from
Charlottesville to Culpeper, returning from Culpeper to Richmond. In
leaving Charlottesville we drive past Keswick, a little settlement
around which the country has been taken by many beautiful estates. Our
route runs by Gordonsville and Orange through Madison Mills to Culpeper.
Not far from Keswick we pass a sign at an attractive farm gate, which
reads, "Cloverfields. Meals for tourists. Golf." We are sorry to be
unable to test the hospitality of Cloverfields.

Although our road is more or less indifferent, we are passing through
beautiful country. Around Keswick the fields are beautifully kept, and
the entrances to estates are marked by ivy-covered posts of yellow
stone, rough hewn. Some of the houses are red brick with white pillars,
others are of stucco. There are plenty of turkeys and chickens, and
hounds, as everywhere else in Virginia. We begin to see clumps of pine
trees from time to time. The oak trees of the forest are very large,
many of them of noble height. The juniper trees are in blossom, their
blue-green berries making them look as if they wore an exquisite
blue-green veil. In Virginia, one is everywhere impressed by the
richness and luxuriance of the foliage. All along the roadside banks are
clumps of hazel bushes, heavy with clusters of nuts in their furry green
coats. The chestnut trees are full of fruit. About a mile north of
Gordonsville we pass a plain shaft of light pinkish-grey granite on the
roadside bank at the left. The name Waddel is on the shaft and the
following inscription:

Near this spot while yet primeval forest stood the church of
the blind preacher James Waddel.

A devout man of God and a faithful minister of the
Presbyterian Church.

Born 1739--died 1805.

Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a
God.

From his sermon as narrated by William Wirt.

This country has just the charm that I should expect it to have from my
reading about Virginia. Here are late-blooming honeysuckles in the
hedges. Here are men drawing wagon loads of produce along the rather
heavy clay highways to market. Sometimes they drive two horses tandem.
The rear horse is saddled, and the driver rides him and so guides the
team. Sometimes a heavy wagon is drawn by four horses, the driver
astride the near horse in the rear. Sometimes we see farmers ploughing
with three horses or mules, flocks of turkeys or chickens following in
the wake of the pl