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Cleveland, Detroit, and Buffalo. He kept a journal on the way in which he set down the daily experiences of travel and his reflections on men and manners. These on his return he amused himself by transferring into a leather-bound volume which he supplied with an index, and a title-page reading:

WANDERINGS AND SCRIBBLINGS

OR

A Journal of a Journey
South and West

IN

May, June, and July.
A.D. 1841

By JUSTIN S. MORRILL

"We may roam through this world, like a child at a feast,
Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the rest,
And when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east,
We may order our wings and be off to the West."

T. MOORE

STRAFFORD, VT.
1841

The care which the author bestowed upon his little book is a sign of its value to one who would understand him. It reveals much of his mind. We have already alluded to his visit to Washington which he found the most interesting of all the stopping-places and where he made his longest stay. Besides the halls of Congress which always fascinated him, he went to the races, visited Mount Vernon, and looked at the public buildings. The changes which have since occurred give his notes a flavor of history.

May 28, 1841. Came on to Washington this day. Put up at Brown's among a perfect jam of political dignitaries, and others

who would be could they get the consent of a sufficient number of their neighbors on sundry small bits of paper, or that of the president on a larger piece of parchment. But all this goes like kissing - by favor, by'r lady. Got a room with only three beds- two were used by a brace of North-Carolina members; as I never occupy but one bed or two chairs! Strolled about the city. The public buildings for the departments are yet unfinished, but when completed will make an imposing appearance. Southern jealousy, and southern cupidity, refused the northern granite, and they have used the dull-brown, horrible sand-stone for the Patent Office and Treasury building. In point of beauty and durability the granite is far the superior - while in cost there is little difference. But granite does not grow in old Virginia!

Who has not heard of the overshadowing influence of the "executive," and the close-connexion said to exist with the House of Congress. But, after a walk on a hot day from the President's mansion to the capitol, I confess I was far from discerning the close-connexion - but really believed they were at a "magnificent distance" apart. The capitol is a credit to the nation. The architectural proportions are superb. The interior is arranged very ingeniously and with great solidity. The sculpture, the paintings and costly trappings are worth a look. The variegated marble columns of both the Hall and Chamber I find no fault in going to Virginia after. They are superb, and such as no other spot on the globe can furnish. The grounds, nature and art, have nearly made perfect. The collection of shade-trees, plants and flowers is quite handsome. There were two elegantwater-fountains; and there is one awkward monument in front, erected to the memory of the "braves" who fell at Tripoli. It is curious and costly, but it ought to have a lettered sign, "this is a monument."

June 2, 1841. Posted off for world-renowned Mount-Vernon. In a short time we crossed the boundary into Virginia, on the worst roads I now remember ever to have seen - where they were travelled and there was a possibility of making a road. Gullied here, sandy there, no bridges anywhere, big or little, and dust everywhere.

The land is poorly cultivated we only see here and there a negro hut. The roads being chiefly without fence of any sort —

not even "Virginia Fence" - when any place becomes utterly impassable it is mended by driving out into the grass or through the woods around it. It would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to take the right track on account of the many places where travellers have found it necessary to make these 'shun-pikes.' Our negro, 'George,' however, seemed "at home" and said this was very good road in Virginny.

At last, right in the woods, we came to the Porter's lodges of Gen. Washington. They were almost in ruins. From this to the mansion we found the road worse - which before we had thought intolerable. We now approached the sainted spot. The buildings were all only white-washed, and much time-worn as a matter of course - including a few negro huts, showing here and there a black-face. Tut, the body servant of Washington, is dead. For many years he was always sent for to fill a conspicuous place in all public celebrations by the citizens of Washington city, and he rode at such times the horse last used by his master. There is now one negro (the gardener) who feels proud of having come onto the estate just twenty months after the death of Washington, and he told us of it at least twenty times.

The blackened brick walls of what was the gardener's house told of a fire that destroyed it some years back. All about the grounds visitors were to be seen walking in groups, paying homage to the great and good man who bid adieu to the world more than forty years ago. The kitchen-garden was full of weeds; the fence on the old ivy-clad brick-wall was rotted down and had been removed. Tall grass alone filled the front yard. The shaded walks among the venerable trees, the walls, and solo-paths were not kept clean. We went to the summer-house, (all hacked with letters of the alphabet variously disposed and supposed to be the initials to the names of many very impertinent people,) which commands a noble view of the Potomac; and, if Washington were now to look forth again, upon this vast estate, this view only of all that remains would be the one that would not give him pain. There is no change in that fine river. It winds and glides along as smoothly as at the close of the 18th century, when no steamboat had made a ripple upon its bosom.

The tomb, but lately erected, is down in the edge of a wood, near the water-side. It is built of brick, with two iron-gates, through which may be seen a plain marble sarcophagus, with the

simple word Washington cut on the outward end, surmounted by the Eagle, and our national coat of arms, and the record of the toast given by just after the death of Washington at a 4th of July:

"Washington! first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen."

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This was put there not by the Nation, not by contemporaries, nor by kindred, but "by a marble and stone cutter of Philadelphia." By its side is a plain sarcophagus of the same size inscribed "Mary Washington."

In the flower garden we found some aged flowering plants, that had evidently been handed down from the time of Washington, lemon and orange trees, sago and century plants, boxthat beautiful fringe and edging of nature - in any quantity and of all ages, and very many uncommonly fragrant flowering bushes, nameless to me but not to the negro, who perpetrated many botanical names which smacked strongly of the Guinea-Man.

There are 1200 acres of land, extending for four miles, and yet, with a gang of slaves, the place does not yield sufficient income to keep it in repair. The young man who went around with us said that Bushrod Washington expended $12,000 a year upon the estate while he was there, above the income.

I have paid my sad pilgrimage to the tomb of Washington. Am disappointed. At present it is a disgrace to the whole country.

He continued his journey westward chiefly by stage and steamboat. Both afforded a fair mixture of discomfort and delight. After leaving Washington he noted that the taverns were "execrable," and that "the negroes all seemed to belong to masters... governed both by avarice and poverty.... Paid for, a seat in the U.S. Mail Coach on the National Road to Wheeling, Va.... The best horses and the best long road I have ever met with. The prospect, though, of an all-night ride in the fore-end of the coach is somewhat of a drawback." His worst misgivings were fulfilled and in the morning he notes: "Having become careless of consequences during the night (for I did not get a single slumber) I find my head and forehead all bruised and swelled up....

It is not safe to lean against posts drawn by six horses. They jostle a body and a body's head."

"Wheeling," he remarks, "is a dingy, coal-dust-covered town" which is caused by "the exclusive use of coal, which delivered here costs four cents only per bushel." From here onward his journey was made almost wholly by steamboat, for, as he writes, "Western life on the rivers seems to be all steamboats," and, he might have added, attended by vicissitudes. He left Wheeling on the 12th of June, steaming down the Ohio, which he notes "is a beautiful stream,... clear and full of fish as well as steamboats,... with banks very steep and high," as is natural, since "the regular rise every spring is from forty to fifty feet." Yet the steamboats were constantly going aground. Hardly a day passes without its entry of this kind. June 12th, "We got aground once to-day. Delayed 14 hours; June 15th got aground and hung for half an hour."

Sometimes it was more serious. The next day he records a midnight alarm. "In a moment I heard the cry, 'All forward, men!' There was tremendous confusion and I made for the deck.... I found we had blown up!... Up at any rate on to a sand bank.... We stayed 'blowed-up' fifteen hours." On the 23d, after leaving Louisville, "At one o'clock we find ourselves on 'Cumberland Bar.' All hands are working at the spar and capstan to lift her nose off, but we are getting all the while deeper into the sand. The cable... has broken.... All the rival boats go by.... Laus Deo. At last, after 31 hours, we are loosened."

Near Louisville he had an experience with a slave boy which he narrates lightly enough, but which tended little to weaken his abolitionist convictions:

At the half-way place our driver, a negro boy, drove past the switch. He was a slave. The other car coming up put us to the trouble of "backing out." Loss of time necessary, one minute.

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