From the traditions handed down, it is known that General Washington was an enthusiastic rider after hounds, and it was at one of the meets that he first met Mistress Betty Custis; but he never was a devotee of the gun. There are several letters written by him to his patron, Lord Fairfax, of Greenway Court, which are, or were a few years ago, in the possession of Mrs. Custis, of Williamsburg, Virginia. In them the young surveyor tells in glowing language of the fine runs he has had and the brushes he has taken.
Opportunity makes the right man; but for the Revolution, George Washington, of Mount Vernon, Virginia, would have been a hard-riding fox-hunter, a shrewd bargainer at a horse-trade, and a vestryman of the Pohick church.
Washington’s nearest neighbor was famous George Mason, whose statue adorns Capitol Square in Richmond, Va. He lived a few miles down the river at Gunston Hall, which, next to Greenway Court, was in its day the most celebrated hunting resort in Virginia, and was the scene of many a glorious meet long after girder, rafter and roof of Greenway Court had mouldered in the dust.
ON THE BANKS OF THE POTOMAC.
Gunston Hall of to-day is the same building as that of over a century ago. It was built for comfort and not for show, for the walls are very thick, making the rooms warm in winter and cool in summer. It was erected in 1739, and every brick was brought from England as ballast. The plantation originally comprised 5,000 acres, and was, without exception, the finest game preserve in the country. Colonel Mason was an ardent sportsman, and cherished and protected the game on his land. At his river front the wild celery grew in the greatest profusion. If those old walls of Gunston Hall could talk, what entrancing tales they could tell of men of iron mould and giant minds, and maidens “passing faire”! There is a porch around the ancient mansion, religiously preserved, though it is in the last stages of dilapidation, where on the south side of the hall Washington and Mason were wont to sit during the long summer evenings, their senses lulled by the fairy-like scene, their eyes ranging over the grand, circling sweep of the river, and their conversation freshened by many a decoction of pounded ice, fresh mint, and Jamaica brandy. By the way, there are comparatively few people who ever tasted a real Virginia mint julep. The decoction, hastily mixed and as hastily drunk, is called a julep. Bacchus, save the mark! It is as different from the royal mint julep as corn whisky from the imperial cognac. It does not take five minutes, an hour, or a day to properly brew this wonderful drink, but a year at the very least. Here is the way Colonel Bob Allen, of Curl’s Neck, on the James River, used to prepare the julep. In the early spring, gather the young and tender mint, have your demijohn three-quarters full of the best whisky, and into its mouth drop the mint, rolled into little balls, and well bruised—about a quarter of a peck, loosely heaped up, to each gallon of liquor. Next, enough loaf sugar is saturated in water to melt it, and sweeten the whisky ad lib. This fills the demijohn, which is then sealed tight, and kept for the future, being rarely opened for at least two years.
The preparation of the drink is simple, and yet artistic. First, a julep ought never to be mixed but in a silver flagon—there is such a thing as a “perfect accord.” The demijohn being opened, the fragrant liquor is poured into the mug, with a double handful of crushed ice—not pounded, but crushed until it is like hail or snow ice—(a stout towel and a few blows against a brick wall will accomplish this result); add a few sprigs of fresh mint, a few strawberries, a tablespoonful of Jamaica rum, and you will have an elixir worthy of Jove to drink and Ganymede to bear.
But the swans from whom the Potomac takes its name, what of them?
In my boyhood I have often heard the septuagenarians and octogenarians of the lowlands speak of the vast migratory flocks of swans and geese that would whiten the river for miles. So many were they that in the spring-time, when the imprisoned frost was released from the ground and the surface of the earth became soft, vast numbers would swoop upon the fields of winter-wheat, and ruin the crop in a single day. It was a common thing for the farmers to employ every supernumerary on the place to guard the young and tender wheat.
