The hedges on the road side were covered with a tangled mass of verdure, from which wild vines and green ivy crept to the surrounding trees, wreathing gracefully their trunks and branches. The undergrowth was loaded with wild roses and honeysuckles. The graceful fleur-de-lis, curving its blue flowers, trembled upon the green banks, and the pond-lily floating on its watery bed, threw forth its grateful fragrance, as we occasionally passed through the swampy bottoms. Fat cattle grazed indolently in the meadows; while now and then, as we cantered by their pastures, the horses, with tails and manes erect, accompanied us on our journey, till arriving at their confines, with eager neighing, they would look after us, throw their heels high in the air, and gallop down into the broad fields in the very jollity of freedom. Every thing seemed contented and joyous. The hearty, happy-looking negroes, trudging along to their agricultural labours, doffed their hats to us, with a cheerful “good morning,” as we passed, or laughingly displayed their white teeth and big eyes, as they led the dew-wet horse to the bars to mount and drive to the milking the smooth, fat kine. A ride of an hour brought us to the woods that adjoin Mount Vernon, which are cleared of undergrowth, but in other respects as wild and untamed as if naught but the savage had ever placed foot in them. Silence reigned through the deep glades, unbroken, save by the hoofs of our horses as they resounded with hollow echo; the sharp chirp of the squirrel, jumping among the dry leaves; or the quick rap, rap, of the woodpecker, as his scarlet head and blue back glanced momentarily from some dead trunk upon our eyesight. We met with nothing to intercept our progress. Now and then, to be sure, a drove of hogs, feeding upon the mast in the forest, would marshal themselves in our path, stupidly staring at us with a sort of ludicrous, half-drunken gravity, snuffing the air, as if determined to intercept our progress; but as we came nearer, they would whirl short about, and with a simultaneous grunt, their tails twisted in the air, gallop off with desperate precipitation into the depths of the forest. Journeying a mile or two further, we came upon the porter’s lodges, at the entrance of the domain proper, which were old and ruinous. Proceeding still farther over a very bad and rough carriage-road, we came suddenly in view of the Potomac; and Mount Vernon, with its mansion-house and smooth, green lawn, lay extended before us; Fort Washington’s battlements and cannon-filled embrasures in stern silence guarding it from the opposite side of the river.