was a very agreeable regale.

The longest of Washington's early expeditions was the "Journey over
the Mountains, began Fryday the 11th of March 1747/8." The mountains
were the Alleghanies, and the trip gave him a closer acquaintance than
he had had with Indians in the wilds. On his return, he stayed with
his half-brother, Lawrence, at Mount Vernon, or with Lord Fairfax, and
enjoyed the country life common to the richer Virginians of the time.
Towns which could provide an inn being few and far between, travellers
sought hospitality in the homes of the well-to-do residents, and every
one was in a way a neighbor of the other dwellers in his county. So
both at Belvoir and at Mount Vernon, guests were frequent and broke
the monotony and loneliness of their inmates. I think the reputation
of gravity, which was fixed upon Washington in his mature years, has
been projected back over his youth. The actual records are lacking,
but such hints and surmises as we have do not warrant our thinking
of him as a self-centred, unsociable youth. On the contrary, he was
rather, what would be called now, a sport, ready for hunting or
riding, of splendid physical build, agile and strong. He liked
dancing, and was not too shy to enjoy the society of young women;
indeed, he wrote poems to some of them, and seems to have been popular
with them. And still, the legend remains that he was bashful.

From our earliest glimpses of him, Washington appears as a youth very
particular as to his dress. He knew how to rough it as the extracts
of his personal journals which I have quoted show, and this passage
confirms:

I seem to be in a place where no real satisfaction is to be had.
Since you received my letter in October last, I have not sleep'd