arnest. In the main avenues, on either side of the
rail-track of the cars, the mud was a trifle deeper than that of a
cross-lane, in winter, in the Warwickshire clays. To traverse the
by-streets comfortably, you require rather a clever animal over a
country, and especially good in "dirt;" they are intersected by frequent
brooks, much wider and deeper than that celebrated one which tested the
prowess of "_le bonhomme Briggs_." There are rough stepping-stones at
some of the crossings, and the passage of these, after nightfall,
resembles greatly that of a "shaking" bog, where the traveler has to
leap from tussock to moss-hag with agile audacity; the consequences of a
false step being, in both cases, about the same. I began to think,
regretfully of certain rugged continental _paves_ execrated in days gone
by; they, at least, had a firm bottom, more or less remote.

The public buildings of Washington do not attempt architectural display:
with scarcely an exception, they are severely simple and square. But
there is a certain grandeur in the masses of white marble, which is
everywhere lavishly employed, and the Capitol stands right well--alone,
on the crest of a low, abrupt slope, with nothing to intercept the view
from its terraces, seaward, and up the valley of the Potomac. The effect
will probably be better when wind and weather shall have slightly toned
down the sheen of the fresh-hewn stones, so dazzling now as almost to
tire the eye.

I lingered some time in the stranger galleries of Congress, but--"a
plague on both their Houses"--there was no question of stirring interest
before either. I had hoped to see at least one Representative committed
to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms; but, on that day, the
hardly-worked official had rest from his labors. Only a few hours later,
an irascible Senator (from Delaware, I think) created a temporary
excitement by defying first his political opponent, and then generally
all powers that be, eventually displaying the revolver, which is the
_ratio ultima_, of so many Transatlantic debates. I heard some "tall
talking," enforced by much energy of gesture and resonance of tone; but
not a period veiling on eloquence. The speakers generally seemed to have
studied in the simple school of the "stump" or the tavern, and, when at
a loss for an argument, would introduce a diatribe against the South, or
a declaration of fidelity to the Union, very much as they might have
proposed a toast or se