Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1876-10-13
Rev! DIR. John Hall, of Il. ", on
the Virginis.ns.

the Virginis.ns.
(From Rev. Dr. Halls Virginia letter in the n Y.
''Ledger')
There is too much space covered by the
historic name of Virginia to admit OF It's
being seen in many weeks, and the writer
had little more than one. But that one
week afforded too much that was
new, pleasant, and encouraging to be kept
| to ones self. If a friend prattles to you
of what he has seen in his travels, OF IN
terest, perhaps, only to him because ne has
seen little, politeness requires you to listen,
at least in appearance. The case is differ
ent in writing. Any one who knows all
about Virginia can pass over this column,
and the writer will not resent it as all
| insult.
| My way lay along the line Of the Chesa-
peake and Ohio Railroad. and he who can
travel along it unmoved ought to be placed
permanently on the Jersey flats, and 1or-
hidden the sight of anything more plctu-
rescue than machine shop. There is
famous road in Italy which attracts by its
rapid alternat ions of dark tunnel and pic
tuIesque valley; but it is no exaggeratlon
| to say that as much could be extracted from
| the Virginian line without being missed.
! Every one who ever crossed the Alps into
Italy, remembers the zlgzags from which
he looks down into the valley he is reach
| ing. But the hills around are bare and
hard. The generous Alleghanies and the
| Blue Ridge are richly wooded to their tops,
and look as soft and green as the hillsides
around Lake Maggiore. Ali travellers by
the Pennsylvania Central remember that
attractive piece of fancy engineering
known as the horseshoe, and nobody has
gone to California without recalling the
doubling of ''Cape Horn, Whereyour train
winds around tie high brow of noun
tain, as if it had climbed up to give you
look at the valleys below. The traveller
across the Virginias can have delights like
these again and again repeated. The Rhine
owes no little of its attractlvenesS to the
battlements on it's sleeps. The New Ri
yer is not indeed like the Rhine In depth
OF breadth; but it has features OF its own.
Now it is a broad stream leisurely chatter
ing to the woods that Overhang It,; anon 1t
is in narrower bed scolding the rocks as
large as houses, that have intruded them
selves upon it from the hillSides, OF which
they grew weary. But for giant cliffs,
Eagles Nests, Lovers Leaps, Drachen-
fels, and mountain businesses in ruin, the
New River can compete with any stream
of travelled lands, and with this difference
in it's favor, that no cunning count OF
baron bold piled up those frowning battle
ments. Geological forces in an Omnipo-
telt hand, and with unlimited time in
which to work, placed those precIpltous,
castle-like crowns on the wooded hills, and
| n
namely, that behind them corn and wine
abound; for the Alleghanies are fertile to
their SUBMITS. AS one is whirled along,
it is difficult to say which challenges most
admiration-the river below, the cliffs
above, the graceful lines Of the hills, the
moving shadows over the green slopes of
the mountain sides, or the sublime au-
dacity which dared to run a railroad
through such q region. For a large part
of two days, one in crossing the Blue
Ridge and the North Mountnin Range,
and on from Greenbrier White Sulphur
Springs to Charleston in Western Virginia,
you feel some sympathy with huge rock
which in one place Overhangs the railroad,
and looks as if curiosity had brought it
from the opposite mountain to examine
the cars, over which, half in scrutiny and
half In patronage, it leans, as they pass un-
der it.
picturesque that there is danger of over
looking the salt works, the marble, the
iron works, the coal mines that one no
tees on his way, and which long trains of
freight cars, respectfully waiting on sidings
to let him pass, will not allow him to for
get There is no waste IN the worlds
wide domain, and these mountains. like
those OF better known land, are iron, and
out of them men may dig richer minerals
+lf,b ,,oc Of bn al Tho work
is begun. AS in all great enterprises that
effect the world, the earliest race OF Work
ers may reap but little OF the reward !,
possibly; but some time men will see the
gain, and admire the energy and skill that
clasped the Virginias III iron bands between
the open sea-board and the Great West.
Hills, and valleys between, and springs
among the hills-these are the features of
the region from which [ write, and of the
springs the variety lis great. Magnesia,
sulphur, and iron springs, Red and White,
springs sweet and warm, are so many that
one is bewildered among them. Let no
traveller direct his letters TO- be forwarded
to the White Sulphur Springs. He will
learn to his cost, after teasing the post
Office people in vain from day to day, that
there are ever so many White Sulphur
Springs, of which his letters will probably
make the tour. and then bring up at Wash
|
house with a white stoop in Philadelphia.
But whatever may be said Of other
springs, these Greeabrier County Springs
have an interest Of their own. Here for
many a year the most cultivated and in
fluentiaI of the South congregated. Here
Clay, and Calhoun, and Randolph, and
many like them, talked and planned. But
the genial atmosphere, two thousand feet
above the sea-level, and the hills as vary
ing in their looks and expires lion as the
sea, require no adventurous aid from his
tory to give them romance. No wonder
that DR.. James Alexander sought rest and
relief among these ranges, from among
which he passed away to the everlasting
hills.
There are two things which the present
writer notes with special pleasure as he
turns his face again toward the North
Mountain Range, the Valley Of Virginia,
the Blue Ridge and homeward, namely,
that in all Virginia he has head nothing
but courteous words, and that he has not
been solicited by mendicant, white or
black,
A GREAT SPEECH A. B. Coch-
rane, of Augusta, by invitation, addressed
| tho oitizanc of ihnrtv on Saturdav nirht