Whoever goes to Washington should by all means see the Museum at the Patent Office, enriched by the collections lately brought back by the expedition sent out to explore the Pacific.  I was surprised at the extent and variety of these collections.  Dresses, weapons, and domestic implements of savage nations, in such abundance as to leave, one would almost think, their little tribes disfurnished; birds of strange shape and plumage; fishes of remote waters; whole groves of different kinds of coral; sea-shells of rare form and singular beauty from the most distant shores; mummies from the caves of Peru; curious minerals and plants:  whoever is interested by such objects as these should give the museum a more leisurely examination than I had time to do.  The persons engaged in arranging and putting up these collections were still at their task when I was at Washington, and I learned that what I saw was by no means the whole.

The night before we set out, snow fell to the depth of three inches, and as the steamboat passed down the Potomac, we saw, at sunrise, the grounds of Mount Vernon lying in a covering of the purest white, the snow, scattered in patches on the thick foliage of cedars that skirt the river, looking like clusters of blossoms.  About twelve, the steamboat came to land, and the railway took us through a gorge of the woody hills that skirt the Potomac.  In about an hour, we were at Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock.  The day was bright and cold, and the wind keen and cutting.  A crowd of negroes came about the cars, with cakes, fruit, and other refreshments.  The poor fellows seemed collapsed with the unusual cold; their faces and lips were of the color which drapers call blue-black.

As we proceeded southward in Virginia, the snow gradually became thinner and finally disappeared altogether.  It was impossible to mistake the region in which we were.  Broad inclosures were around us, with signs of extensive and superficial cultivation; large dwellings were seen at a distance from each other, and each with its group of smaller buildings, looking as solitary and chilly as French chateaus; and, now and then, we saw a gang of negroes at work in the fields, though oftener we passed miles without the sight of a living creature.  At six in the afternoon, we arrived at Richmond.

A beautiful city is Richmond, seated on the hills that overlook the James River.  The dwellings have a pleasant appearance, often standing by themselves in the midst of gardens.  In front of several, I saw large magnolias, their dark, glazed leaves glittering in the March sunshine.  The river, as yellow as the Tiber, its waters now stained with the earth of the upper country, runs by the upper part of the town in noisy rapids, embracing several islands, shaded with the plane-tree, the hackberry, and the elm, and prolific, in spring and summer, of wild-flowers.  I went upon one of these islands, by means of a foot-bridge, and was pointed to another, the resort of a quoit-club