ted into the boarding-house can, it became simply unendurable.
In this strait many private families were induced to open their doors
to the better class of strangers; and gradually the whole dense
population settled down, wedged into comparative quiet. Happily, my
lines fell in these pleasanter places; and, whatever the unavoidable
trials, it were base ingratitude in an experimental pilgrim among the
mail-bags to indite a new Jeremiad thereon.

Suites of rooms had been reserved at the Spotswood hotel for the
President and some of his Cabinet; so that house naturally became
headquarters. Mr. Davis' office, the "Cabinet-room" with the State and
Treasury Departments were located in the custom-house; and the other
bureaux of the Government were relegated to the "Mechanics' Institute,"
an ungainly pile of bricks, formerly used as library and lecture-rooms.

The State of Virginia, though not at all on pleasure bent in inviting
the Government to her capital, had yet been of frugal enough mind not
to commence preparations in advance of acceptance; and the hejira
followed so swiftly upon it that we plumped down into their very midst.
Miss Bremer--who declared Alexandria entirely finished because she
never heard the sound of a hammer--would have been more than amused at
Richmond. The great halls of the Institute were cutting up into
offices, with deafening clatter, day and night; and one of the Cabinet
secretaries--who did not exhibit, if indeed he possessed, that
aspiration ascribed to the devil when ill--swore himself almost to a
shadow.

Both these public offices faced upon Capitol Square; a large, iron-fenced
space, beautifully undulating and with walks winding under grand old
trees. On the central hill stood the old State Capitol, picturesque
from the river, but grimly dirty on close inspection. It is a plain,
quadrangular construction, with Grecian pediment and columns on its
south front and broad flights of steps leading to its side porticoes.
Below were the halls of the legislature, now turned over to the
Confederate States Congress; and in the small rotunda connecting them
stood Houdon's celebrated statue of Washington--a simple but majestic
figure in marble, ordered by Dr. Franklin from the French sculptor in
1785--of which Virginians are justly proud. In the cool, vaulted
basement were the State officials; and above the halls the offices of
the governor and the State library. That collection, while lacking many
mode