interested in "Alexandria," once so conspicuous in the history of the Civil War, when I found an American gentleman beside me quite ignorant of the fate of "Ellsworth," the protomartyr of the Union? In travelling from Washington to Richmond, and in passing through part of Maryland, the visitors were struck by the dilapidated appearance of the large farmhouses, mostly built of wood, to many of which there were attached curtilages, where the slaves were formerly penned in at night; and it was observed that the fences were very ragged, that the fields were left full of stumps of trees, and that the careful cultivation which had struck our eyes in the more northern States was wanting. One gentleman told us that the railway, passing through the worst and most neglected portion of the country, did not form a favourable platform from which to judge of the general condition of the State. But it is, I believe, undeniable that the soil has been very much exhausted on the Atlantic side in Virginia and in Maryland by the constant succession of crops of tobacco, and that it is necessary to use manure, not sparingly, in order to farm the land with advantage. The country by the right bank of the river seems very much as it was at the period of the war or before it--rugged, unkempt--with patches of forest and low swampy land, perforated by sullen lagoons and marshy streams. At a station near Quantico Creek General Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of the great Confederate leader, the daring chief of the Confederate cavalry after the death of "Jeb" (J. E. B.) Stewart in battle, joined our party; a soldierly-looking man, broad-browed, bright and keen-eyed, of immense breadth of chest, thick throated, large limbed, with a resemblance to Pelissier in his best days, to which, no doubt, a massive moustache and a heavy _barbe d'Afrique_ somewhat contribute. He is now settled as a farmer on the banks of the Potomac, in a region every foot of which reeks with the memories of the four years' war. He lives on his estate and cultivates it with profit, and he draws, moreover, a rich harvest, at the time of the shad fishing, from the river, where his nets sweep in occasionally 60,000 or even 80,000 of these much-prized fish at a haul! Fitzhugh Lee told the Duke that he fully and entirely accepted the situation: he acknowledged the Union, and he would not, if he could, go back to the old order of things. Nay, more, he declared that the Virginians round about him were of the same way of thinking. Labour was to be had when needed. The negroes tilled the fields for wages, and the hirer had no further care about them when their work was done. Contrast that with his trouble with his biped property! The ladies of his house had to look after the women in travail. The negroes, when sick, were thrown on the hands of the master. When worn out with work or stricken by illness, the coloured people became burdens on the farm; and any one who has a