He appreciated his good fortune in having family connections which gave him the _entrée_ into several cultivated family circles. His brother Lawrence was happily married, living in comfortable circumstances on his estate at Mount Vernon, and George was often there. A few miles away was Belvoir, the large property of Lawrence’s father-in-law, the above-mentioned William Fairfax. This man had passed an eventful life. He was born in England, entered the army early, took part in several campaigns, and was later appointed by the English government governor and chief justice of an island of the East Indies. He had now been living in Virginia for several years, where, for a long time, he had been president of the royal council of the colonies. The home of this experienced and kindly man, where there was a number of amiable and well-educated sons and daughters, was also open to George. Having his eyes and ears open for all that was improving, George learned many things at Belvoir. He also became acquainted there with an important and at the same time interesting personage—a nobleman of the same name from England, a cousin of William Fairfax, and therefore, since the marriage of George’s step-brother, a sort of relative of his. This Lord Fairfax was a man nearly sixty years old, over six feet tall, gaunt and rawboned, with light gray eyes, sharp features, and an aquiline nose. In England he had distinguished himself equally in the use of the sword and the pen. Through his marriage he acquired boundless territories, so to speak, in Virginia—the whole region between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers, which later was found to extend into the Allegheny Mountains. By the desire of Lord Fairfax his cousin William had hitherto managed the property, and Lord Fairfax had only recently arrived in Virginia to become acquainted for the first time with his truly princely domain. It was a wilderness, but what a wilderness! Let us take the opportunity of saying a word about Virginia. The Allegheny Mountains divide the State into three regions: the mountainous and romantic one, with the celebrated Natural Bridge, where Cedar Creek dashes along between perpendicular walls of stone 250 feet below the rock arch; that portion farther eastward with a sandy, marshy, flat coast; and the arable, rolling, western portion bounded by the Ohio River. In the greater part of it the soil is truly luxuriant. There is fine grazing for sheep, as well as cattle. One sees maples, oaks, plantains, nut and tulip trees, lindens, elms, ash, magnolia, chestnut, cherry, and plum trees overgrown with wild grape and other vines in the beautiful forests, and there is no lack of fish and game.