Hundreds of invitations to visit different cities poured in. The whole country must be traveled over to satisfy the eagerness of a grateful nation. Are republics ungrateful? That can never be said of our own republic after Lafayette's visit to the United States in 1824. He set out for Boston by way of New Haven, New London, and Providence. All along the way the farmers ran out from the fields, shouting welcomes to the cavalcade, and children stood by the roadside decked with ribbons on which the picture of Lafayette was printed. Always a barouche with four white horses was provided to carry him from point to point. It was not a bit of vanity on the part of Lafayette that he was ever seen behind these steeds of snowy white. President Washington had set the fashion. His fine carriage-horses he caused to be covered with a white paste on Saturday nights and the next morning to be smoothed down till they shone like silver. It was a wonderful sight when that majestic man was driven to church--the prancing horses, the outriders, and all. And when Lafayette came, nothing was too good for him! The towns sent out the whitest horses harnessed to the best coaches procurable,--cream color, canary color, or claret color,--for the hero to be brought into town or sped upon his way departing. Returning to New York by way of the Connecticut River and the Sound, he found again a series of dinners and toasts, as well as a ball held in Castle Garden, the like of which, in splendor and display, had never before been thought of in this New World. Lafayette left the festivity before it was ever in order to take the boat, at two in the morning, to go up the Hudson River. He arose at six to show his son and his secretary the place where Andre was captured. As soon as the fog lifted, he described, in the most enthusiastic manner, the Revolutionary events which he had seen. At West Point there was a grand banquet. One of the speakers alluded to the fact that at Valley Forge, when the soldiers were going barefooted, Lafayette provided them with shoes from his own resources, and then proposed this toast: "To the noble Frenchman who placed the Army of the Revolution on a new and better footing!" At the review of the cadets, Generals Scott and Brown, in full uniform, with tall plumes in their hats, stood by General Lafayette. The three, each towering nearly six feet in height, made a magnificent tableau, declares one record of the day. Returning from the Hudson River excursion, the party went southward, visiting Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. With ceremonies of great dignity Congress received Lafayette, and later voted him a present of two hundred thousand dollars, together with a whole township anywhere he might choose in the unappropriated lands of the country.