"for three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the entire breadth of the state of new york; through numerous populous cities and most thriving villages; through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-room and bar-room; through the holy-of-holies of great forests; on roman arches over indian rivers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts or broken; through all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble mohawk counties; and especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires stand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of venetianly corrupt and often lawless life. there’s your true ashantee, gentlemen; there howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next door to you; under the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches.