moment, be undergoing the same ordeal in their estimation; and,
moreover, I am by no means disposed to consider whatever is new
to me as therefore objectionable; but, nevertheless, it was
impossible not to feel repugnance to many of the novelties that
now surrounded me.

The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table, the
voracious rapidity with which the viands were seized and
devoured, the strange uncouth phrases and pronunciation; the
loathsome spitting, from the contamination of which it was
absolutely impossible to protect our dresses; the frightful
manner of feeding with their knives, till the whole blade seemed
to enter into the mouth; and the still more frightful manner of
cleaning the teeth afterwards with a pocket knife, soon forced us
to feel that we were not surrounded by the generals, colonels,
and majors of the old world; and that the dinner hour was to be
any thing rather than an hour of enjoyment.

The little conversation that went forward while we remained in
the room, was entirely political, and the respective claims of
Adams and Jackson to the presidency were argued with more oaths
and more vehemence than it had ever been my lot to hear. Once a
colonel appeared on the verge of assaulting a major, when a huge
seven-foot Kentuckian gentleman horse-dealer, asked of the
heavens to confound them both, and bade them sit still and be
d--d. We too thought we should share this sentence; at least
sitting still in the cabin seemed very nearly to include the rest
of it, and we never tarried there a moment longer than was
absolutely necessary to eat.