imposing feature in most American towns, are wanting in Washington. Even according to the American standard, there is not a decent hotel in the whole place. Willard's and the National are two huge rambling barracks where some incredible number of beds could be run up; but it is hard to say which is the shabbiest and dirtiest internally; and externally, neither of them have any pretensions to architectural grandeur. Of the lot, Willard's is the best, on the principle that if you are to eat your peck of dirt, you may as well eat it in as picturesque a form as possible. The aspect of this hotel during the time that the army was encamped before Manassas was indeed a wonderful one. At all times Willard's is the house of call for everybody who has business in Washington. From early morning till late at night its lobbies and passages were filled with a motley throng of all classes and all nations. With the exception of the President, there is not a statesman or general, or man of note of any kind, in Washington, whom I have not come across, at different times, in the passages of Willard's. Soldiers in every uniform, privates and officers thrown together in strange confusion; Congress-men and senators, army contractors and Jews; artists, newspaper writers, tourists, prizefighters, and gamblers, were mixed up with a nondescript crowd of men, who seem to have no business except to hang about, and to belong to no particular nation, or class, or business. In the parlours, there was a like

confusion. Half a dozen rough-looking common soldiers, with their boots encased in deep layers of Virginia mud, would be dozing with their feet hoisted on the high fenders before the fire. At the tables gentlemen, dressed in the mouldy black evening suits Americans are so partial to, would sit all day writing letters. Knots of three or four, belonging apparently to every grade of society, would be standing about the room shaking hands constantly with new comers, introducing everybody to everybody-"more Americano”—and adjourning, at intervals, in a body to the bar. Upstairs, on the floor above, splendidly-dressed ladies were strolling at all hours about the passages, chatting with friends, working, playing, and flirting with smartly-bedizened officers and gay young diplomatists.

In fact, barring the presence of the ladies, an ingredient we had little of there, I was constantly reminded of Naples in the Garibaldian days, and, notably, of the Hotel Victoria. There was the same collection of all sorts of men from every country, the same Babel of languages, the same fusion of all ranks and classes, the same ceaseless conversation about the war, the same preponderance of the military element, the same series of baseless contradictory rumours, and the same feverish restless excitement. Constantly, too, I came across wellremembered faces, and was saluted by acquaintances whose names I had forgotten, but whom I recollected at the camp before Capua, and more frequently still about

H

the cafés of Naples. What were they doing here? why they were employed here? what their rank might be? were all mysteries I did not care to fathom. I was content to answer by the expressive Italian formula of Chi lo sa? It is good, I suppose, fishing in troubled waters.

As to the public buildings of Washington, they add little to the splendour of the town. Of the Capitol, I shall speak presently. The Treasury, a sort of white marble Madeleine, would be magnificent if it were finished. The White House is beautiful on a moonlight night, when its snowy walls stand out in contrast to the deep blue sky, but not otherwise. As to the Post Office, Patent Office, Smithsonian Institute, and the unfinished pedestal of the Washington monument, I must refer the curious to any handbook of travel. I am ashamed to say that I never visited either the curiosities of the Patent Office or of the Smithsonian ; and I am still more ashamed to add that I do not regret my shortcomings. Stock sight-seeing is an amusement that, from some mental defect, I have an invincible aversion to.

Possibly this description does not do full justice to Washington. On a fine bright spring day, when the wooded banks that line the south side of the Potomac were in their early bloom, I have thought the city looked wondrously bright; but on nine days out of every ten the climate of Washington is simply detestable. When

it rains, the streets are sloughs of liquid mud; and, by some miraculous peculiarity I could never get accounted for, even in the paved streets, the stones sink into the ground, and the mud oozes up between them. In a couple of hours from the time the rain ceases, the same streets are enveloped in clouds of dust. In spring time, the contrast between the burning sun and the freezing winds is greater than I ever knew it in Italy; and in summer, the heat is more dead and oppressive than in any place it has been my lot to dwell in. I had many friends in Washington, and my recollection of the weeks I spent there is a very pleasant one; but, as a place of sojourn, Washington seems to me simply detestable.

I recollect Mr. Hawthorne saying, that his impression on leaving Washington was, that if Washington were really the keystone of the Union, then the Union was not worth saving; and in this opinion I cordially agreed with him.

CONGRESS.

THE one fact which redeems Washington from the imputation of being the ugliest capital in the world is the presence of the two grand white marble palaces of the Treasury and the Capitol, frowning at each other like old German castles, from the summit of the two hills that inclose the valley of the quondam Goose Creek and present Tiber. Still, in its external shape, as a matter of bricks and mortar, it was a constant wonder to me that the Houses of Congress were not grander than they are. The position, design, and material of the Capitol are all magnificent, and yet, somehow or other, it is not, to me at any rate, one of those buildings which, like St. Peter's, or York Minster, or the Madeleine at Paris, stand apart in a traveller's memory. The grand, half-finished front façade is turned away from the city, owing to the fact that the building was planned before the town was built. So, as a matter of fact, nobody enters, or ever will enter, by the front entrance except to see the façade; and all persons on