om this as soon as we could;
and next morning had to turn out at five. In the morning I had received
and shaken hands with five hundred people, so you may suppose that I was
pretty well tired. Indeed, I am obliged to be very careful of myself; to
avoid smoking and drinking; to get to bed soon; and to be particular in
respect of what I eat. . . . You cannot think how bilious and trying the
climate is. One day it is hot summer, without a breath of air; the next,
twenty degrees below freezing, with a wind blowing that cuts your skin
like steel. These changes have occurred here several times since last
Wednesday night.

"I have altered my route, and don't mean to go to Charleston. The
country, all the way from here, is nothing but a dismal swamp; there is
a bad night of sea-coasting in the journey; the equinoctial gales are
blowing hard; and Clay (a most _charming_ fellow, by-the-by), whom I
have consulted, strongly dissuades me. The weather is intensely hot
there; the spring fever is coming on; and there is very little to see,
after all. We therefore go next Wednesday night to Richmond, which we
shall reach on Thursday. There we shall stop three days; my object being
to see some tobacco-plantations. Then we shall go by James River back to
Baltimore, which we have already passed through, and where we shall stay
two days. Then we shall go West at once, straight through the most
gigantic part of this continent: across the Alleghany Mountains, and
over a prairie.

"STILL AT WASHINGTON, Fifteenth March, 1842. . . . It is impossible, my
dear friend, to tell you what we felt when Mr. Q. (who is a fearfully
sentimental genius, but heartily interested in all that concerns us)
came to where we were dining last Sunday, and sent in a note to the
effect that the Caledonia[54] had arrived! Being really assured of her
safety, we felt as if the distance between us and home were diminished
by at least one-half. There was great joy everywhere here, for she had
been quite despaired of, but our joy was beyond all telling. This news
came on by express. Last night your letters reached us. I was dining
with a club (for I can't avoid a dinner of that sort, now and then), and
Kate sent me a note about nine o'clock to say they were here. But she
didn't open them--which I consider heroic--until I came home. That was
about half-past ten; and we read them until nearly two in the morning.

"I won't say a word about your letters; except that Kate and