me that he was on the field of conflict soon after the battle. Heart-rending were the scenes he described. For the slain they could scarcely provide burial, save covering the bodies with a sprinkling of earth; saddest sights of all were the hospitals in the woods, which had literally become a shambles of human flesh; the stream ran red with blood and was choked with the poor lifeless limbs of maimed humanity. We call in our thoughts, and bidding good-bye to Maryland, cross the river and enter Virginia.

VIRGINIA.

HE man who discovered Virginia died on a scaffold; but his spirit of daring yet lives, and is perpetuated in hundreds of families that bear well-known English names. Warrenton and Culpepper, Stuart and Lee, Webster and Washington, Scott and Denman are all dual names; looking one way to England, and the other to Virginia. We have always had a veneration for Raleigh's State, but like Mr. Hepworth Dixon, we shall find a "New America" in place of the old one of early historians. Yorktown was in embryo when Captain Smith was governor, and Poccahontas the guardian-angel of the settlement. For traces of these days we shall search in vain, but in lieu of them there is the real Virginia of times present. The rough anti-Yanks who dwell here in the towns, who flit about the bars of taverns, and who handle pistols lovingly as they would the right hand of a friend, tell of a degenerate national life; a life which was inevitably vitiated by slavery. To use Mr. Bright's powerful imagery, "The slave-empire was as it were a cradle, rocked under the shadow of the cypress, which latter has ever been regarded by man as the emblem of mortality."

Before the war the poor whites of the South were a very degraded class of citizens. Even the negroes scorned them, calling them "white trash." They had become what our younger sons in England would

have degenerated into under similar circumstances in a few generations. Fortunately there have been outlets for the latter. They have gone into the army, into the navy, they have found posts in India; or have departed to Australia, to New Zealand, to Canada, or to the gold fields of California and British Columbia. At home they would have scorned to labour, and would have looked down with contempt upon trade. In the South it was pretty much the same. Labour was looked upon as reserved only for Yankees and slaves; the United States' army and navy could absorb but a limited number of these discontented people. When the Republican party under Lincoln came into power, the Slavery party, unable to bridle its ambitious passions, took the field, dragging along with it the planters, who were really a very small part of the Southern people.

The neighbouring State is called Kentucky "the dark and bloody ground," how much more has Virginia earned this name of sorrow and tears? For four years it heard the clang of war-horns and the thunder of artillery. Its forests were cut down to make breastworks of chevaux de frise, and to light the camp-fires of the soldiery. In yonder clearing stood a church which a Randolf had built, with nave and aisle, and roof of tiles, like that he left behind in the old English village. Had you come here ten years ago, you would have found congregations mustering on Sundays; long lines of horses "hitched" under the sheds hard by, and Sambo driving "de massa's" family to church. A little later came another scene. "De young massas" and "de young missas" had gathered here to hoist the "secession flag," and when from the old weather-beaten tower fluttered the device of the new Confederacy, their joy knew no bounds. With all the enthusiasm of Irish who see again their orange banners

waving in the streets of Londonderry or Limerick, did these gay, chivalrous Southerners greet the emblem of a new-born realm. But it was not to be. The church is now unroofed and desolate; the blood of these very young men has drenched their native soil; these young

women are mourners.

It seems but a little while ago since Confederate soldiers passed up the Shenandoah, reaping and thrashing the corn on the march; but yesterday since Sheridan swept down the valley like a whirlwind, leaving behind him a wilderness like Glencoe; since Stuart's wild horsemen were charging the Federal lines, and firing into the railway trains. Armies were shouting and fighting in grim earnest before Richmond, now all is deserted, and the trumpet-flower is covering the mounds of earth with its bright tints. The Southerners were brave and chivalrous, but they were fighting in a bad cause. The Northerners were equally patriotic, and had a just cause. Both antagonists showed the valour and heroism of Anglo-Saxons. On a hundred fields, beaten oft, yet gaining ground month by month, the free Puritans bore down the slave-holding Cavaliers. At Antietam, at Fair Oaks, at Chancellorsville, at Winchester, on Atlantic Plains, at Spottsylvania and in the Wilderness was fought out the terrible duel. In the Northern Sunday Schools the children now sing a hymn, the spirit of which nerved the soldiers of the North. Strong with the rectitude of their cause, they feared no defeat-success must ultimately be theirs. Each soldier in the ranks was a freeman, a citizen, and knew full well the value of what he was fighting for. When General Burnside came down to the river before the battle of Fredericksburg, all through the night his 50,000 Northern soldiers were singing as they marched, the song of "Victory at last."