The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1869-10-13
For THE CENTRAL. PRESBYTERIAN.
DAYS of LATE SUMMER in the VALLEY.

Landmarks Of the by-gone--Railaoay and
Canal-Lerigton--Old Churches and
| BWying- grownds-Remarkable Tomb.
shall at least crafty my own feelings in
retracing, with the pen, some recent wander
ngs in our native region. And when l say
"our native region, I mean to honor myself
by including in this plural that most venera-
Bile and weighty gentleman SO pleasantly de-
Scribed not long since by the correspondent
of paper, as seen filling the arm chair of
Permanent Clerk at the late General Assem-
bly, mean the Editor of the Central Pres
6yterian.
Yes; you and I look to that inter noun
tain region of Virginia somewhat as the He
brew, or the Greek of ancient days did to
some vale of his native land which had era
died him amidst its sloping hills or peaked.
mountains, feeling that twas the choice spot
of all that land, and therefore by most nat
ural logical sequence, the choice spot of all
the world. And who can gaze-even if it
be for the hundredth time-after an interval
of months or years, on those landscape
points, once the familiar ones of his child
hood, without thrill of emotion such as the
sight of no other object on earth awakens?
And, while man changes and passes away,
and even the most durable works of his hands
crumble to dust, some Of natures features
remain ever unaltered. There, for instance,
are the "Jump Mountain" and the North
Mountain, marking with the same un-
changed outlines, the outskirts of the scenery
which you first gazed upon in those early
years that you spent in the beautiful valley
of Hays Creek. And so with me the
"Brushy Hills still shew their wooded
slopes, the "House Mountains" mark their
unique figure against the western sky, the
North River rolls on under its romantic cliffs
and amidst its shaded banks, just as when
boy of five or ten years old, my eyes took in
the beautiful pictures of the landscapes
around my native Lexington.
Not quite an hour and a half suficed to
bring me and my travelling companion to
Lynchburg by rail and if General Malone
shall make the rest of the South-Side like
that which he has lately macadamised and
newly ironed some fifteen or twenty miles
down from Lynchburg, the name South-Side,
instead of being synonyme, as hitherto, of
what was rough and uncomfortable, and even
dangerous, will represent one of the most
elegant railways in the State.
The Canal packet is too slow for most of
us Americans. But why not enjoy the land
scapes when one is travelling? And certainly,
to any one who has the capacity to admire
nature in her beautiful, and in her bold, ro-
mantle and sublime features, the travel up
the James, through the mountain falls, pre-
sents attractions to draw the traveller great
way to view them. Mr.. Jefferson in his
Notes on Virginia, expressed the opinion
that the pass of the Shenandoah through the
Blue Ridge was worth a voyage across the
Atlantic to see it; and our James River
mountain falls are, in my judgment, far su
periOr in grandeur and beauty.
The enterprise and energy of the Rock
bridge people have secured them Canal nav
igation to Lexington. At the same time the
rise of the Institute and the remarkable
growth Of the College, have SO contributed
to the prosperity of the place, that having its
birth under an Act of Assembly, of date
ITS, which gave it an area of "13OO by
900 feet" and being village in my own
early memory of not much more than one
street, it is now extending it's lines of wide
built dwellings in various directions, and
throwing out patches of suburban buildings
over hills where there were once only pas
ture lots.
No one, nowadays, visits Lexington with
out making pilgrimage to the cemetery at
the western and upper end of the town, now
that the grave of I. J. Jackson has so hal