Note DA — LETTER XXVI.

When the assembly is in session, Richmond is full of country gentlemen from Western Virginia, real giants, taller, stouter, and broader than the giants who are exhibited among us for money. When I found myself surrounded by these men, with their loud voices and Herculean frame, I experienced the same feeling with the companions of Magellan, when they found themselves alone amidst a crowd of Patagonians. These good people, to testify their good will, lavish upon you the same weighty caresses, as those which the Spaniards at first took for blows, and when you feel their heavy hands fall like a sledge upon your European shoulders, nothing less than the frank smile that lights up their broad faces, would convince you of their friendly disposition. The first time I was in Richmond, I occupied the chamber, that had just been left by one of these gentlemen; wishing to consult some of the papers of the session, I sought in vain for any thing like his library. His whole parliamentary outfit consisted of a mass of empty bottles, a barrel of biscuit, a case of liquors, and the fragments of a huge cheese.