My hands and eyes and heart!”
for what a change has been wrought since those days of horror and crime! Now no Rebel guard is at hand to march you quickly and silently through the streets; but friendly faces throng to welcome you, to offer you seats in carriages, and to invite you to the hospitalities of hotels. And these people, meeting or passing you, or seated before their doors in the warm September afternoon, are no longer enemies, but tamed complacent citizens of the United States like yourself.
I was surprised to find that the storm of war had left Richmond so beautiful a city; although she appeared to be mourning for her sins at the time in dust and ashes,—dust which every wind whirled up from the unwatered streets, and the ashes of the Burnt District.
Here are no such palatial residences as dazzle the eye in New York, Chicago, and other Northern cities; but in their place you see handsome rows of houses, mostly of brick, shaded by trees, and with a certain air of comfort and elegance about them which is very inviting. The streets are sufficiently spacious, and regularly laid out, many of them being thrown up into long, sweeping lines of beauty by the hills on which they are built. The hills indeed are the charm of Richmond, overlooking the falls of the James, on the left bank of which it stands; giving you shining glimpses of the winding river up and down,—commanding views of the verdant valley and of the hilly country around,—and here, at the end of some pleasant street, falling off abruptly into the wild slopes of some romantic ravine.
In size, Richmond strikes one as very insignificant, after all the noise it has made in the world. Although the largest city of Virginia, and ranking among Southern cities of the second magnitude, either of our great Northern towns could swallow it, as one pickerel swallows a lesser, and scarcely feel the morsel in its belly. In 1860 it had a population of not quite thirty-eight thousand,—less than that of Troy or New Haven, and but a little larger than that of Lowell.
I had already secured a not very satisfactory room at a crowded hotel, when, going out for an afternoon ramble, I came by chance to Capitol Square. Although a small park, containing only about eight acres, I found in its shady walks and by its twinkling fountains a delightful retirement after the heat and dust of the streets. It is situated on the side of a hill sloping down to the burnt district which lies between it and the river. On the brow of the slope, at an imposing elevation, its pillared front looking towards the western sun, stands the State Capitol, which was also the capitol of the Confederacy. Near by is Crawford’s equestrian statue of Washington, which first astonishes the beholder by its vast proportions, and does not soon cease to be a wonder to his eyes.
Coming out of the Park, at the corner nearest the monument, I noticed, on the street-corner opposite, a hotel, whose range of front rooms overlooking the square, made me think ruefully of the lodgings I had engaged elsewhere. To exchange a view of back yards and kitchen-roofs from an upper story for a sight from those commanding windows, entered my brain as an exciting possibility. I went in. The clerk had two or three back rooms to show, but no front room, until he saw that nothing else would suffice, when he obligingly sent me to the very room I wished. Throwing open the shutters, I looked out upon the Park, the Capitol, the colossal Washington soaring above the trees, and the far-off shining James. I caught glimpses, through the foliage, of the spray of one of the fountains, and could hear its ceaseless murmur mingle with the noise of the streets.
I took possession at once, sent for my luggage, slept that night in my new lodgings, and was awakened at dawn the next morning by a sound as of a dish of beans dashed into a ringing brass kettle. This was repeated at irregular intervals, and with increasing frequency, as the day advanced, breaking in upon the plashy monotone of the fountain, and the rising hum of the city, with its resounding rattle. Stung with curiosity, I arose and looked from my open window. Few white citizens were astir, but I saw a thin, ceaseless stream of negroes, who “would not work,” going cheerfully to their daily tasks. The most of them took their way towards the burnt district; some crossed Capitol Square to shorten their route; and the sounds I had heard were occasioned by the slamming of the iron gates of the Park.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE BURNT DISTRICT.
Again that morning I visited the burnt district, of which I had taken but a cursory view the evening before.