behalf of the Americo-German population, though their progress is often obstructed by the very population which needs most the persevering efforts of these pioneers.

It is out of the question to think of a strong feeling of sympathy, or of striking points of relationship, between the German emigrants who have enjoyed the common advantages of religious and intellectual cultivation, and those descendants of Germans who, by their language and peculiar situation, have been placed almost entirely beyond the pale of civilization. Seldom, indeed, have I felt so perfectly as a stranger in this fair land, as was the case on my visit to those "Germans."

How very little attention is paid to the foreigners who settle in the United States, and to the German emigrants among the rest, we may judge from the fact, that the very name which is generally applied to the latter, is one which they have no right to claim. They are called "High Dutch," in contradistinction to "Low Dutch," a term which is applied to the emigrants from Holland. The use of these terms probably originated in the fact, that the state of Pennsylvania was partly settled by German emigrants, who first arrived in New York, but left that state, because they could not agree with the Dutch, who then occupied the greater portion of it. As they came from the region of the Dutch settlers, and resembled them in their religious

and social habits, and as the German appellation by which they introduced themselves, both in form and in sound, was similar to the word "Dutch," this latter term was very naturally applied to them. They, however, as has been partly observed before, spoke the Low German, which, as it is not a written language, and is principally spoken by the illiterate and uncultivated, has received various local modifications in almost all the different states of Germany. The inhabitants of the Netherlands, on the other hand, though originally branching out from the Teutonic stock, have had a language and a literature of their own for the last three or four hundred years, while at the same time the political and commercial relations of that country have combined to obliterate the traces of the German origin of this language. Neither the High German, then, nor the Low German, is understood by the Dutch, unless by the assistance of the grammar and the dictionary; and the Dutch or Hollandish is likewise as ill understood by the Germans.

Hudibras, indeed, asserts that the helpmate of the father of the human race was tempted by the serpent in High Dutch, and the learned Dietrich Knickerbocker speaks of the tremendous and uncouth sound of the Low Dutch language of a certain crew of Low Dutch colonists; and after having quoted the opinion of certain High Dutch commentators, he goes even so far as to assert that

certain individuals have mentioned a man named Thuiscon, from whom descended the Teutons, or the Teutonic, or in other words, the Dutch nation.

But that these and some other English writers have used "High Dutch" and "Low Dutch,” instead of German and Dutch, cannot weaken the justness of the distinctions we have made, and which are supported both by philosophical research and by the strength of the best authorities. They have been influenced by a popular error; for such it must be considered, so long as the distinctions which they have made do not present the true state of things, as it exists in Germany and Holland, and while they are in spirit entirely opposed to the terms used by the inhabitants of those countries to which they refer. It may not be irrelevant to add that the term Deutsch, (nearly like Doitch,) and that of Dutch, by their similarity of form, shadow forth the true relation of the two nations to which they belong, just as we should be led to conclude, from hearing of "Britain" and "Bretagne," that the inhabitants of the two countries had a common origin; while the terms High Dutch and Low Dutch would lead us to inferences which are contrary to the actual state of the languages to which they refer. They are neither two dialects of the same great stock, nor terms which refer to the same language, but to a difference of locality.

It is almost needless to add, after this short explanation, that all the intelligent and cultivated German emigrants and Americo-Germans, who have become intimately acquainted with the state of this population, combine in heartily desiring that soon this corrupt dialect of the German language, together with all its evil consequences, may give way to the moral and intellectual light which, for more than a century, has been the source of incalculable blessings to those portions of the United States which have been brought under its influence.

The picture which I have presented here to my readers is one of which, in a great degree, I have collected myself the necessary materials in the almost immediate vicinity of Easton, Reading, Lebanon, Lancaster, and other towns, which originally were settled by Germans, but the population of which has now in a great measure become assimilated with the Anglo-American population, since for a long time past they have been with them in a constant intercourse. It is owing to the vicinity of these towns, and to the gleams of light which from thence are thrown in every direction, that some check is offered to the friends of darkness. It is very different, however, in the Western States, where a scattering and continua ly increasing foreign population opens a wide and unrestrained field to the adventurous impostor. You may meet there with a Pseudo-Count de Leon, who came to

the land of liberty to establish an independent hierarchico-monarchical society; and though you may see his ultimate end frustrated, after he has completed the ruin of many a deluded family, you will find perhaps some other adventurer more successful in keeping his fellow-men in intellectual and social bondage.

But I refrain at present from enlarging on these deeply interesting topics, since I hope to extend my next pedestrian tour to the German settlements of the far West.