The long rows of brown spear-headed leaves
lying on the flat terrace roofs of the tobacco
warehouses seemed whispering together about
the agricultural meeting which every human
person, bond or free, was now talking about, or
going to, or coming from, in the hot world below.
It was talked of down on the quays, among
the tobacco ships, and on the hills among the
tobacco pickers. The city, whose very road-
dust is Scotch snuff, was deeply stirred by the
excitement of the fair, the shows, the prize
vegetables, the trotting matches, the wonderful
singing mouse, and the bear-baiting. The
trains momentarily brought in from the country,
crowds of sweltering, over-dressed, hearty,
nasal country people. The blacks were showing
their great white beans of teeth everywhere,
in wonder and delight at the general finery and
excitement. It was hot enough on the hilly
suburban roads to have roasted a sole by laying
him on a milestone; but that made no difference;
every one was off to the agricultural show in the
suburban meadows, ten minutes' distance from
the city by railroad, twenty or so by street
omnibus. I had had rather a dreadful night of it,
because my bedroom happened to be just over
the hotel ball-room, and the Virginian reels, as
well as the ordinary European dances, were kept
up, as country papers say, "with unabated
vigour, till pallid morning dawned."

I was pulling off my boots, preparatory to
vaulting into bed, when the first dance
commenced. It was hours afterwards before the
last reeler reeled off, and spun himself away to
dream of reels till noon.

From my mere mouthful of sleep I awoke to
dress myself and go down to the table-d'hôte
and breakfast—a meal prevailing at American
hotels from seven in the morning, or earlier—for
the Americans are really a much earlier people
than we are—till eleven or twelve. I go down,
and at the same moment the special servant of
my peculiar table, Sam, with what seems one
and the same move of the hand, slides me
forward a chair, pours me out a large caraffe of
iced water, pushes me the gorgeous bill of fare,
and whispers in my ear,

"What um want—breakfast, massa?"

I select from the long list, boiled eggs, a cutlet,
white fish, boiled hominy, coffee, and stewed
oysters—a fine superstructure to build a day
upon. I end with fresh draughts of iced water,
avoiding the flabby hot-cakes lined with
molasses, on which dangerous dainty the dyspeptic
American loves to indulge. Then I push back
my chair, and launch out into the street, striking
up the hill on which the Capitol stands; and
so take car for the Exhibition. The streets are
full of country faces, of a healthier and purer
nankeen colour than those of the town race. The
people I see, were yesterday on the Potomac
or James rivers, were at Baltimore or
Philadelphia, were watching the Kanawha Falls, or
burning themselves to brick on the New River
cliffs.

Richmond, with its thirty-three thousand
inhabitants, is buzzing like a hive; the visitors
are at the Capitol, looking on Houdon's
beautifully simple statue of Washington. Some of
them are being shown the monumental church
that now stands where the ill-fated theatre once
stood, where, in 1811, the Governor of
Virginia and sixty unhappy people perished in an
accidental fire; the tobacco planters are below,
having a few minutes' chat at the stores on
the quays before going to the Exhibition.

When I reach the high hilly road where the
cars start, I find an arrangement, peculiarly
American, and peculiarly reckless. Now, much
as I like the Americans for many qualities, every
step I take in America sets me wondering what
produces the recklessness of danger, of which
a fresh instance is now before me. And what is this
prodigy? Why, a real live train, with the
steam in the boiler of the engine, hissing as if it
were fed with rattlesnakes. Mercy! A real
train of huge carriages drawn by a disturbed and
roaring engine of I do not know how many
horse power, coming along the centre of the
open road, close to all the carriages, and horses,
and pedestrians, and children, that are posting
on to the great agricultural fair. Nothing more
than that phantom of modern civilisation spitting
burning coals, and breathing very hard, as
if in a "most tarnation" rage and ready to chaw
up all creation. There are no earth embankments
like great redoubts, no strong palisading,
no gates ever guarded by men waving flags, but
only across the bare high road, about ten yards
from the omnibus that holds me and my alarms,
a huge gibbet frame of a white board, coolly
inscribed

"LOOK OUT FOR THE ENGINE WHEN THE BELL
                               RINGS."

Yes, siure, and time to, considering that the bell
wags on the engine itself, and the warning and
the buffers would reach you at about the same
moment!  But this time my alarm was soon
ended, for on slided the ponderous train, the
smoke vomiting from the huge-mouthed funnel,
the bell swinging out its tardy and almost mocking
warning, and with a spirt of fire and a puff of
white steam, it drew up with a sullen slowness
about twenty yards from my apparently doomed
omnibus.

No nervous man (nervousness is not fear)
should go to America; for a life is thought
nothing of, in the country that all Europe
helps to people. Thousands go to see Blondin
break his neck at Niagara, and I myself had
been to see a Frenchman expose himself to
certain death in a paper balloon. When two
engines are racing to a fire, the two companies
will pull out revolvers and fight for precedency.
Duelling is common. Racing steamers will refuse
to stop and pick up a black hand that has fallen
overboard. As for these railway crossings, a
car driver has been known to put his horses at
full speed, and bet five dollars he would get over
before "the darned engine," at the risk of an
immortal and irretrievable smash. I have crossed
immense swamps on long railway bridges
supported by rickety trestles that vibrated with the