is so nearly symmetrical, that you are impressed rather with the beauty than the sublimity of the object. As you advance towards it, the perpendicular walls of rough rock enclose you on either hand, and leave but a narrow space of sky visible between the cedar-topped crags overhead. The arch seems now to expand and

and to awe you into a due respect for its superb majesty. When you look around and observe near the bridge some forest trees of the ordinary size, growing from the bottom of the glen and reaching with their tops the feet of others, which having fastened their roots in crevices of the wall, strive to reach the upper air, yet fail by far to attain the elevation of the arch; and when you look up to the arch itself, moving your eye slowly from side to side and from end to end over its spacious vault, it seems still to enlarge its amplitude, and to rise heavenward, until your breast labors with the grand conception; you think how centuries and millenniums have rolled over this changeless structure, and how other centuries and millenniums are yet to roll over its undecaying solidity; you think of it as the emblem of its eternal Creator; and the puny works of man dwindle to insignificance before this cloven mountain, from whose deep interior you look up and behold the everlasting rock, that bends its glorious vault from crag to crag, seventy feet in span, and two hundred feet above your head.

of a brook which glides over a bed of solid limestone. [ tain that supports them. Yet the form of the whole Within two miles of the main road, you cross the brook a second time, and go up an acclivity to an inn by the way side. Here you find that the road continues to ascend the slope of a hill, which gradually rises before you to the elevation of a mountain. Your course is west of south. A few yards beyond the inn, your eye is drawn towards a vista between the forest-elevate itself, to receive you beneath its ample vault, covered hill that you are ascending, and a similar one on the left. This opening is made by a deep narrow glen, through which you descry, at the distance of several miles, a portion of the high and many-formed blue ridge, bounding the great valley on its southeastern side. Attracted by this, you may not be aware of any thing remarkable about your feet, as you ascend the slope, until you observe that you are in the line of this deep glen, and apparently at its head. Casting down your eyes, you discover a sudden break in the rocks by the road side. The glen seems to terminate there in a deep, narrow chasm. You approach the margin, a few yards from the road; perpendicular cliffs open to a fearful depth under your eyes, as you lean forward and see at the bottom a small river, which seems to issue from a cavern underneath the road, and passing between parallel cliffs, is joined about a hundred yards below by the brook, which falls to the bottom of the glen over a high bank of limestone. You turn about, towards the opposite side of the road, to observe whence the deeply sunk rivulet flows. There you discover the same or another dark wild glen, with the tokens of a like chasm on that side. You go with breathless curiosity to the margin of this, which is about twenty yards from the other chasm. Here again parallel walls of rock crowned with evergreens, opening beneath it a different yet a more beautiful outline, a passage for your eyes down, and yet further down, till you lean over the abrupt brow, and with a shudder behold the same rivulet coming from the deep dusky ravine above and passing under the Natural Bridge. You might have crossed it unwittingly, if you had kept your eyes directly upon the road, as it continues to ascend the acclivity of the mountain.

"Desirous now to peep under the bridge, you return a few steps along the road; and passing by the side of the chasm among cedars and Arbor-vitæ trees that love such wild limestone cliffs, you find a projecting point of rock a little below the crown of the precipice, and a few rods up stream from the bridge. Here you see the massive thickness of the bridge, thirty feet of solid stone, with the arch gracefully spanning this great mountain cleft, down into which you look with dizzy head and mute astonishment.

"As yet, you have seen only one side of the arch, which being on a lower level than your position, precludes a sight of its vault. Curiosity soon prompts you to descend, that you may take an upward view. For this purpose, you must follow a path that conducts you south of the bridge, to the place where the brook tumbles over the rocks. Here is the nearest place where the descent is practicable. Winding round the base of a crag near the bottom of the glen, you behold from beneath the trees that overshadow your path, the high arch supported by its abutments, somewhat rude in appearance, but solid and everlasting as the moun* Thuja or thuya is the botanical name of this beautiful ever.

green.

"When filled with these contemplations, you move to a point in the glen above the bridge, where you see its beauty and magnificence under another aspect. The arch has apparently a different curvature, and the open

than it does when viewed from below. Shift your position to some other spot, where from under thick trees and beetling precipices you can take another look. Now the same features appear under another form, and as you move from side to side and farther or nearer, new transformations appear, such as you never observed in a work of art. You wonder how it is possible that one object, so simple in its general structure, should exhibit such an entertaining mutation of aspects-which are the more interesting, because they put at fault the rules of perspective, and consequently differ from the anticipated effects of your changes of position. If you study the cause of this, you will find perhaps that it arises from a general approach to regularity of structure, combined with deviations from it so various and so graceful, that the visitor sees at every step, some new and unexpected combination of forms and appearances, variable as the shifting scenes of the kaleidoscope, but all disclosing new features of beauty and sublimity, leaving on the mind the final impression, that this singular curiosity is a wonderful specimen of Divine art, which has diverted its workmanship of formality, but retained the graces of form and proportion in the general outline, while it has left just so much of unfinished rudeness in the details, as to cast an air of wild sublimity over the whole work.”

Here I closed my lame description. After a pause, Judith started as from a reverie; emotion depicted in her face, and lighting her fine eyes to a glow like that of the evening star. Turning to her brother, she said, "Oh, brother! how can we leave the continent, where

regular, solid throughout, and of considerable span ; but its elevation above the floor does not exceed forty or fifty feet. This tunnel would be a finer object if it were straight, so as to let one see through its whole length at once. But such as it is, or as I have heard it described by an intelligent visitor, (for I have not seen

such an object may be seen, and not go to enjoy the sight? I would cheerfully travel a thousand miles to see that bridge, so grand, so beautiful-Nature's sole specimen of divine art in the construction of a bridge. Is it not, Mr. Garame? Or does the world contain another?" "I think you are right, Miss Bensaddi ; though Hum-it,) you will readily conceive that it is a rare and inteboldt describes a natural bridge in the Andes; but it is not like ours. There is a solid arch, but very inferior, and also a broken arch, composed of loose rocks, which by a rare accident in falling down a deep narrow chasm, got wedged together, and continue firmly lodged against the sides at a great height from the bottom. The bridge itself is of difficult approach, and the bottom of the fissure is inaccessible."

resting curiosity, and one that would be much visited, if 'dame Nature' had not (as if jealous of showing too many of her works of internal improvement) hidden it among rugged mountains, in a place remote from the great highways of travel."

These notices of the bridge and the tunnel, with some allusions to various particulars of my native country, awakened a lively interest in my fellow travellers. I saw it and was glad. Their eager inquiries about the scenery, the population, the literary institutions and state of society, not only gratified my habitual feeling of patriotism, but strengthened, while it gratified a new feeling, as yet so undeveloped in the recesses of the heart, or so concealed under the disguise of other feelings, as to be unacknowledged even by consciousness. I knew only that I thought the bright-eyed beauty, who had been shining now for hours into mine eyes, to be the most bright-eyed of beauties, and to be moreover in mental qualities, the most attractive vision that had ever realized itself to my perception. I may have conceived the like, when fancy garnished some ideal picture of a lovely woman; but here seemed to be the living substance of what poets had taught me to imagine, but experience had never taught me to exaspect in this iron age of degenerate humanity. True, this lovely creature did not appear to be exempt from defects of character. I could discover on a few hours acquaintance, that she was subject to illapses of mental excitement, bordering on enthusiasm; yet did she not lose in my view one feature of loveliness on account of this over-excitability; for here I acknowledged a point of agreement in our tempers.

"Oh, yes-now I remember to have read of it. That must be a wild place-but it is not comparable to your Natural Bridge. It has less appearance of design in its formation-it cannot impress you with such awe by its immoveable solidity, nor with such admiration at its lofty proportions, struck off with Nature's careless, but master hand. It is not very wonderful to see loose rocks caught midway down a great mountain cleft, though the scene be romantic enough—but to see a real bridge, built by Nature for a highway, skilfully designed for it, then cut without hands out of the solid mountain rock-defying all human power to shake it, and human art to imitate its magnificence-springing its grand arch aloft-so mighty a mass, yet so high, so airy, so light, Oh, brother, can we not go to see it? I know that your time in America is limited; but if you will give me that sight, only for a day, you may hurry me rapidly as you please over the rest of the journey," "My dear sister, I would gladly afford you that pleasure, and gladly enjoy it myself; but I am doubtful whether we can spare the time. Yet, if we have a quick passage to Norfolk, we may possibly run up to the mountains and snatch a glance at so wonderful a specimen of Nature's handiwork-or rather un-handiwork, for Nature works without hands, I believe. I will tell you, Mr. Garame, what sort of fancy your interesting description suggested to my mind. Methought that dame Nature must be sitting somewhere about that bridge, probably hidden in a thicket of cedars on a craggy point of the rocks, watching the visitors as they come and look and wonder; and when they turn to go away, sending an elfin breeze to whisper in their ears, Ye are pretty two-handed folks to be proud of your works-are ye not ?'"

"Your pleasant fancy conveys a truth. When a man is under the bridge and thinks of himself and his fellow bipeds, it is with a feeling of humiliation that is salutary without being painful. But, Miss Judith, in relation to the inquiry which you made a while ago, I have another curiosity to mention-one of little notoriety as yet, because it is hidden in the mountain wilds of Virginia-which may boast of having the only curiosity comparable to the Natural Bridge: that is, the Natural Tunnel among the Cumberland mountains, in the southwestern angle of the State. Here, a small river flows between high mountains, along a narrow valley, which is suddenly closed by the junction of the mountains. But, nature has cut a tunnel four or five hundred feet long, through solid rock, and thus given ogress to the water. The arch of the tunnel is nearly

I had called up prudence, and set that dignified virtue to guard, with hundred eyes, the avenues of my heart against the insiduous Cupid. "But, then, (said something within me,) I have since discovered, that she is not to be my companion for a day only, but for a whole quarter of a moon-and according to the proverb, Circumstances alter cases.'" "Well, (said prudence, faintly,) if they do alter cases, it is not always for the better. Does this new state of the case diminish either the probability of your falling in love, or the danger of your falling afterwards into something less pleasant?" This remonstrance was so feebly uttered, that prudence was evidently yielding to somnolency. Oh, thou drowsy Argus! What subtle enchanter had so soon drugged thy hundred eyes to sleep?

This I well remember, that I sought occasion to set forth to these strangers all that was attractive in my country; and that, in portraying its landscapes, and whatever else might commend it to my fellow-travellers, my imagination then, more than ever before, bloomed with rich ideas, and my mouth shed forth every rising conception with a fluency of eloquent expression, which I can but imperfectly recall in making this record.

Among other entertainments which my native land affords to the visitor, especially if his mind be imbued with the love of nature, I mentioned the fine views from

the mountain tops; and I suggested that I had made | invalid for health, and all for pleasure, who love either some delightful excursions to the House Mountain near the charms of nature or the social erjoyments of a Lexington, and could never forget the splendid pros-watering place. But enough of introduction. Now pects that its lofty summit spreads before the spectator. for the House Mountain. This suggestion had the intended effect. My companions instantly besought me to describe my visits to the House Mountain. No longer coy, with memory and imagination on the wing, I was commencing a prelude to my story, when the coach stopped for dinner, and gave me the opportunity of arranging my thoughts a little. As soon as we resumed our journey, I was called on to proceed, which I did substantially as follows.

CHAPTER V.

This short isolated mountain is a conspicuous object in the picturesque landscape of Rockbridge. It stands about six miles west of Lexington, from whose inhabitants it hides the setting sun, and not unfrequently turns the summer showers, that usually come with the west wind. Being separated by deep vales from the North Mountain, and more lofty, it stands like an island of the air, with its huge body and sharp angles to cut the current of the winds asunder. Clouds are often driven against it, cloven in the midst, and carried streaming on to the right and left, with a space of blue sky between, similar in form to the evening shadow of

THE STUDENT'S ACCOUNT OF HIS VISITS TO THE the mountain, when the light of departing day is in

HOUSE MOUNTAIN.

To make my description more intelligible, I shall begin with a general sketch of the Alleghanian region of Virginia.

like manner cloven. Sometimes, however, a division of the cloud, after passing the town, will come bounding back in a current of air reflected from another mountain. It is not unusual to see a cloud move across the The Alleghany mountains consist of parallel ridges, Great Valley in Rockbridge, shedding its contents by casting off short spurs and sometimes long branches, the way-strike the Blue Ridge-whirl about, and that vary from the general direction; but they always pursue another course until it is exhausted. The traembrace rich vallies watered by clear streams, that veller, after the shower is passed, and the clear suneither murmur over pebbly beds or dash over rough shine has induced him to put away his cloak and umrocks. To find their mother ocean, they had to break | brella, is surprised by the sudden return of the rain, from the same quarter towards which he had seen it pass away.

their way through the ridges that run between them and the sea coast. Some of them as the Powhatan or James river, have made several breaches through successive ridges, two thousand feet, more or less, in height.

What is called the House Mountain, consists in fact of two oblong parallel mountains, connected about midway of their height, and rising upwards of 1500 feet above the surrounding country. The summit ridges are each about a mile long, and resemble the roof of a house; the ends terminate in abrupt precipices, and all around huge buttresses, with their bases spread far out into the country, rise up against the sides and taper to points which terminate some hundreds of feet below the summit. These buttresses, or spurs of the mountain, are separated by vales which run up between them.

The line of continued mountain nearest the sea is the Blue Ridge, which beginning in Pennsylvania about the Susquehanna, increases in height, ruggedness and diversity of form, until it stretches its vast length into the Carolinas, where, being joined by the chief Alleghany, it becomes the great father mountain of the system, the huge, wild, prolific source of a thousand rivers, that gather themselves together in the deep vallies, and with their several aggregations of water run brawling and working their ways out in every direction, The students of our college make parties every to seek the common source and depository of all sublu-summer, to visit this mountain for the sake of the nary waters,

prospect. They set out in clear weather and spend the night on the mountain, that they may enjoy the morning beauties of the scene, which are by far the most interesting. Now the ladies too have begun to

Between the Blue Ridge and the North Mountain, lies the Great Valley, my native land, "the loveliest land on the face of the earth." (Here I detected a smile, instantly suppressed, on the faces of my audi-adventure on this romantic enterprise. Last summer I tors; but not a smile of contempt, I was sure.)

The Valley is full twenty miles wide near the Potomac, but narrows to twelve miles in Rockbridge; where it is infinitely diversified with mountain hill, knoll, slope, vale, dell, ravine, cliff, rift, with every other modification of surface that is named, and that is not named, except plains and lakes, whereof we have none; but we have clear limestone springs, gushing from forest-crowned hills, and "giving drink to every beast of the field."

Westward of the Great Valley, for many miles, the country is composed altogether of high mountains with narrow vales between. But here, and further west, fountains of health flow; a hundred mineral springs of different qualities, with a pure atmosphere, delightful summer weather, shady forests, beauty in the vale and sublimity in the mountain; all combine to invite the

had a delightful ride by moonlight with a party of them and their male friends. We pattered along, while the whole country was hushed in sleep,-through woods, by meadow sides, over hills, and up a vale that led to our object. The vale was at first broad, and spread open its fields to catch the flood of moon-beams; then it contracted itself, swelled up its dark rocky sides, and entered the mountain between two of the buttresses; it terminated high up against the steep rocky side of the summit ridge. Here we had to dismount. We tied our horses in the forest, and taking to our feet on ground piebald with moonshine and shadows, we began to scale the rocky steep; clambering over stony fragments and trunks of fallen trees, catching hold on bush and jutting rock; now working our laborious way; then stopping to recover breath for another effort; till we succeeded in mounting the summit and

taking our stations, some on projecting top-rocks, and | a dozen college youngsters, let loose and exulting in the the more hardy on branches of storm-battered trees; wild freedom of nature. before the sun, whose rising we aimed to see, had surmounted the piny top of the Blue Ridge. He soon rose; but in a haze, shorn of half his beams; and therefore with much less worshipful glory, than when he ascends his mountain throne, full-robed, amidst the pure blue of the ether, when no earthborn vapor sul-above were perfectly serene; the stars looked down lies its transparency.

This time the weather proved eminently favorable. We slept two or three hours and rose before the dawn, that we might watch for the opening of the scene. Our fire had sunk to embers; the desolation and death-like stillness of our situation were impressive. The heavens

upon us with all their eyes, from mansions of the purest blue; but the lower world was enveloped in a dense fog. We seemed to have been separated from the society of the living on the face of the earth, and to have ascended to another sphere, where we held communion only with the silent orbs and the blue ether that drew our spirits into their heavenly fields. The merriment of the evening was changed into sober thoughtfulness. We spoke little, and that with a low voice; and each one seemed disposed to retire from his fellows, that he might give his mind to contemplation. Such at least was my case. I withdrew to a naked rock that crown

My first trip, some years ago, was with a party of students only. Then we were disappointed in our hopes by a sudden clouding up of the atmosphere, before we reached the place; and we should have made an unprofitable trip, had not an unexpected scene afforded us a partial reward for the toils of the ascent. We lodged like Indian hunters, not far from the summit; where an overhanging rock affords shelter, and a spring trickling through a crevice supplies drink to the weary climber. After we had slept awhile, one of the company startled us with the cry of fire. We saw with surprise, in the direction of the Blue Ridge, a confla-ed a precipice, and turning my face to the east, waited gration that cast a lurid glare through the hazy atmos- for the sun, if not with the idolatrous devotion, yet with phere. The flame rose and spread every moment, the deep seriousness of the Persian fire-worshippers. tapering upwards to a point and bending before the Presently the dawn began to show, at the distance of night-breeze. At first, we conjectured that a great twelve miles, the dim and wavering outline of the Bluebarn was in flames, and then that the beautiful village Ridge in the eastern horizon. When the morning light of Lexington was, as it had been once before, wrapped | had opened the prospect more distinctly, the level surin devouring fire. Whilst we gazed anxiously at the face of the mist which covered the valley became appafiery object, it rose higher every moment, and in rising rent, and the mountain tops that rose through it in seemed now to grow less at the lower extremity, until almost every direction, looked like islands in a white, finally it resembled the last flicker of a dying lamp-silent and placid ocean. I gazed with delighted imagi. flame; and then it stood forth, to our joyful surprise-nation over this novel and fairy scene, so full of sublithe MOON, half in the wane, reddened and magnified by mity in itself, and from the sober twilight in which it the misty air, beyond what we had ever seen. Its light appeared, so much like the creation of fancy in the viafforded us an obscure perception of the most promi- sions of a dream. The trees and rocks of the nearest nent objects in the landscape. Shadowy masses of islands began to develope their forms; more distant mountains darkened the sight in various directions, and islands were disclosed to view, various in size and shape, spots of dusky white, glimmering here and there, indi- and variously grouped; but all were wild, desolate and cated fields and houses. We perceived just enough to still. I felt as if placed in a vast solitude, with lands make us eager for a more distinct view; but when the and seas around me, hitherto undiscovered by man. morning came, the cloudy confusion of the atmosphere concealed every thing; and a rain succeeding, put us quickly to scampering down the mountain, and sent us home as dirty as pigs, and as wet as drowned rats; and with the wings of our fancies completely bedrenched and bedraggled into the bargain. We were cured of scene-hunting and gypsying in the wild mountains for that season. But by the next summer my spirit was revived, and I longed for another excursion to the great observatory that was daily standing aloft with its rocky solitudes in the back ground of our landscape, and stimulating the spirit of the students to try what romantic incidents and wide prospects a night's lodging on its high eminence might yield.

Whilst I looked with increasing admiration over the twilight scene, and was endeavoring to stretch my vision into the dusky regions far away, my attention was suddenly attracted by sparks of dazzling brilliancy, shooting through the pines on the Blue Ridge. In the olden time, when Jupiter's thunderbolts were forged in the caverns of Etna, never did such glittering scintil lations fly from beneath the giant forge hammers of the Cyclops. It was the sun darting his topmost rays over the mountain, and dispersing their sparkling threads through the pure serene of the atmosphere.

Very soon the fancied isles around me caught the splendid hue of the luminary, and shone on their eastern sides like burnished gold. In the west, where they were most thickly strewn over the white sea of mist, and where their bright sides alone appeared, I could fancy that they were the islands of the happy, (so famous in ancient story,) where the spirits of the good reposed in the balmy light of eternal spring. But the

So one fair midsummer's day we set off, a dozen of us, full of high enterprise, and laden with whatever might be necessary for use and comfort. This time we lodged on the ærial summit of the mountain, where we built a fire of logs, that illuminated the rocks and trees about our wild encampment, and blazed like a beacon-pleasing illusion was soon dissipated. The surface of fire before the eyes of nearly all Rockbridge. We prepared our coffee, drew forth our bread and cheese, and ate our supper merrily; and for hours we made those gray rocks hear, what perhaps they had never heard before, the jests and quips and shouts and laughter of

the mist, hitherto lying still, became agitated like a boiling caldron. Every where light clouds arose from it and melted away. Then the lower hills of the country began to show their tops, as if they were emerging from this troubled sea. After the sun had

displayed his full orb of living fire, the vapory commo- | delightful contemplation, to descend from our ærial tion increased, and in a little while the features of the height, and to return with gratified feelings to our collow country began to be unveiled. The first audible lege and our studies again. sound from the living world, the barking of a farmer's dog, arose from a vale beneath, and completely broke the enchantment of the twilight scene. When the sun was an hour high, the fog only marked the deep and curvilinear beds of the river.

On the western side the scenery differs from that on the eastern. Here it seemed as if all the mountains of Virginia had assembled, to display their loftiness and their length. Line after line, ridge behind ridge, peered over one another and crossed the landscape, this way and that way. Here a huge knob swelled up his rotundity-there a peak shot up his rough stony point-The inhabitant of the plain and of the town may be out of a huddle of inferior eminences, or from the backs of ridges that stretched away far and wide, until they faded off in the blue of the atmosphere, and all distinction of form and color was lost in the distance.