_Later_.--After dinner a good many adjourned to the drawing-room, Captain and Mrs. Ray, the Strachys, Rutherfords, &c. We had a scientific experiment with the shadow of the moon. Mr. Ray told a curious story of a wasp. He saw it advance slowly to a great _spider_, which the wasp apparently completely mesmerised, and then the wasp carried him off to a little house he had made, and deposited the spider next an _egg_, then another _egg_, and again another spider, till there was a long row alternately, then the larvae awoke to life, and _lived_ upon the spiders, who remained fat and well-liking, and apparently alive up to that point. Captain Ray says he believes Mr. Scott is right in saying that the American side will never be able to give us warning of storms which will be of any use, for not more than one in ten of their storms reach us; our storms come from the North and Mid-Atlantic. Captain Ray fills the same post here that Mr. Scott does in London, meteorological and weather prophet. Presently a nigger of fine appearance, with a companion, played the banjo and sung. It was really very pretty, and we stood at the porch listening, and numbers of white-robed figures appeared on the opposite side (the young women so arrayed walk about a good deal these hot nights), and a little crowd gathered round us. It is surprising how little music and amusement they seem to have. Letter No 8. _Washington, Wormley's Hotel, Monday, 6th._ The weather has been "exceptionally" hot, they say, for the time of year, Hedley quite unable to do anything. John went up the Monument, five hundred feet, and I went with Gibson to see the Capitol. The dome looks pretty from a distance, but the whole thing strikes me as large, handsome, uninteresting and vulgar; we inspected the Congress Hall and Senate Chamber. The view from the terrace was fine. At four o'clock Hedley and I accompanied Mr. Strachy to Arlington Heights, where there is a large cemetery for soldiers. It was formerly the country home of General Robert Lee, the hero of the Confederate War. It was intensely melancholy to drive through the graves of eleven thousand and odd soldiers, all killed in the second battle of Bull's Run (I believe), two thousand of them _unknown_, and buried in one grave, mostly young volunteers who had _just_ joined. Each white stone told the story of the bereaved families, and the destruction of so much happiness. The view of the Potomac and Washington is very fine, and one thought sorrowfully of the poor Lees who gave up their pretty home and _all else_, for the sake of Virginia, and in vain!