The Virginia tourist . now run-ning in straight ranges with almost mathematical decision,again rising into pyramidal points, again jagged and eatenin by the blue sky. And within this boundary lies rankafter rank of lesser mountains, a great expanse of coun-try, dented and worked up as dough or potters clay—plastic shapes, half regular in groups and rows, as if thehand of some great Power had pinched the loose soilinto grotesque shapes, and again as if its fingers hadtouched here in careless disposition the immature crustof earth. This is the mountains. It is the wild, dented arena,clad with un
The Virginia tourist . now run-ning in straight ranges with almost mathematical decision,again rising into pyramidal points, again jagged and eatenin by the blue sky. And within this boundary lies rankafter rank of lesser mountains, a great expanse of coun-try, dented and worked up as dough or potters clay—plastic shapes, half regular in groups and rows, as if thehand of some great Power had pinched the loose soilinto grotesque shapes, and again as if its fingers hadtouched here in careless disposition the immature crustof earth. This is the mountains. It is the wild, dented arena,clad with unbroken forests, that is the characteristic fea-ture of the scene, so strange to the lowlander. Homelycomparisons seldom miss being graphic. A companioncompared the knotted expanse to tobacco hills. Yetmore picturesque was the anecdote of an old lady whohad never lived above tidewater, and, having been trans-ported in the night-time on a swift railroad crossing theBlue Ridge, looked in the morning from the windows of. ALLEGHANT SPRINGS. 89 the cars, and exclaimed, Law sakes ! what a bumpycountry ! The name of the view is taken from Fisher, the artist,who made a picture of it last season, declaring that hehad seen nothing in Europe to equal its wild and un-kempt variety. It is seldom, indeed, that a mountainscene is so little disturbed by clearings, the signs ofcultivation, or even the habitations of man. Exceptingthe buildings of the Alleghany Springs, which lie at ourfeet, there is nothing in the intervening valleys to indi-cate the presence of man; while, in the distance, the hugemountains, dark, forbidding and sombre, do not relentfrom their frown until far away the dark blue growsfainter and fainter, and they soften to meet the embracesof the sky and mingle in the same light cerulean hue. Another experience of mountain scenery close to Fishers View—but a few miles on a road turnedto the south from that leading to the springs—occurs toour recollection. We had been ridin
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublisherphila, bookyear1870
