The Americans are a population of very thirsty souls. I do not know whether the cause of this is the dryness of the climate, or the habits of the people, or both combined. All day long, throughout the winter as well as the other seasons of the year, people are drinking water with ice floating in it. Many persons finish their breakfast with a large tumbler of this. Wherever men congregate, whether in the drawing-rooms of hotels or of private houses, or even in railway-cars, there is to be found the ever-present and ever-needed iced water. I found myself thirstier, and drank a great deal more in America than I had ever done before; and, like the natives, I felt a repugnance to drink water, however cold the weather might be, without ice in it. Now again in England, I am satisfied with perhaps one fourth of the water I needed in the United States, and I have no desire for the ice I regarded almost as a necessary there. CHAPTER VI. RICHMOND—WAY BY THE BATTLE-FIELDS—HANDINESS OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS—EFFECT OF SLAVERY ON THE VIRGINIAN LANDSCAPE—APPEARANCE OF AMERICAN FOREST—REPUBLICAN RELATIONS OF FATHER AND SON—STATE OF FEELING IN VIRGINIA—BILLIARDS IN AMERICA—WHY RICHMOND MILLERS UNDERSOLD BY CALIFORNIAN—WHY AMERICAN CITIES ARE LARGE—AMERICAN LIVING—PROSPECTS OF RICHMOND—INDICATIONS OF SOUTHERN CLIMATE IN RICHMOND—CHURCH MATTERS IN RICHMOND—INTEREST THAT ATTACHES TO RICHMOND AND TO THE HEROISM OF THE SOUTH. [Sidenote: _To Richmond by the Battle-fields._] In going to Richmond I made the circuit by Gordonsville, that I might visit the battle-fields of the late war which lie so thickly on that route from Washington. I went by Bull’s Run, Culpepper Court House, Manassas Junction, the Rapahannock, the Rapidan, &c. This ground was several times contested. Nothing strikes one now in these sites except the extent of the breastworks and rifle-pits, and of the earthworks for batteries. I was told by a general of engineers who went through the whole war, that American soldiers, especially those in the Northern armies, were always eager of themselves to throw up these defences. It was their custom to set to work upon them even when tired with a long day’s march or severe fighting; and there were occasions when they did this without tools. They acted in this way because they had sufficient intelligence to be fully aware of the advantage to themselves of earthworks of this kind, and therefore were desirous of being provided with them as speedily as possible. Most of the men, too, being young farmers or sons of farmers, had been accustomed to felling timber, and working on the land, so that every regiment was full of ready-made pioneers.