re also some small wooden
houses; though, according to the original plan, no houses were to be
built less than three stories high, and all were to have marble steps.

The _river Potomac_, at Washington, is navigable only for small craft;
but, besides this, there is a river, about the width of the Paddington
canal, which is dignified by the name of _Tiber_. The ridiculous, though
characteristic vanity displayed in changing its original appellation
from "Goose-creek" to that of "Tiber," has been happily exposed by the
English poet Moore. Speaking of this city, he says,

In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom,
Come, let me lead thee o'er this modern Rome,
Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow,
And what was Goose-creek once is Tiber now.
This fam'd metropolis, where fancy sees
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees.

There are, at Washington, four market-days in the week, and negroes are
the chief sellers of provisions; but the supplies are neither good nor
various. In this city rents are very high; and mechanics are fully
employed and well paid. Shopkeepers too are numerous; but its increase
cannot be rapid, for it has no decidedly great natural advantages. It
has little external commerce, a barren soil, and a scanty population; is
enfeebled by the deadly weight of absolute slavery, and has no direct
communication with the western country.

With regard to the manners of the _inhabitants_, it is remarked that
both sexes, whether on horseback or on foot, carry umbrellas at all
seasons: in summer, to keep off the sunbeams; in winter, as a shelter
from the rain and snow; and in spring and autumn, to intercept the dews
of the evening. At dinner and at tea parties, the ladies sit together,
and seldom mix with the gentlemen, whose conversation usually turns upon
political subjects. In almost all houses toddy, or spirits and water, is
offered to guests a few minutes before dinner. Boarders in
boarding-houses, or in taverns, sometimes throw off their coats during
the heat of summer; and, in winter, their shoes, for the purpose of
warming their feet at the fire; customs which the climate only can
excuse. The barber always arrives on horseback, to perform the operation
of shaving; and here, as in some towns of Europe, he is the organ of all
the news and scandal of the place.

In the year 1817, when Mr. Fearon was in Washington, the congress was
sitting, and that gentleman several times attended the