Pointe Coupee Democrat. [volume] (False River [i.e. New Roads], Parish of Pointe Coupee [La.]) 1858-1862, 1860-12-22
The Passage Of the Alleghanies.

y
wrought description of .the-passagc oil
the English party with the Prince OF
Wales, over the Pennsylvania. railway,
is from correspondent of the London
Times:
After passing the great Cambria Iron
Works, the scenery soon changes, and
the track lays for miles between noun.
taIns, and up a gorge, clothed from base
to summit with the densest foliage. At
any time OF the year, such ravine would
be grand and beautiful, but now, when
the coming winter has reused the forest
into quick warm life of color, and
robed the mountains in celestial tints
like rainbows, there was solemn eor-
geousness about the pass that is utterly
indcscribable.
The eye ranged over mountain and
valley till the mind was saturated with
their burning richness, and you turned,
as If for relief, from the great sheen of
t1nts to look upon the soft unfathomable
blue of the distant ranges, or watched
the stripes Of fleecy mist gathering with
the fall Of night, draping the hills in
siIvery streaks, like the haze over Tur-
ner's gorgeous paintings. This was the
entrance which begins the ascent of the
Allegheny Mountains, up which and amid
such scenes the train was to wind. For
long, long miles it puffcd, and toiled, and
struggled painfully upwards, but always
shut in between these masses of colored
hills, stretching upwards on each side
like ~feathery tapestry.
At last the train emerged from the
gorgeous defile near Kitianning Noun
tain, half way up the summit of the AL
leghanies, and nearly 1900 feet above
the level Of the line at PittsbnrS. What
a view was got from here! 1t was like
looking down through prism upon the
landscape from the summit of Rigi K ulm.
Distance had softcned off the warm. deep.
bright glow of the changing trees into
rich maze of gentle color, so varied yet
80 equal to its vibrations, that it seemed
like one grand arabesque of nature, a !
vast pasture, which covered the very
mountains, and shonc mp through the /
soft blue mists that gathered in the val.
cys in CLEANS of color like jewels under
water. The sun had set, but its train of
'ainbow light was still brilliant in the
vest, shedding farewell fcrvor over
'hc hills, and gliding down the valleys
n yellow beams, filling them with an
atmosphere Of gold. On one side in the
iistance all was light and life and gor-
seous rays; while up III the east re-
norselcss night came crowding on,
tIfiing out the brilliant woodlands with
} dull gray haze, and making the noun
aims loom heavily through tie darkness
rom the heavens like clouds of a coming
torru
Close and sheer above the train rose
precipicc, worried and riven into such
antastic ruins as only the decay Of
fountains show - stained with raw
lotehes, whose water course trickled /
own into old gray pinnaclcs, drapcd
nth silent moss, and here and there
ing crecpers dropping softly down from
tone to stone in riIls of vegetation, {
astling and waving gently with the ;
ind. Above the rock, like sunset clouds, I
re forest rose in all its glory, with fes- ,
IONS of glowing weeds, like old torn /
anners, hanging in melancholy grandeur a
ON their bouglls, with clumps of under r
ood, and sweet wild flowers still alive '
18th bloom, with humble, timid willows. I
ending in low obcisance before the {
rds Of the woods, the dark, tall, sombre. c
'changing pine. Maple and snmachs, '
and hemlocks, oaks, syca. c
ores, Iarcles. chestnuts and aspens, j
crowded together in every form and .
Ie of leaf, in every shape of branch. v
ddIing their tinted leaves together il
ie huge pavilion, to screen in and b
roud from view the deep, long, silent Il
stas that wandered into darkness be- Il
een the stems.
b.