This was Count Luigi Castiglioni, who had landed at Boston in May, and after going through New England and a part of Canada, had come to New York, whence, on the 27th of November, he had set out for the South, reaching Alexandria December 24th, and spending Christmas at Mount Vernon. Count Castiglioni was a man of science, Chevalier of the Order of St. Stephen, P. M., member of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and also member of the Patriotical Society of Milan, Patrician of Milan. The book written by him, Viaggio negli Stati Uniti, is particularly descriptive of the useful plants to be found in this country, with a view to their introduction into Europe, either for the farm and the kitchen garden or for practical inclusion in the materia medica. This book and that of Dr. Schoepf, 1783-1784, give an excellent statement as to the natural history, the methods of agriculture, milling, mining, etc., of that period in the history of the fourteen States.
“Alexandria,” says Count Castiglioni, “numbers 300 houses and possibly 3,000 inhabitants. At times, although the latitude is only 38 degrees 45 minutes, the cold is so great that the Potowmack may be ridden and driven over. Such freezing weather is never of long duration, and many winters the river is not frozen at all. This newly established town has already received the name and the privileges of a city, and as soon as the Potowmack is made navigable will become one of the most flourishing of the trading towns of Virginia.
“When I was there the plan for the improvement of the navigation (suggested by General Washington) was beginning to be put into effect. Near Alexandria brick and tiles are made at a reasonable price, the soil thereabouts being a soft, viscous clay. They make lime there from the oyster shells, which are found in extraordinary banks. The people have two theories about these great shell banks, one being that they are due to successive inundations of the sea, the other that the aborigines assembled them, either for burial mounds or for some other religious purpose.
“The morning of the 25th of December I left Alexandria and went to Mount Vernon. There I spent four memorable days. General Washington is perhaps fifty-seven years of age, a man large and strong of build, of a majestic but kindly bearing, and, notwithstanding the fatigues of war, appears not yet to be aging. This celebrated man, who began and so happily carried through the American war, seems, as it were, to have been formed by nature to free this country of European rule and to inaugurate an epoch in the history of mankind. Bred to arms, he has not neglected the study of politics, and there is probably no one in America who has a better knowledge of the present condition of the United States or more sincerely desires their welfare. May Heaven spare him many years for the good of his country, for an example to it and to Europe.
“Leaving Mount Vernon December 29th, in the morning, I went by Colchester, a little place on the River Ochoquan, Dumfries, where there are several warehouses for tobacco; Aquaja (only a few houses), and fourteen miles beyond came to Falmouth, on the Rappahannock, whence it is the custom to ferry down to Fredericksburg, on the opposite bank. Fredericksburg, like Alexandria, is by law styled a city, and carries on a heavy trade in tobacco. From Fredericksburg many plantations are seen, larger and smaller. The large houses are generally built with a porch, and the outbuildings ranged at either side. The tobacco exhausts a cleared field in three years, and no attempt is made to manure, the cattle being kept at large in the woods. Two acres in tobacco bring about two hogsheads, or maybe 3,000 pounds. One thousand pounds (a hogshead) fetches from 27 to 39 shillings Virginia money the hundred.
“The following day I traveled thirty miles through a district where much tobacco is raised, and much peach brandy and persimmon beer is made. The peach flourishes so in Virginia that often when a tract of land is cleared the peach trees take possession of the whole area, nothing being done for the propagation of them except letting in the sun on the ground. The persimmon is gathered from a sort of Guayakana in the woods. The fruit would be very good to eat but for the skin, which has an unpleasantness in the taste. In the evening I came to Richmond, now the capital of Virginia, a town which has grown rapidly, and numbers some 4,000 inhabitants, and 400 houses. The town is built on two hills, separated by a brook, over which is thrown a wooden bridge, with side ways for foot passengers. The trade of the place consists largely in tobacco, and there is much competition from the other markets at Alexandria and Petersburg. When I was there a well had just been dug to the depth of seventy feet on one of the hills, which rise one above another from the James, here a river foaming among great rocks. I visited the spot. The earth removed smelled of sulphur, and had the look of rotted wood, ash gray, but turning white on exposure to the air. There were found at the bottom of this well, bedded in the earth described, many bones, some larger than the bones of cattle, and also remains of the aboriginal Indians, stone implements, etc., proof that these tribes had been in possession of the land many centuries before.
“January 6th [1786] I passed on to Petersburg, through Osborne’s. Blandford, Pocahontas and Petersburg are now incorporated under the name Petersburg. Great quantity of tobacco is brought to Petersburg, even from the North Carolina country, and is there exported to Europe as James River tobacco, which is the best sort.
“A mile from the town lives Colonel Banister, a nephew[H] of the famous John Banister, who gave up his place as professor of botany and librarian at the University of Oxford, and settling in this part of Virginia, at great pains and with rare judgment collected and described a number of the scarcest plants. From Colonel Banister’s I went, on the 9th, to Kingston, a rich plantation belonging to Captain Walker, in the county of Dinwiddie. The following day I visited Dr. Greenway, by birth an Englishman, and an amateur of botany.[I] I examined his collection with true pleasure, and the next day came again, since Dr. Greenway had given me leave to transscribe from his notes; I have included this material in my descriptions of American plants, relative to the medicinal practices of the aborigines. Five miles from Kingston the traveler passes the River Nottoway. The few Indians remaining of the tribe of that name live near Southampton Courthouse, forty miles distant.
“Having come from Kingston along this road, by the Nottoway and Hiksford (a wooden bridge leads over the Meherrin), thirteen miles beyond the Meherrin, I entered the State of North Carolina on the parallel thirty-six degrees thirty minutes. In this and other parts of Virginia, as also in both the Carolinas, there is found a very noxious serpent called by the inhabitants the Moquisson.
“Returning from Georgia and the Carolinas, after I had passed the River Dan [May 11, 1786] three miles from the North Carolina line, I came to the plantation of Mr. W——. In the evening prayers were read, but after the first verse the announcement was made that it was bed time, and we had better disperse. The next day I reached Colonel Coles’s, having come forty miles through Paintonborough and by a bridge over Banister River. I had met Colonel Coles at Richmond, and was received by him with great cordiality. When he heard that I was on my way to Philadelphia he gave me a letter to his brother, Colonel John Coles, who has a place on that road, near Charlottesville. I examined with pleasure, at Colonel Coles’s (on Staunton River) several artificial meadows of clover and rye grass, or wild rye, and also the Colonel’s stud.