compound, yet simple movement was almost fascinating. The remarkably large proportion of local subscribers who support the paper are a matter of just pride to Mr. Kaufmann. I am not sure that he does not stand at the top of the tree in this respect.

But there is one other visit that I made, or rather meeting that I was invited to attend, which I must not forget, as it is illustrative of the religious liberty or toleration-some might say confusion; I say nothing that exists in the States. I was invited, one Sunday evening, to come and hear " a sermon at the church in L Street, by a Rev. Mr. Savage, of Boston, upon Spirit and Immortality. The sermon lasted one hour and a quarter, and towards the close embraced the subject of what is especially called "Spiritualism," towards which the preacher certainly made me understand he was inclined. But the chief point that struck me was that Mr. Savage, being Unitarian or Deist, was preaching his sermon in a pulpit behind which was written on the wall in very large letters one of the strongest of the New Testament texts, affirming the "Incarnation of Christ the Saviour."

A final walk along the great Pennsylvanian Avenue, which is the main street of the city, and leads direct rom the White House to the Capitol, closed my visit to Washington. On this last occasion, I paid a second visit to the Library. My attention was then pointedly called to the colossal statue of Washington himself, sitting on a curule chair, oppo

site the east central portico. On the back of this is inscribed "Simulacrum istud ad magnum Libertatis exemplum, nec sine ipsâ duraturum;" with this translation:

"This statue cast in Freedom's stately form,

And by her e'er upheld."

I thought I could offer a better, in the shape of the following:

This statue Liberty's great form portrays,

Nor without her survives to future days.

This small farewell legacy, therefore, I left to the Capital City on my last return to the Arlington along the chiefest of its "magnificent distances."

CHAPTER XIII.

FLORIDA.

WHEN I decided to go to Florida, I had to decide what hotel to go to ; and while in this trying state of mind I suddenly found lying on the writing-table of the Arlington an illustrated advertisement of the Glenada Hotel, at Jacksonville, to which city, of course, I was first bound. The house looked very pretty among some trees, and that almost decided me without further ado; but below I presently read what decided me quite. It was the only house where "late dinners" were given. Of early dinners, prevalent almost everywhere in the States, while travelling or at home, I have a horror, and nothing less. Therefore, at 11.30 on the morning of Tuesday, the 28th of December, I left for my 845 miles' journey to the Glenada, at Jacksonville, not overlooking the curious construction of the name. In one of Dickens's sketches he has invented Billsmithi. Why not say Jacksontown at once, and have done with it? The weather was unfavourable, and the journey uninteresting during daylight. You cannot have beauty every

where. Were it so, there would be no beauty, which is a paradox, but true—

"An unemphatic' men that actor call

Who lays an equal emphasis on all."

I was not tempted to stop at Richmond, the capital as well as the largest city of Virginia. Once the capital of the Confederate States, its "Ichabod" has been once written and realized; but its future is now promising to surpass its past. It affords another example of the surprising elasticity of all things and persons in the States, in the reconstruction of about a thousand buildings to the value of 8,000,000 dollars, including corn and tobacco, which were destroyed for strategical purposes during the war by the citizens themselves. Such is war! Nor had I any special desire to witness the havoc that earthquakes had inflicted on Charleston, the chief commercial city of South Carolina. I had already seen those on the west coast of South America, and there is but little satisfaction in the mere curious survey of desolation. Nevertheless, Charleston is of itself a city worth. visiting; but the hour of arriving there, rather before five o'clock on a December morning, made me shrink from a winter visit to its streets. We were refreshed at Savannah, the capital of Georgia; and though Charleston bears the character of being now more prosperous than ever-saving that temporary interruption above referred to—yet I heard that Savannah claims to be surpassing it,-a pretension which Charleston would doubtless dispute.

Our journey was marked as of twenty-five hours, but one hour of the clock was added on account of our again passing into Centre Time, and we arrived at Jacksonville at about noon on Wednesday, the 29th of December.

I was at once driven to the Glenada Hotel, and the first impression as regards Florida that I received was that everything was sand. It is, however, loamy sand, in which you may grow oranges, but which you must not attempt to scour with, or to use for other corresponding household purposes.

I did not anticipate finding any striking scenery in Florida, and therefore was not disappointed at my negative anticipations being realized, nor agreeably surprised by their being falsified. It is very flat, and sandy and marshy, and the pine trees are quite stunted in growth. These remarks are certainly true of all that I passed through from Jacksonville to Tampa. Where you look for beauty you must look for orange groves, and now and then the railway will take you through some roods of charming trees, hanging their golden fruit on both sides as you pass. The St. John's River is the scene principally spoken of, and for those who have never seen tropical vegetation luxuriantly crowding a stream, an excursion on its waters may have its charms, even short of those dressed up in books, where picturesque description strives to impart over-embellishment to the scenery. I do not know what the waters of St. John's River are, but the accounts I received of them did not tempt me to a steamboat excursion. For