erome B. Stillson, I hold the Spotswood
Hotel, and from this caravansary of the late capital as thoroughly
identified with Rebellion as the inn at Bethlehem with the gospel, we
date our joint paragraphs upon the condition of the city. A week cannot
have exhausted the curiosity of the North to learn the exact appearance
of a city which has stood longer, more frequent, and more persistent
sieges, than any in Christendom. This town is the Rebellion; it is all
that we have directly striven for; quitting it, the Confederate leaders
have quitted their sheet-anchor, their roof-tree, their abiding hope.
Its history is the epitome of the whole contest, and to us, shivering
our thunderbolts against it for more than four years, Richmond is still
a mystery.

Know then, that, whether coming from Washington or Baltimore, the two
points of embarkation, all bound hitherward must rendezvous at Fortress
Monroe; thence, in such excellent steamers as the _Dictator_, start up
the broad James River. To own a country-house upon the "Jeems" river is
the Virginia gentleman's ultimate aspiration. There, with a
tobacco-farm, and wide wheatlands, his feet on his front-porch rails, a
Havana cigar between his teeth, and a colored person to bring him
frequent juleps, the Virginia gentleman, confident in the divinity of
slavery, hopes in his natural, refined idleness, to watch the little
family graveyard close up to his threshold, till it shall kindly open
and give him sepulture.

Elsewhere men aim to be successful, or enterprising, or eloquent, or
scholarly, but that nobleness of hospitality, high spirit, dignity, and
affability which constitute our idea of chivalry is everywhere save here
an exotic. We say that chivalry is "played out," and that the prestige
of "first families" is gone with the hurried retreat before Grant's
salamanders. Not so. Secession as a cause is past the range of
possibilities. But no people in their subjugation wear a better front
than these brave old spirits, whose lives are not their own. Fire has
ravaged their beautiful city, soldiers of the color of their servants,
guard the crossings and pace the pavement with bayoneted muskets. But
gentlemen they are still, in every pace, and inch, and syllable,--such
men as we were wont to call brothers and countrymen. However, the James
River, at which we commenced, has not a town upon it between the sea and
the head of navigation. It is a strong commentary upon this patriarchal
ci