BY EDWARD DOUBLEDAY 



291 



slaves, who, I believe, are rarely ill-treated, and mostly very 

 kindly cared for. 



The next day we visited Mount Vernon. We left Wash- 

 ington just after breakfast ; crossed the Potomac on a long 

 bridge, with a drawbridge at each end, and proceeded along 

 a tolerably good road, but through a rather poor country, to 

 Alexandria. Between this town and Mount Vernon the 

 country is rather better; there is here and there a good farm, 

 but the soil appears much exhausted. The blue-birds, and 

 some others, have not yet left: do the blue-birds, or any 

 vireos winter here ? As we entered the Mount Vernon estate, 

 a ragged negro child opened the gate for us : there is a long 

 road through a wood of pines, junipers, red cedars, oaks, &:c. 

 with here and there a Persimmon, and an undergrowth of 

 Kalmicc, Rhododendra, &c. This road brings you to the 

 buildings at the side of the house ; you enter by a gate the 

 lawn at the back of the house, which a little resembles an old 

 English farm-house. On your right hand, as you look from 

 the back door, is the garden, a walled one, with a greenhouse, 

 which is sadly out of repair, having been partly accidentally 

 burnt, and never repaired ; it contains a sago-pahn, a lemon, 

 &c., which were there in Washington's life-time: the garden 

 is overrun with weeds. Many of the outbuildings are tumbling 

 down, and the house itself is much dilapidated. 



In front a plot is laid out as a flower-garden, in the old 

 English style ; little round and star-shaped beds, with box 

 edgings and gravel paths between them. I got some seeds of 

 an old honey locust, Gleditsia TriacantJws, Magnolia grandl- 

 flora, and a species of holly, from this place : every thing here 

 is as the general left it. After passing the house a lane leads 

 you by the side of a sort of kitchen garden to the orchard, 

 where is the general's tomb, or rather the family burying 

 place: this has lately been enclosed by a plain brick wall, with 

 iron gates, over wdiich is a tablet bearing this inscription : — 



WITHIN THIS ENCLOSURE 



REST 



THE REMAINS OF 



GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



