73 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



Williamsburg. We arrived there in two days' 

 journey from Richmond. The distance is 63 miles. 

 The place lies in a pleasant, open plain, and even from 

 a distance commends itself to the traveller by a par- 

 ticularly cheerful and stately appearance, and the im- 

 pression is confirmed on entering the town. One may 

 count this among the handsomer towns of America, 

 even if not among the larger, the number of the houses 

 being only about 230. Of the honor which it once en- 

 joyed, of being the capital of Virginia and the seat 

 of its government, there remains to it now only the title 

 and the rank of a city. The houses stand at conven- 

 ient distances apart, have a good exterior, and on 

 account of the general white paint, a neat look. They 

 are commonly of but one story above the parterre, and 

 (except the public buildings) mainly timbered. The 

 straight, broad, high-street is almost a mile long; sev- 

 eral off-streets, running to the south and east, are 

 planned in the form of the letter W. The streets 

 are not paved, and thus are very tedious to the foot- 

 passenger during the hot summer, from the burning 

 sand and dust. All the public buildings are of brick, 

 and several of them comely. The east end of the high- 

 street is closed by the Capitol, or State-house, a large, 

 modern building where formerly the Assembly, the 

 Senate, the Privy Council, and the General Courts 

 were housed. It is spacious and well carried out, and 

 since at the time no better use can be devised for it, a 

 Latin school is to be there installed. Works of art be- 

 ing rare phenomena in this young country, I must not 

 fail to remark that in one of the lower rooms is a fine 

 statue, of white marble, erected to the memory of a 

 former Governor, Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Bote- 



