A gallows is a much less nerve-shaking spectacle than one of these awful cells, and assuredly, when imprisonment therein for life is substituted for death, it is no mercy to the criminal; but if it be a greater terror to the citizen, it may answer the purpose better.

I do not conceive, that out of a hundred human beings who had been thus confined for a year, one would be found at the end of it who would continue to linger on there, _certain it was for ever_, if the alternative of being hanged were offered to them.

I had written a description of these horrible cells, but Captain Hall's picture of a similar building is so accurate, and so clear, that it is needless to insert it.
Still following the sweep of the river, at the distance of two miles from Washington, is George Town, formerly a place of considerable commercial importance, and likely, I think, to become so again, when the Ohio and Chesapeake canals, which there mouths into the Potomac, shall be in full action.

It is a very pretty town, commanding a lovely view, of which the noble Potomac and the almost nobler capitol, are the great features.

The country rises into a beautiful line of hills behind Washington, which form a sort of undulating terrace on to George Town; this terrace is almost entirely occupied by a succession of gentlemen's seats.