pretty good colour, yet but little of the play of the soul.  You may admire their handsome forms, and enjoy their company unembarrassed and with corresponding indifference, without being in any great danger of having a more tender passion excited.  Should much disagreement arise between husband and wife, they generally separate, and a newspaper is seldom seen without advertisements respecting them, warning not to trust, &c.

June 22.—Passed through what are called the German flats; a pretty well settled country and good land, where the boat overtook us in which we had left our luggage, into which we got, where there were twelve or fourteen passengers already, several of them women, who occupy all the beds and fore cabin, so we are forced to be content with the body of the boat, and spread the blankets (which are plentiful) on the packages of merchandise to sleep, which is not very disagreeable this warm weather.  It has been remarked that Englishmen generally are the most particular and fastidious about such trifles on travelling in this country.  The boats are one-third wider than those used on canals in England, and covered their whole length, leaving sufficient room for standing erect in them.  Though so far back in the woods, the people are very similar in their manners and behaviour to those in and near towns; generally civil, some polite and intelligent; no awkward rudeness or embarrassment in their behaviour; no provincialisms, and but few peculiarities in their language.  All speak the English language plainly, and mostly correct, with some few exceptions, chiefly in pronunciation, which they have generally adopted, as improvements or corrections of Walker—thus, in engine, acorn, excellent, and some others, the accent is placed on the second syllable.  Thames is by them pronounced Thaymes.

June 23.—The canal appears about three-fourths the size of the Grand Junction in England.  The bridges are nearly all of wood, and too low, not allowing a person to sit upright on a boat passing them.  The canal is shut up in winter by frost.  The water is let through the locks by a much quicker and easier method than what I have seen in England, by merely turning a lever about one-third of a circle.  There are several companies that run "lines" of boats regularly; the "packet line" fitted up chiefly for passengers, drawn by three horses, a boy riding one of them and keeping them on a trot; charge 2½ per mile, board, &c. included.  "Pilot line," "merchant line," and others, carry both passengers and merchandise, drawn by two horses each, go night and day, (60 or 70 miles in 24 hours) and charge 1d. per mile, and board yourself, and 4s. 6d. per 100 lb. weight of luggage, and merchandise, from Albany to Buffaloe, 296 miles.  Towns are much called after Greek, Roman, and other ancient names—as Rome, Troy, Camillus, Maulines, Galen, Utica, Syracuse, &c.  At Salina, near the latter place, are extensive salt works.  A great many buildings made to evaporate tile salt water by the sun, with sliding roofs, and others for evaporation by boiling.  The salt sells for about 1s. 2d. per bushel, and 2s. 4d. per cwt., very good quality of fine and coarse sorts.  Houses springing up like mushrooms; here and there a young village or town.  The canal crosses the skirts of some small lakes, and extensive open marshes, and through some smart towns.  Utica, one of the largest and prettiest, has two or three churches, and other places of worship, with large and neat houses, some few of brick, but the greater part of frame, and painted in various shades of yellow and stone colouring, which gives them a gay and lively appearance.  In some of these new towns, the streets are as yet only ridged, or "turnpiked," in the centre ; others are gravelled, but none, I believe, yet paved.  Land worth from 6 to 25 or 30 dollars per acre or from 30s to 7l. 10s.  Cows from 2l. 4s. to 4l. 10s. each; sheep 4s. 6d. to 9s; horses from 4l. 10s. to 16 or 17l.

June 24.—A cloudy, pleasant day.  An agreeable way of travelling, by boat; you can sit and view the varied scenes of the country through which you pass, write or read, lie down at your ease, or get out and walk for exercise when you please.  Passed by a small plot of ground planted with hops, which looked pretty well.  People busy ploughing between their corn, or maize, (wheat, rye, barley, &c. are here universally called grain).  The people ever since I left Baltimore are all "guessers " and "calculators," and on asking a question, and it be not understood, they say—"how, sir?" or "how is that, sir?" or "which ?" or "which is it ?"

June 25.—Passed through Rochester, situated on the Genasee river, near some large falls of water, which work a number of flour mills and other machinery.  This place is well situated for trade, and has thriven remarkably.  There are no locks between Rochester and Lockport, a distance of 65 miles; nor is the country much settled, being too wet and flat.  Lockport is a place of some business ; five of the locks rise 60 or 80 feet tip a rock of blackish hard stone; they are finished off in a neat, not to say elegant style.  People in some parts of this western country appear to act under little restraint with regard to the duties of a Christian Sabbath; for although no stores (shops) are open, I saw along the canal, in several places, people loading boats, carting, &c., and a woman in the boat knitting all day without exciting any notice or remark.

June 26.—Walked the five miles portage, and gave 1s. 1½ d. for the carriage of my trunks.  A number of people, chiefly Irish, blasting the rocks, and clearing out the bottom of the canal.  Slept at a log-tavern tonight for the first of the kind, in the bar room, which had a hole through the roof as a substitute for a chimney!  Paid 3½ d. for my bed, which is the general price in the western country if two sleep in a bed, but mostly double that if alone.

June 27.—Arrived at Black Rock, a large and smart village on the Niagara river, 24 miles from Lockport, and two from Buffaloe, and nearly opposite Fort Erie, in Canada, at the head of the Niagara river.  After seeing my trunks safe, I walked to Buffaloe, a great shipping port for the Western States, situate on or near the Upper Lakes.  Buffaloe was burnt in the war, and some other places, by the British, in retaliation for the burning and plundering the Canada side by the Americans.  It is now rebuilt, and is a thriving place.  The Wind being brisk and westward, drives down the lake the big rolling waves, which break on the pier and beech with a thundering noise.  Returned to Black Rock, where the ferry is kept, to cross into Canada, it being the narrowest part of the river (near a mile across) and rather rapid, and which is made more so by a pier run in to it on the American side.  The water is clear, and is generally used by those who live on the banks.  The charge at this ferry is 1s, 1½ d.  There is no town on the Canada side, only two or three stores or shops, ("stores" may be distinguished by—dry goods, stores, hardware, or general, the last keep an assortment of every thing), a mill, a small church, a few private houses, three taverns or inns, all having good accommodation, to one of which I went for the night.