In 1838, I made my first trip to Richmond. What visions of grandeur filled my youthful imagination! That eventually I should get to be a man seemed probable, but that I should ever be big enough to live, actually live, in the vast metropolis, was beyond my dreams. For I believed fully that men were proportioned to the size of the cities they lived in. I had seen a man named Hatcher from Cartersville, who was near about the size of the average man in Lynchburg, but as I had never seen Cartersville, I concluded, naturally enough, that Cartersville must be equal in population. Which may be the fact, for I have never yet seen Cartersville, though I have been to Warminster, and once came near passing through Bent-Creek. I went by stage. It took two days to make the trip, yet no one complained, although there were many Methodist ministers aboard. Bro. Lafferty had not been born. I thought it simply glorious. There was an unnatural preponderance of preacher to boy,--nine of preacher to one of boy. That boy did not take a leading part in the conversation. He looked out of the window, and thought much about Richmond. And what a wonderful world it was! So many trees, such nice rocks, and pretty ruts in the red clay; such glorious taverns, and men with red noses; such splendid horses, a fresh team every ten miles, and an elegant smell of leather, proceeding from the coach, prevailing everywhere as we bowled merrily along. And then the stage horn. Let me not speak of it, lest Thomas and his orchestra hang their heads for very shame. I wish somebody would tell me where we stopped the first night, for I have quite forgotten. Any how, it was on the left-hand side coming down, and I rather think on the brow of a little hill. I know we got up mighty soon the next morning. We drew up at the Eagle hotel in Richmond. Here again words, and time too, fail me. All the cities on earth packed into one wouldn’t look as big and fine to me now as Main street did then. If things shrink so in the brief space of a life-time, what would be the general appearance, say of Petersburg, if one should live a million or so of years? This is an interesting question, which you may discuss with yourself, dear reader.