200 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



river, and we had much ado to push through it. The stream is 

 five or six miles broad, and had a noble appearance. 



The situation of Richmond is beautiful. In the Capitol is 

 a very interesting statue of Washington, the only strictly accu- 

 rate one in existence. It is by Heudon, a French artist, brought 

 from France for the purpose, and domiciled for months at Mount 

 Vernon, while he took casts and measurements of Washington 

 in every position ; and here he has given us in marble the man 

 as he stood, in every minutia of his dress, and the figure in exact 

 proportion, yet withal, he has managed to preserve sufficient 

 grace. The head is perhaps too much thrown back, but this 

 is said to be very characteristic of him, so is only the more 

 truthful. I stood long before it, and felt how much better it is 

 that historical statues should be true to their generation, and not 

 draped in pseudo-classical costume to the destruction of all truth. 



I left Richmond for Wilmington, which I reached after 

 twenty-four hours' travel by railway. The route, which lay nearly 

 the whole way through a dense pine-forest, is quite level, and, 

 for more than a hundred miles, as straight as an arrow. You 

 cannot expect much account of such a journey unless I had 

 reckoned the trees as we passed them. Here and there was a 

 swamp full of Magnolias, Rhododendrons and other glossy-leaved 

 shrubs, which were a relief to the monotony of the pines. As we 

 came south, the trees began to be hung with " long moss," a 

 slender species of TiUandsia. To see old dead boughs, clothed 

 with long streamers of these little Epiphytes, waving to and 

 fro in the wind, has a strange and very sombre appearance. 

 Now and then we came to spaces where the pines had perished, 

 their trunks and arms being left standing, naked and scraggy. 

 In some places it may have been caused by fire, but in others 

 it seemed to me as if they were gradually dying out, as the 

 swamp began to collect about their roots, and I thought of the 

 silent slow growth of bogs, and how here might be a morass in 

 which future generations would dig up bog-deal, and wonder 

 how a forest should ever have grown there. But possibly the 

 railway will prevent this consummation. Most of the trees had 

 gashes in the bark, for the purpose of making the turpentine 

 now ; and at various spots along the road were depots, where 

 the material is collected and cashed. It seemed to be the 

 only produce of the district, which is what is called a pine- 



