University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER I.

Among the numerous advantages bestowed
on Virginia by a bountiful Providence, there
are perhaps none more important than the
salubrity of climate and rich profusion of
mineral waters of its transmontane territory.
The happy combinations of these blessings,
added to its central position, will not only
make Western Virginia the great Mecca of
invalid pilgrims, but its pellucid fountains, its
beautiful villas, its secluded glens and majestic
mountains, and the rich drapery of its
noble forests, will ever attract to it the admirers
of Nature's own workmanship.

England has her Bath, France her Aix la
Chapelle, and New-York her Saratoga—places
of fashionable resort, that present varied attractions
to the fancies of those who live for
admiration and the excitements attendant on
dissipation; but they want that calm repose,
that freedom from restraint, that omission of
conventional usages, which render the society

of our Virginia Springs so delightful. Who
would not rather luxuriate in imagination
with the inimitable Scott round the copsegrown
precincts of St. Ronan's Well, and
contemplate at leisure the various phases and
eccentricities of human character, portrayed
in this, amongst the most graphic of his creations;
or even repose with Frank Tyrrel, for
a season, at the solitary manse of the Cleikum,
enjoying the comfortable housewifery of the
notable Mrs. Dods, than engage in the routine
of follies and absurd ceremonies which constitute
the pleasures of a fashionable watering-place?

Whensoever the whiz of the steam-engine
shall have invaded the solitary grandeur of
our mountain defiles, then will the charms of
our scenery and society deteriorate under the
ruthless hands of a utilitarian generation.
The luxuries and conveniences of the present
age have introduced among us diseases to
which former ages were strangers; and had
not the science of medicine fortunately kept
pace with our progress in degeneracy, the
havoc of the destroyer would have been frightful.
But there is a vast proportion of human

maladies beyond the reach of medical skill,
and to which Nature alone, that kindest and
most beneficent physician, can administer
relief.

It is in this condition that Mineral Springs
are sought after, and in which it becomes
desirable to the invalid to know whither he
must direct his course to effect the object he
has in view. The Springs of Western Virginia
form a group unrivalled in this, and
perhaps in any other country. Great and
acknowledged, however, as is their power
over disease, they would be shorn of much of
their virtue, had Nature placed them in less
favourable situations. Had they all been
congregated in the city of New-York, it is
doubtful whether they would sustain their
present reputation. There is much truth in
the following remarks of Sir Walter Scott:—
"The invalid often finds relief from his complaints,
less from the healing virtues of the
Spa itself, than because his system of ordinary
life undergoes an entire change; in his being
removed from his leger and account books—
from his legal folios and progresses of title
deeds—from his counters and shelves, from

whatever else forms the main course of his
constant anxiety at home, destroys his appetite,
mars the custom of his exercise, deranges
the digestive powers, and clogs the springs of
life." Who would look for a riddance from
his ailments in the murky atmosphere and
crowded streets of a city? It is the sweet
country alone that can invigorate the enervated
constitution, raise the drooping spirits,
calm the agitated mind, inspire the finer emotions
of the heart, and impart elasticity and
strength to the moral and physical powers.

The citizen, like a boy let loose from school,
rambles over the fields, ascends the hills, culls
wild flowers, and is filled with admiration,
pleasure, and cheerfulness. The manner of
travelling, too, has much to do with the success
of his efforts to recover health. Steamboats
and railroads have indeed greatly expedited
locomotion; but like all labour-saving
machinery, it is doubtful whether they have
added much to the sum of comfort, security,
or happiness. Suppose a dyspeptic to start
from Boston for Winchester in Virginia, what
possible advantage can he derive from these
seven hundred miles of travel? He gains

nothing by change of air, for he is all the time
inhaling the unwholesome atmosphere of a
crowded vehicle. The velocity of motion
precludes his enjoying the successions of
scenery, and he reaches the end of his journey
moody, selfish, and discontented; but now
arrived in the garden spot of Virginia, he desires
to proceed to the Springs, he enters the
sociable stage-coach, rolls along the beautiful
valley of the Shenandoah, is jolted into an
appetite, and then the novelty of the scenery,
the raillery, fun, and anecdote of the passengers,
the landing at the taverns, the abusing
of coffee and biscuits, and long-legged chickens—these,
and a thousand other charms of a
stage-coach, make him forget his acid stomach,
and are worth all the pills of Peters, and Beckwith,
and Brandreth, and all other nostrums
of empiricism. Now he winds up the ascent
of the Warm Spring Mountain, amidst thousands
of clusters of the splendid Rhododendron
and the gay blossoms of the Laurestinus,
and ever-varying Azalia; now he reaches the
summit and sees the world beneath him—
mountains, and valleys, and pastures, houses,
and men, and cattle—all in miniature; he is
delighted and wrapt in meditation, and he inwardly
adores the majesty of that Being who
is enthroned in the heavens, and who looketh
down on the high places of the earth. The
inward man is now changed; the feverish,
melancholy invalid, weaned from his own
gloomy reflections and anticipations of evil,
is once more converted into a social being,
sympathizing in the feelings and pleasures of
others, and charmed out of fancied or real
sufferings.

If there is a scene on this earth calculated
to strike the mind with reverential awe, and
raise the soul from grovelling thoughts of
self to the contemplation of the God of Nature,
it is to stand on the highest top of the
highest mountain, and to look down on pigmy
man and his ant-hill habitations, and then
to reflect on his vanities and his follies, and
the end of all—his little resting-place. Never
shall we forget the emotions produced on us
by our visit to the summit of the Salt-Pond
Mountain, in Giles county, some years ago,
with a few friends. Our horizon was extended
to 50 miles around, limited only by the
azure arch of heaven, and presenting to the

eye the most sublime spectacle which the
human mind can conceive—

Having conducted our readers to the summit
of the Warm Spring Mountain, where the
air is pure and invigorating, and whence the
comfortable hotel of Col. Fry may be seen
through the stinted and shattered chestnuts;
his olfactories seem already to snuff the gale,
laden with the grateful perfume of the fragrant
coffee, and his mouth perhaps waters for hot
muffins and buckwheat cakes. Whilst thus
anticipating a more solid repast, it is like inflicting
upon him the punishment of Tantalus,
to lay before him a chapter of Dietetics; yet
the plan of our little work requires that we
should treat of this and various other preliminary
matters, before we introduce him into
the sanctum of mine host.