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ADVANTAGES OF BUNDLING.

on the contrary, they multiplied to a degree which would be incredible to any man unacquainted with the marvellous fecundity of this growing country.

This amazing increase may, indeed, be partly-ascribed to a singular custom prevalent among them, commonly known by the name of bundling-a superstitious rite observed by the young people of both sexes, with which they usually terminated their festivities; and which was kept up with religious strictness by the more bigoted and vulgar part of the community. This ceremony was likewise, in those primitive times, considered as an indispensable preliminary to matrimony; their courtships commencing where ours usually finish-by which means they acquired that intimate acquaintance with each other's good qualities before marriage, which has been pronounced by philosophers the sure basis of a happy union. Thus early did this cunning and ingenious people display a shrewdness at making a bargain, which has ever since distinguished them-and a strict adherence to the good old vulgar maxim about "buying a pig in a poke."

To this sagacious custom, therefore, do I chiefly attribute the unparalleled increase of the Yanokie or Yankee tribe; for it is a certain fact, well authenticated by court records and parish registers, that wherever the practice of bundling prevailed, there was an amazing number of sturdy brats annually börn unto the State, without the license of the law, or the benefit of clergy. Neither did the irregularity

ment.

INCREASE OF POPULATION.

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of their birth operate in the least to their disparageOn the contrary, they grew up a long-sided, raw-boned, hardy race of whoreson whalers, woodcutters, fishermen, and pedlers, and strapping cornfed wenches; who by their united efforts tended marvellously towards populating those notable tracts of country called Nantucket, Piscataway, and Cape Cod.

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CHAPTER VII.

How these singular barbarians turned out to be notorious squatters-how they built air castles, and attempted to initiate the Nederlanders in the mystery of bundling.

In the last chapter I have given a faithful and unprejudiced account of the origin of that singular race of people, inhabiting the country eastward of the Nieuw Nederlandts; but I have yet to mention certain peculiar habits which rendered them exceedingly obnoxious to our ever-honoured Dutch ancestors.

The most prominent of these was a certain rambling propensity, with which, like the sons of Ishmael, they seem to have been gifted by Heaven, and which continually goads them on, to shift their residence from place to place, so that a Yankee farmer is in a constant state of migration; tarrying occasionally here and there; clearing lands for other people to enjoy, building houses for others to inhabit, and in a manner may be considered the wandering Arab of America.

^

His first thought, on coming to the years of manhood, is to settle himself in the world-which means nothing more nor less than to begin his rambles. To this end he takes unto himself for a wife, some buxom country heiress, passing rich in red ribands, glass beads, and mock tortoise-shell combs, with a white

YANKEE DOODLE'S PROGRESS.

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gown and morocco shoes for Sunday, and deeply skilled in the mystery of making apple sweetmeats, long sauce, and pumpkin pie.

Having thus provided himself, like a pedler, with a heavy knapsack, wherewith to regale his shoulders through the journey of life, he literally sets out on the peregrination. His whole family, household furniture, and farming utensils, are hoisted into a covered cart; his own and his wife's wardrobe packed up in a firkin-which done, he shoulders his axe, takes staff in hand, whistles "yankee doodle," and trudges off to the woods, as confident of the protection of Providence, and relying as cheerfully upon his own resources, as did ever a patriarch of yore, when he journeyed into a strange country of the Gentiles. Having buried himself in the wilderness, he builds himself a log hut, clears away a corn-field and potatoe-patch, and Providence smiling upon his labours, is soon surrounded by a snug farm and some half a score of flaxen-headed urchins, who, by their size, seem to have sprung all at once out of the earth, like a crop of toad-stools.

But it is not the nature of this most indefatigable of speculators to rest contented with any state of sublunary enjoyment-improvement is his darling passion, and having thus improved his lands, the next care is to provide a mansion worthy the residence of a landholder. A huge palace of pine boards immediately springs up in the midst of the wilderness, large enough for a parish church, and furnished with

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HIS WOODEN PALACE.

windows of all dimensions, but so rickety and flimsy withal, that every blast gives it a fit of the ague.

By the time the outside of this mighty air castle is completed, either the funds or the zeal of our adventurer are exhausted, so that he barely manages to half finish one room within, where the whole family burrow together-while the rest of the house is devoted to the curing of pumpkins, or storing of carrots and potatoes, and is decorated with fanciful festoons of dried apples and peaches. The outside remaining unpainted, grows venerably black with time; the family wardrobe is laid under contribution for old hats, petticoats, and breeches, to stuff into the broken windows, while the four winds of heaven keep up a whistling and howling about this aerial palace, and play as many unruly gambols, as they did of yore in the cave of old Eolus.

The humble log hut, which whilome nestled this improving family snugly within its narrow but comfortable walls, stands hard by, in ignominious contrast, degraded into a cow-house or pig-sty; and the whole scene reminds one forcibly of a fable, which I am surprised has never been recorded, of an aspiring snail, who abandoned his humble habitation, which he had long filled with great respectability, to crawl into the empty shell of a lobster-where he would no doubt have resided with great style and splendour, the envy and hate of all the pains-taking snails in his neighbourhood, had he not accidentally perished with cold, in one corner of his stupendous mansion.