After this March welcome to Virginia, Dr. Coke passed through the State into North Carolina, and returned to Alexandria May 23d. He was at Fredericksburg and Williamsburg (where inquiring for a Methodist he was told there was one in the town, who proved to be “a good old Presbyterian” and hospitable), at Smithfield and Portsmouth, in Mecklenburg County, at New Glasgow, towards the mountains, and in Culpeper County. These sojournings are specified. There was a bad season in May that year, and near Alexandria the creeks were again difficult at the crossings. It was observed on this, the first tour, that in Mecklenburg County “they have a great variety of fruit pies--peach, apple, pear and cranberry, and puddings--very often.” About New Glasgow (on Buffalo River, just north of Amherst Courthouse) Dr. Coke remarks: “The wolves, I find, frequently come to the fences at night, howling in an awful manner; and sometimes they seize upon a straying sheep. At a distance was the Blue Ridge, an amazing chain of mountains. I prefer this country to any other part of America--it is so like Wales, my native country. And it is far more populous than I expected.” In April, 1787, Dr. Coke was a second time in Virginia, scarcely a fortnight. He had come from England to the Island of Antigua, and sailed from St. Eustatia in a large Dutch ship, February 10th, for Charleston. “In the course of our journey through North Carolina I preached at the house of a gentleman near Salisbury, who was formerly a dancing-master, and has amassed a considerable fortune, with which he has purchased a large estate. In traveling through Virginia our rides were so long that we were frequently on horseback till midnight after preaching in the middle of the day. Since I left Charleston I have got into my old romantic way of life, of preaching in the midst of great forests, with scores and sometimes hundreds of horses tied to the trees, which adds much solemnity to the scene.