shores; mummies from the caves of Peru; curious minerals and plants:
whoever is interested by such objects as these should give the museum a
more leisurely examination than I had time to do. The persons engaged in
arranging and putting up these collections were still at their task when I
was at Washington, and I learned that what I saw was by no means the
whole.

The night before we set out, snow fell to the depth of three inches, and
as the steamboat passed down the Potomac, we saw, at sunrise, the grounds
of Mount Vernon lying in a covering of the purest white, the snow,
scattered in patches on the thick foliage of cedars that skirt the river,
looking like clusters of blossoms. About twelve, the steamboat came to
land, and the railway took us through a gorge of the woody hills that
skirt the Potomac. In about an hour, we were at Fredericksburg, on the
Rappahannock. The day was bright and cold, and the wind keen and cutting.
A crowd of negroes came about the cars, with cakes, fruit, and other
refreshments. The poor fellows seemed collapsed with the unusual cold;
their faces and lips were of the color which drapers call blue-black.

As we proceeded southward in Virginia, the snow gradually became thinner
and finally disappeared altogether. It was impossible to mistake the
region in which we were. Broad inclosures were around us, with signs of
extensive and superficial cultivation; large dwellings were seen at a
distance from each other, and each with its group of smaller buildings,
looking as solitary and chilly as French chateaus; and, now and then, we
saw a gang of negroes at work in the fields, though oftener we passed
miles without the sight of a living creature. At six in the afternoon, we
arrived at Richmond.

A beautiful city is Richmond, seated on the hills that overlook the James