THE SIGHTS AND SECRETS

OF THE

NATIONAL CAPITAL.

I.

GOING TO WASHINGTON.

Ar present, there are but two ways of reaching Washington City. Visitors from the North, East, and West enter the Capital of the Nation by means of the Washington Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which they reach either at Baltimore, or at the Relay House, nine miles west of that city; and those from the South arrive by the Potomac River.

BY RAIL.

The traveller by Railroad, after leaving the Relay House, passes through a country naturally rich and full of resources, but sadly neglected by the inhabit ants. The land is good, but has not received the care. ful cultivation which has so benefited those sections of the Union blessed with white labor. The farms, with a few exceptions, have a dilapidated appearance, and

the people generally are extremely rustic and "oldtimey."

Between the Relay House and Laurel Factory, the road runs along the dividing line of Howard and Anne Arundel Counties, the former being on the right and the latter on the left of the train moving towards Washington. Upon reaching Laurel Factory, the Patuxent River, here a mere creek, is crossed, and the traveller enters Prince George County, the great tobacco-producing section of Maryland. The system of agriculture is better in this county than in those just mentioned, but is still behind that of the white-labor States. The road passes some fine farms, and the traveller catches a distant view of the Maryland Agricultural College, which institution, it is to be hoped, will do much towards improving the farming system of the State. Pine thickets, scrub forests, and swampy lands are in abundance. The stations, with the exception of the Relay, Laurel, and Bladensburg, are mere hamlets, springing up in the midst of lonely pine woods, which give to them an infinitely desolate appearance.

Bladensburg gives warning that the traveller through this lonely region is once more approaching life and civilization. It is a quiet, peaceful little vil lage, situated on the Eastern Branch of the Potomac, in Prince George County, Maryland, and is only a short distance from the boundary-line of the District of Columbia. The country here loses its flat, marshy character, and rises in a succession of hills towards the Potomac. On either side of the road, we see, crown