From Baltimore to Washington, which is forty miles distant, the country wears but a poor appearance. The soil in some parts consists of a yellow clay mixed with gravel; in other parts it is very sandy. In the neighbourhood of the creeks and between the hills are patches of rich black earth, called Bottoms, the trees upon which grow to a large size; but where there is gravel they are very small. The roads passing over these bottoms are worse than any I ever met with elsewhere. In driving over one of them, near the head waters of a branch of Patuxent river, a few days after a heavy fall of rain, the wheels of a sulky which I was in sunk up to the very boxes. For a moment I despaired of being able to get out without assistance, when my horse, which was very powerful, finding himself impeded, threw himself upon his haunches, and disengaging his fore-feet, made a vigorous plunge forwards, which luckily disengaged both himself and the sulky, and freed me from my embarrassment. I was afterwards informed that General Washington, as he was going to meet congress a short time before, was stopped in the very same place, his carriage sinking so deep in the mud that it was found necessary to send to a neighbouring house for ropes and poles to extricate it. Over some of the bottoms, which were absolutely impassable in their natural slate, causeways have been thrown, which are made with large trees laid side by side across the road. For a time these causeways afford a commodious passage; but they do not last long, as many of the trees sink into the soft soil, and others, exposed to the continual attrition of waggon wheels in a particular part, breaking asunder. In this state, full of unseen obstacles, it is absolutely a matter of danger for a person unacquainted with the road to attempt to drive a carriage along it. The bridges over the creeks, covered with loose boards, are as bad as the causeways, and totter as a carriage passes over. That the legislature of Maryland can be so inactive, and not take some steps to repair this, which is one of the principal roads in the state, the great road from north to south, and the high road to the City of Washington, is most wonderful! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ +LETTER + IV.