of these places is to make us in love with home, the comforts of which are greatly enhanced by the singular inconveniences of a watering-place !

Berkeley, in addition to its pleasant rural situation at the foot of a steep mountain, and its little green promenade by the side of the brook, has many pleasant rides on horseback in its neighbourhood. The most interesting of these leads to what is called the Caphon Rock, which is in fact a mighty mass of rocks, tumbled up on the top of a mountain, from which there is a noble prospect to the westward. One day I took a solitary ride there, while Oliver was gallantizing the ladies, a vocation for which his invincible good humour and unfailing vivacity, eminently qualify him.

The mass of great rocks, lying just on the western declivity of the mountain, would appear more singular, were such phenomena not so common on the mountains in this country. How they got there nobody can tell, or at least nobody but the geologists, who, like honest Sysiphus, don't mind rolling rocks to the tops of the mountains, even though they tumble down the next minute. From the summit of the highest point of this mass of rocks, there is a clear view of the valley of Caphon, or Cacapehon, as it is called in the maps. On the right of this valley, at its western boundary, the Potomac comes out from a break in the mountain, crosses it at the foot of another, in a line almost as straight as a canal, and loses itself again in the mountains at the eastern extremity of the valley. To the south is seen the

river Caphon, winding and turning in every direction, so as to form the appearance of several little green islands; and at last, with a sort of affected reluctance, joining its waters with those of the Potomac, just before it breaks through the eastern mountain.

The valley is surrounded, on all sides, by high hills, beyond which, to the west, higher ones appear in continued succession, paler and paler, until they are lost in the Heavens, by becoming confounded with the blue sky. Houses were dispersed at solitary distances, whose curling smoke, as it rose out of the trees, added to the peaceful character of the scene, and divested it of that melancholy loneliness, which affects us in contemplating those beautiful landscapes, which have never yet been appropriated by man. After awhile, I descended the mountain to where the two rivers form a junction, and forded them both, for it was a very dry season, and the streams of this country were very low. I could see along the banks of the Potomac, where the logs were lodged, and in the crotches of trees, sedge and branches deposited by the waters, at least twenty-five feet above the present level of the current. You can form no idea how these mountain streams swell with the rains or the melting of the snows; or with what tremendous force and velocity they roll and roar along at such times.

In returning from the valley, I went to take a last look from the rock. It was becoming cloudy, or rather hazy, and little showers were falling in some parts, while others were glowing in the sun.

The

light and shade was disposed in endless variety, and the general haze of the atmosphere softened the objects appearing through its medium, as past scenes are mellowed and endeared by the slight obscurity thrown over them by the mists of memory.

I don't know what may be the moral or religious influence of such scenes, since, although they assu redly give birth to pure and lofty emotions, they are apt to make us too much in love with this world. One thing, however, is pretty certain, that it is among such regions as these, composed of rugged mountains and rural vales, that the people are found most attached to their home, and modes of life. It is such scenes that they are found most to lament when far away, to remember the longest, and to cherish the most dearly. The natives of cities never get the maladie du pays; for paved streets, brick houses, and rattling carts, possess neither the charms nor the music of rural vales, hid in the bosom of the hills, or clear streams murmuring among moss-covered rocks. Liberty, too, dwells in the mountains, and where she lives, men are happier than any where else; for they are exempt from the train of petty insults and impositions, practised on the subservient race, and from that galling sense of inferiority, which, when they cease to feel, they are little better than brutes, and when they do feel, make them little less than miserable. Good by.

LETTER XL.

DEAR FRANK,

It has

This is a customary

FOUR days ago we left Berkeley Springs, and arrived here the day before yesterday. The country through which we passed is limestone, but whether of the primitive crystalline granular transition, or fletz formation, I neither know or care. several sulphur springs, one of which, near Martinsburg, is much frequented. In riding along the road on Saturday afternoon, we saw about a dozen fine tall young fellows, in white shirts and trowsers, shooting at a mark with rifles. recreation, in the interior of this state, as well as in the western country; and from this early habit arises that fatal precision in firing, which cost the invader so dear at New-Orleans, and other places, during the late war. While this practice continues, and every man can keep a gun without being sent to Botany Bay, we must ever possess a decided superiority in war, over other nations, where the people are so insensible to the blessings they enjoy under a good government, that they are obliged to be kept without arms, for fear they should be stupid enough to turn them against their best friends. Our good people, being better satisfied in this respect, are relied on for the defence of their government, rather than

feared for their hostility. They are enjoined, under a penalty, to furnish themselves with arms, instead of being obliged to fill their gun-barrels with tallow, and bury them in bogs, as in poor Ireland, that unreasonable nation, which even centuries of oppression have not yet reconciled to bondage.

Martinsburg, where we dined and slept, is bedded in limestone rocks, that appear in various fantastic forms above the surface, and give it a singular character of ruggedness. The waters seem, on some occasion long past, to have been mightily troubled in this place; and the famous geological crust of the earth has tumbled in at various places very abruptly, causing divers holes and ravines, bedded and sided with limestone. In passing from this place to Harper's Ferry, for the first time in my life I began to think seriously that there was some ground, or rather some water, for the system of Mynheer Werner. As for Oliver, he suddenly relapsed into the dropsical system, and deserted from Doctor Hutton to honest Mynheer Werner. The town of Martinsburg is situated in the midst of a rich and beautiful country, exhibiting the bright verdure and variegated surface common to limestone countries, and glowing with golden fields of wheat, a nobler source of independence to their owners, than paper banks, or mines of gold. Many Quakers are settled in this district of country; and wherever they are, peace, industry, and all the sober habits of life abide, and the earth is sure to put forth her best array. Were I to attempt the personification of peace, instead of the