46 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



roads these ordinaries are commodious enough, when 

 there are not too many guests at one time. Coffee, 

 ham, and eggs are commonly the sole entertainment. 

 Ham and hog's flesh are great delicacies to the Vir- 

 ginians, without which no landlord thinks he could do 

 business. 



From Fredericksburg to Richmond we had 79 miles 

 to go ; really the distance is not so much, but the bad 

 condition of the roads and the number of broken bridges 

 made detours necessary. The road for the first half of 

 the way was mainly through extensive woods again, 

 pitch-pine for the most part, but marshy spots were 

 numerous, full of holly, calamus, and the smooth win- 

 ter-berry. These swamps, which are often large, con- 

 tain good soil, and do not deserve to be so neglected, for 

 in most of them it would not be difficult to effect a 

 drainage. In these forests also many plantations lie 

 scattered about, which are not always to be remarked 

 from the road. The Pamunky and Mattapany are two 

 streams of the region, inconsiderable there, which rise 

 in the South Mountain and by their junction form .the 

 York River. On the banks of the Pamunky lay several 

 French metal cannon, 24-pounders, with their names 

 inscribed, e. g. I'Advocat, le Demoniaque &c, and all 

 with the motto : Ultima ratio re gum. They had been 

 brought there by water in the year 1781, as a pre- 

 cautionary measure, and being found by some of Corn- 

 wall's troops, were spiked and rolled into the river, 

 out of which they are just now being fetched again. 

 Two miles from the Pamunky, we arrived at Hannover 

 Court-house. As once it was the custom in Europe, in 

 the furtherance of piety, to place tap-houses near re- 

 mote churches and chapels, so in America, to the ad- 



