University of Virginia Library

Washington College, one of the oldest literary institutions south of the Potomac,
was established as an academy in the year 1776, under the name of Liberty Hall, by
the Hanover Presbytery, (then embracing the whole of the Presbyterian church in Virginia.).
Its first rector was the Rev. William Graham, a native of Pennsylvania, and a
graduate of Nassau Hall, N. J. Mr. Graham was a man of extensive acquirements,
great originality of thought, warm patriotism, and indomitable energy; and to his exertions,
more than to those of any other one man, the institution owes its establishment, and
its continuance during the troublous times of our revolutionary struggle. Liberty Hall
received its charter from the state in the year 1782, still retaining the name of an
academy, although its charter authorized it "to confer literary degrees, to appoint professors,
as well as masters and tutors," and, in short, to perform all the acts which
properly belong to a college. In the year 1796, it received its first regular endowment,
from the hands of the "Father of his country." The legislature of Virginia, "as a
testimony of their gratitude for his services," and "as a mark of their respect," presented
to Gen. Washington a certain number of shares in the old James' River improvement,
a work then in progress; this Washington, unwilling to accept for his own
private emolument, presented to Liberty Hall Academy. To perpetuate the memory
of this noble act, the name of the institution was, by the unanimous vote of the trustees,
changed to Washington Academy; and in the year 1812, by an act of the legislature,
still further changed to Washington College. Subsequently, John Robinson,
Esq., a soldier of Washington, emulating the example of his illustrious leader, bequeathed
his whole estate to the college; and still more recently, the Cincinnati Society of Va.,
after having accomplished the patriotic purpose for which it was established, bequeathed
the residue of its funds to the college, on condition that, provision should be made for
military instruction in the institution.

George A. Baxter, D. D., succeeded Mr. Graham. About the year 1827, he resigned
the presidency, and was succeeded by Louis Marshall, M. D., of Kentucky. Mr. Henry
Vethake succeeded him in Feb., 1835. His successor was the present president of the
college, the Rev. Henry Ruffner, D. D., who was inaugurated Feb. 22d, 1837.

Like most of the older literary institutions of our country, Washington College has
had its seasons of adversity as well as prosperity. At the present time, its prospects
appear more flattering than they have done at any previous period since its first establishment.
For the last four or five years its number of students has varied from 80 to
100, as large a number as its buildings would accommodate. Additional buildings, now
just completed, will enlarge the accommodations so that it can receive about 150;
probably as large a number as the region from which the college draws its patronage,
will furnish for years to come. The faculty of the institution at this time consists of,
Henry Ruffner, D. D., president, and professor of ethics and rhetoric; Philo Calhoun,
A. M., prof. of mathematics; Geo. E. Dabney, A. M., prof. of languages; Geo. D.
Armstrong, A. M., Robinson prof. of natural philosophy and chemistry; Capt. Thomas
H. Williamson, Cincinnati prof. of military tactics. The bill of expenses in the college
are: Treasurer's bill for tuition, room-rent, deposite, and matriculation, $42 per annum;
board $7½ to $8 per month; washing, fuel, candles, bed, &c., about $3 per month.
Total, per session of 10 months, about $140.[1] With such advantages as Washington
College enjoys, in its location in the midst of one of the most fertile and healthy portions
of the great valley of Virginia, surrounded by a population, moral, frugal, and industrious
in their habits, and prizing highly the advantages of a liberal education, we
confidently expect that its prosperity will continue; and that it will continue a lasting
monument to the wisdom, as well as the benevolence, of the illustrious man whose name
it bears.

The Virginia Military Institute.—This is a military academy, established in connection
with Washington College by an act of the legislature, passed during the session
of 1838-'39. Formerly, a guard of soldiers was maintained at the expense of the state,
for the purpose of affording protection to the arms deposited in the Lexington arsenal,
for the use of the militia of western Virginia. About the year 1836, some zealous
friends of education, among whom we may mention Gov. Jas. McDowell, thinking that
the arsenal might be converted into an educational institution, without any increase of
expense to the state, and affording at the same time equal security to the public arms,
applied to the legislature to make the necessary change. After various delays, this application
resulted in the establishment of the Virginia Military Institute, in the year

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The course of instruction is a three years' course, requiring for admission a good
common school education. It embraces the full course of mathematics and natural
science taught in our colleges, with drawing, military tactics, and engineering, and so
much of the French and Latin languages as the student's other studies leave him time
to acquire during the first two years of his course. The corps of instructors consists of
Col. Francis H. Smith, A. M., prof. of mathematics; Maj. John T. L. Preston, A. M.,
prof. of languages and English literature; Capt. Thomas H. Williamson, instructor in
tactics and drawing; Geo. D. Armstrong, A. M., prof. of chemistry, &c., assisted by
such cadets as are detailed, from time to time, to assist in the business of instruction.
The annual expenses of a student at the institute are about the same as those of one at
Washington College. The present number of students is 61, of whom 22 are maintained
at the expense of the state.

"The water contains a rare and valuable combination of materials: the principal
are iodine, sulphates of iron and alum, magnesia, and sulphuric acid. The water is
tonic, increasing the appetite and promoting digestion. It is alterative, exciting the
secretions of the glandular system generally, and particularly of the liver and kidneys;
it is cathartic, producing copious dark bilious evacuations; and it also effects a determination
to the surface, increasing the perspiration.

"From the efficacy of these waters in purifying the blood, they are invaluable in the
cure of all diseases of the skin, and all indolent sores, not disposed to a healthy action.
In the use of them for such diseases, if the disease of the skin appears to be irritated at
first, or if the ulcers become more inflamed, and discharge more freely; let not this
circumstance alarm any one, or deter him from persevering in their use. These are the
evidences of the good effects of the waters, in expelling the vitiated humors from the
blood to the surface; and, until the blood is purified, such diseases cannot be cured.
In scrofulous ulcers, the use of these waters invariably causes them to discharge more
freely, and in a short time of a more healthy appearance. They are a very useful remedy
in cholera infantum, or the summer bowel-complaint in children. They immediately
give a good appetite, promote digestion, and will effectually correct and cure
acidity of the stomach. In amenorrhœa, dysmenorrhœa, and leucorrhœa, the waters

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451

From the year 1606, when Jamestown was first permanently settled, it required
about one hundred years for the infant colony of Virginia to extend itself upwards to the
Blue Ridge. The settlements on the upper branches of the Rappahannock, and in the
Northern Neck between this river and the Potomac, seem first to have approached the
high mountain barrier, whose top, enveloped in a blue mist, had long since attracted the
eyes of settlers in the distant plains below. Near the Potomac the ridge is less rugged
and forbidding in its aspect than it is further towards the southwest. When it was surmounted
by exploring parties of white men, and displayed to their eyes the beauty and
fertility of the vale of Shenando, and of the uplands beyond it, the temptation was irresistible,
and hardy adventurers resolved to brave every danger for the sake of a possession
so alluring. They first planted themselves on the rich low grounds of the Shenando,
but soon ventured upon the pleasant uplands beyond the river. Here, in a basin-shaped
cavity, they founded the town of Winchester, where fountains of water proved more
attractive than fine prospects from the neighboring hills. This, the oldest town in the
valley, continued to be a frontier-post until the French were driven out of Canada.

The eastern part of the valley being conveniently situated for emigrants from Pennsylvania,
as well as from lower Virginia, the population there came to be a mixture of
English Virginians, and German and Scotch Irish Pennsylvanians. Some of the latter
were recent emigrants from Europe, who had landed at Philadelphia, and thence made
their way by land to the new settlements.

The German Pennsylvanians, being passionate lovers of fat lands, no sooner heard
of the rich vales of the Shenando and its branches, than they began to join their countrymen
from Europe in pouring themselves forth over the country above Winchester.
Finding the main Shenando mostly preoccupied, they followed up the North and South
Branches, on both sides of the Massanutten, or Peaked Mountain, until they filled up all
the beautiful vales of the country for the space of sixty miles. So completely did they
occupy the country, that the few stray English or Irish settlers among them did not
sensibly affect the homogeneousness of the population. They long retained, and for the
most part do still retain, their German language, and the German simplicity of their
manners. Of late years, indeed, a sensible transition has been going on about the borders
of their old settlements, and about the villages, where law and trade have caused a
mixture of population, and made inroads upon the speech, manners, and dress imported
from their fatherland. This change has grieved their old people, who cannot give up
the energetic language of their sires, corruptly as they speak it, nor the plain homespun
dress of old times, nor see their children give them up without sorrowing for the degeneracy
of their race. Not a few of these Germans of the valley have become anglicised
by dispersion, where they have been led, by the temptation of good farms, to plunge into
the mass of their Scotch Irish neighbors.

How far they might have originally filled up the valley, if the way had been clear,
we cannot conjecture; but, ere they had reached the head-branches of the Shenando,
their immigrant columns were met by another race, who soon filled up an equal space
beyond them in this land of promise.

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For the want of towns and roads, the first settlers in the valley were supplied with
many needful articles by pedlers who went from house to house. Among these itinerant
venders of small wares, was one John Marlin, who traded from Williamsburg to the
country about Winchester. His visits to the inhabited parts of this romantic country
inspired him with a curiosity to explore the unknown parts towards the southwest. In
Williamsburg he got John Salling, a bold weaver, to join him in an exploring expedition.
They proceeded through the valley in safety until they reached the waters of the Roanoke,
where they were met by a roving party of Cherokees, and of course treated as
spies upon the Indian territory. Marlin had the good fortune to escape from the hands
of the savages, but Salling was carried as prisoner to their towns upon the upper Tennessee.
Here he lived with his captors about three years, until he went with a party
of them to the Salt Licks in Kentucky, to hunt the buffalo. Kentucky, like the valley,
was a middle ground of contention between the northern and southern tribes. This
party of Cherokees was attacked and defeated by some Indians from Illinois. Salling
was again captured, and carried to Kaskaskias, where an old squaw adopted him for a
son. While thus domiciled in this remote region, he accompanied his new tribesmen on
some distant expeditions—once, even to the gulf of Mexico—and saw many countries,
and tribes of savages, then wholly unknown in Virginia. But after two years, he was
bought of his Indian mother by an exploring party of Spaniards, who wanted him for
an interpreter. He was taken by them on their way northwards, until he reached
Canada, where he was kindly redeemed by the French governor, and sent to New York;
whence he found his way to Williamsburg again, after six years of strange and eventful
wanderings.

In Williamsburg, two strangers from Britain, John Lewis and John Mackey, heard
Salling's story with admiration. They were particularly struck with his glowing
description of the valley of Virginia, a broad space between parallel ridges of mountain;
its vales watered by clear streams, its soil fertile, its plains covered only with shrubbery
and a rich herbage, grazed by herds of buffalo, and its hills crowned with forests; a
region of beauty as yet, for the most part, untouched by the hand of man, and offering
unbought homes and easy subsistence to all who had the enterprise to scale the mountain
barrier, by which it had been so long concealed from the colonists. Lewis and Mackey
joined Salling in making an expedition to this newly-discovered land, in order first to
see it, and then, if it fulfilled their expectations, of making a settlement there. They
were not disappointed; and having the whole land before them from which to choose,
Lewis selected his residence near the Middle River, on a creek which bears his name.
Mackey went further up the Middle River, and settled near the Buffalo Gap; but Salling,
who in his captivity appears to have acquired a taste for wild solitude, went fifty
miles apart from the others, and pitched his habitation in the forks of James River,
where a beautiful bottom is overshadowed by mountains.

Lewis, who was evidently a man of energy and forethought, obtained authority to
locate 100,000 acres of land in separate parcels in the country around him. While he
was exploring the country to select good lands, his neighbor, Mackey, would frequently
accompany him for the pleasure of hunting the buffalo. The result was, that Mackey
died as he had lived, a poor hunter; but Lewis provided for his family a rich inheritance
of lands. The pioneer-tribe of white hunters have generally followed the example of
Mackey.

In the spring of the year 1736, Lewis, on a visit to Williamsburg, met with Benjamin
Burden, who had lately come over as agent for Lord Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern
Neck. Burden accepted Lewis's invitation to accompany him to his new home in the
valley. He spent several months with his friend, exploring the country and hunting the
buffalo, with Lewis and his sons, Samuel and Andrew. But he was a more provident
hunter than Mackey. The party happened once to take a young buffalo-calf, which
Samuel and Andrew Lewis turned and gave to Burden, to take with him to Williamsburg.
This sort of an animal was unknown in lower Virginia; the calf would, therefore,
be an interesting object of curiosity at the seat of government. Burden presented
the shaggy young monster to Governor Gooch. The governor was so delighted with
this rare pet, and so pleased with the donor, that he promptly favored his views, by entering
an order in his official book, authorizing Benjamin Burden to locate 500,000 acres of
land, or any less quantity, on the waters of the Shenando and James Rivers, on the
conditions that he should not interfere with any previous grants, and that within ten
years he should settle at least one hundred families on the located lands. On these
conditions, he should be freely entitled to 1,000 acres adjacent to every house, with the
privilege of entering as much more of the contiguous lands at one shilling per acre.

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Burden returned forthwith to England for emigrants, and the next year, 1737, brought
over upwards of one hundred families to settle upon the granted lands. At this time
the spirit of emigration was particularly rife among the Presbyterians in the northern
parts of Ireland, in Scotland, and in the adjacent parts of England. Most of Burden's
colonists were Irish Presbyterians, who, being of Scottish extraction, were often called
Scotch Irish. A few of the pure Scotch and northern English were mixed with the
early settlers, but all, or nearly all, of the same Presbyterian stamp. Among the primitive
emigrants to Burden's grant we meet with the names of some who have left a numerous
posterity, now dispersed far and wide from the Blue Ridge to the Mississippi—
such as Ephraim M'Dowell, Archibald Alexander, John Patton, Andrew Moore, Hugh
Telford, John Matthews, &c.[2]

The first party were soon joined by others, mostly of their connections and acquaintances
in the mother country. These again drew others after them; and they all increased
and multiplied, until, ere the first generation had passed away, the land was
filled with them. Then they began to send forth colonies to new lands, southward and
westward, until now there is scarce a county in the great valley of the Mississippi where
some of their descendants may not be found.

Although some lands on the upper branches of the Shenando were not included in
Burden's grant, yet from the German settlements upwards to the vale of James River,
the population was generally Presbyterian; so that the whole mass, for 60 miles or more
along the valley, was scarcely less homogeneous and peculiar than the mass of Germans
below them. Few of the old colonists of Virginia migrated to these parts of the valley.
They lived by the cultivation of tobacco; tobacco was the sole staple of their trade;
tobacco was their money. An Arcadian life among green pastures and herds of cattle,
had no charms for them: tobacco was associated with all their ideas of pleasure and of
profit. But how was a hogshead of tobacco to be rolled to market through the rugged
defiles of the Blue Ridge? Not until roads and navigation offered new facilities for
trade, and the Indian weed itself lost some of its importance, did the valley cease to
repel settlers from the lowlands of Virginia. Hence the mixture of heterogeneous elements
in the population has never, until lately, been sufficient to vary the true-blue hue
of their primitive Scotch and Irish Presbyterianism. When, in addition to the names
before mentioned, we give others of the more numerous families long settled on Burden's
grant—the Prestons, the Paxtons, the Lyles, the Grigsbys, the Stuarts, the Crawfords,
the Cumminses, the Browns, the Wallaces, the Willsons, the Carutherses, the
Campbells, the M'Campbells, the M'Clungs, the M'Cues, the M'Kees, the M'Cowns,
&c. &c.—no one acquainted with the race who imbibed the indomitable spirit of John
Knox, can fail to recognise the relationship.

One who is of a different race, may be permitted to speak freely of their characteristics.

They had no sooner found a home in the wilderness, than they betook themselves to
clearing fields, building houses, and planting orchards, like men who felt themselves now
settled, and were disposed to cultivate the arts of civilized life. Few of them ever ran
wild in the forests, or joined the bands of white hunters who formed the connecting link
between the savage aborigines and the civilized tillers of the soil. They showed less
disposition than the English colonists to engage in traffic and speculative enterprises.
Without being dull or phlegmatic, they were sober and thoughtful, keeping their native
energy of feeling under restraint, and therefore capable, when exigencies arose, of calling
forth exertions as strenuous and as persevering as the occasion might demand.

In their devotion to civil liberty, they differed not from the majority of their fellow
colonists. Their circumstances, in a new country planted by themselves, far remote
from the metropolitan government, fostered and strengthened their ancestral spirit of
freedom. As Presbyterians, neither they nor their forefathers would submit to an ecclesiastical
hierarchy; and their detestation of civil tyranny descended to them from the
covenanters of Scotland. Hence, in the dispute between the colonists and the mother
country, the Presbyterians of the valley—indeed, of the whole country—were almost

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Another characteristic of these people was their rigid Calvinistic, or, as some would
call it, Puritanical morality. Founded on religious principle, this morality was sober,
firm, and consistent, though, in some of its aspects, too stern to be altogether winning,
and often unadorned by that refinement of manners which imparts a charm to the exercise
of virtue in the common intercourse of life. But much of their austerity should be
forgiven, in consideration of the precious substance of virtue within it. Their moral
character was a rough diamond, but, nevertheless, a diamond which would brighten
most under the hardest rubs.

The root of their morality, as we have intimated, was religious principle, deeply
grounded by education, and nurtured by constant attendance on religious exercises. No
sooner had they provided necessary food and shelter for their families, than they began
to provide for the regular and decent service of God. They built churches and called
pastors to the full extent of their ability. While their settlements were sparse and feeble,
their churches were necessarily few and far asunder. Consequently, some families
had to go an inconvenient distance to church. But they went, notwithstanding, male
and female, old and young, on horses, some of them ten or twelve miles, to the house
of God regularly on the Lord's day. These were the right sort of people to found a
commonwealth that should stand the wear and tear of a hundred ages.

Some of the churches built by the first generation are yet standing, substantial monuments
of their pious zeal. They are built of the solid limestone of the valley. Others
have been replaced by larger and fairer structures of brick. In building some of the
primitive stone churches, before roads, wagons, and saw-mills could facilitate the collection
and preparation of materials, they had to adopt some singular modes of conveyance.
For example, the Providence congregation packed all the sand used in their
church from a place six miles distant, sack by sack, on the backs of horses! and, what
is almost incredible, the fair wives and daughters of the congregation are said to have
undertaken this part of the work, while the men labored at the stone and timber. Let
not the great-grand-daughters of these women blush for them, however they would
deeply blush themselves to be found in such employment. For ourselves, we admire
the conduct of these females: it was not only excusable, not only praiseworthy—it was
almost heroic. It takes Spartan mothers to rear Spartan men. These were among the
women whose sons and grandsons sustained the confidence of Washington in the most
disastrous period of the revolution.

Their social intercourse was chiefly religious. When the Lord's Supper was administered
in a church, the service usually continued four days. A plurality of ministers was
present, and the people would flock to the place from all the country around—those who
lived near giving hospitable entertainment to those from a greater distance. It was customary
to have two of these sacramental meetings annually in each of the churches—
one in the spring and one in the autumn. The meetings of the presbytery, which circulated
through the principal churches, drew together a larger concourse, and were celebrated
as the chief religious festivals of the country.

But except these solemn festivals, and the weekly meetings at church, the families of
the country had little social intercourse, except occasional visits and the occurrence of
marriage feasts. Nothing was known of the gay amusements common among the
lower Virginians. . . . The careful and religious education of their children was
one of the most important features of their domestic policy. Common schools arose
among them, therefore, as soon as the state of the population admitted them.

The schoolhouse was a log cabin. A fine forest of oaks, which had given Timber
Ridge its name, cast a shade over it in the summer, and afforded convenient fuel in winter.
A spring of pure water gushed from the rocks near the house. From amidst the
trees the student had a fine view of the country below, and of the neighboring Blue Ridge.
In short, all the features of the place made it a fit habitation of the woodland muse, and
the hill deserved its name of Mount Pleasant. Hither about thirty youth of the mountains
repaired, "to taste the Pierian spring," thirty-five years after the first settlement
of Burden's Grant. Of reading, writing, and ciphering, the boys of the country had
before acquired such knowledge as primary schools could afford; but with a few late exceptions,
Latin, Greek, algebra, geometry, and such like scholastic mysteries, were things
of which they had heard—which they knew perhaps to lie covered up in the learned
heads of their pastors—but of the nature and uses of which they had no conception
whatever. . . . . It was a log hut of one apartment. The students carried their dinner
with them from their boarding-schools in the neighborhood. They conned their lessons
either in the school-room, where the recitations were heard, or under the shades of the
forest, where breezes whispered and birds sang without disturbing their studies. A horn
—perhaps a real cow's horn—summoned the school from play, and the scattered classes
to recitation. Instead of broadcloth coats, the students generally wore a far more graceful
garment, the hunting-shirt, homespun, homewoven, and homemade, by the industrious
wives and daughters of the land. Their amusements were not the less remote from
the modern tastes of students—cards, backgammon, flutes, fiddles, and even marbles,
were scarcely known among these homebred mountain boys. Firing pistols and ranging
the fields with shot-guns to kill little birds for sport, they would have considered a
waste of time and ammunition. As to frequenting tippling-shops of any denomination,
this was impossible, because no such catchpenny lures for students existed in the country,
or would have been tolerated. Had any huckster of liquors, knickknacks, and explosive
crackers, hung out his sign in those days, the old puritan morality of the land was
yet vigorous enough to abate the nuisance. The sports of the students were mostly gymnastic,
both manly and healthful—such as leaping, running, wrestling, pitching quoits,
and playing ball. In this rustic seminary a considerable number of young men began
their education, who afterwards bore a distinguished part in the civil and ecclesiastical
affairs of the country.

The great point of sight is called the Grand Turn. It is an angular projection from
the side of the mountain, and is supplied with a low parapet of loose stones, to protect
you from the precipice below. The old jagged pine of the forest, which has braved the
tempest age after age, stands up in its clustered grandeur behind you. The lone and
ravenous vulture is wheeling over your head in search of prey. The broken rock-work
falls away abruptly, some eighty feet immediately beneath your standing, and then runs
down in softer lines to the glens below. You look to the left, and there stand, in all
their majesty, the everlasting mountains, which you have traversed one by one, and
sketching on the blue sky one of the finest outlines you ever beheld. You look to the
right, and there lies expanded before you one of the richest and most lovely valleys

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THE NATURAL BRIDGE.

This celebrated curiosity is in the Valley of Virginia, near the centre of the state,
one hundred and seventy-two miles west of Richmond. Its mean height, from the
stream below to its upper surface, is two hundred and fifteen feet and six inches.

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On the whole, I had, as you will see, been travelling for three days over most delightful
country. For 160 miles you pass through a gallery of pictures, most exquisite, most
varied, most beautiful. The ride will not suffer in comparison with a run along the finest
portions of the Rhine, or our own drive from Shrewsbury to Bangor. It is often, indeed,
compared with Switzerland; but that is foolish; the best scenery in that land is of another
and a higher class. I was not at all aware that I should be thus gratified; and
therefore, perhaps, had the more gratification. I am thankful that I have seen it, and
for the same reasons that I am thankful to have seen something of the west; because
they contribute greatly to form just conceptions of America.

"The stupendous arch constituting the bridge is of limestone rock, covered to the
depth of from 4 to 6 feet with alluvial and clayey earth, and based upon huge rocks of
the same geological character, the summits of which are 90 feet, and their bases 50 feet
asunder, and whose rugged sides form the wild and awful chasm spanned by the bridge.
The bridge is guarded, as if by the design of nature, by a parapet of rocks, and by
trees and shrubbery, firmly embedded in the soil; so that a person travelling the stage
road running over it, would, if not informed of the curiosity, pass it unnoticed. It is
also worthy of remark, that the creation of a natural bridge at this place has contributed,
in a singular manner, to the convenience of man, inasmuch as the deep ravine over
which it sweeps, and through which traverses the beautiful `Cedar creek,' is not otherwise
easily passed for several miles, either above or below the bridge; and, consequently,
the road running from north to south with an acclivity of 35 degrees, presents the same
appearance in soil, growth of trees, and general character, with that of the neighboring
scenery."

This famous bridge is on the head of a fine limestone hill, which has the appearance
of having been rent asunder by some terrible convulsion in nature. The fissure thus
made is about ninety feet; and over it the bridge runs, so needful to the spot, and so

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There are chiefly three points of sight. You naturally make your way to the head
of the bridge first; and as it is a continuation of the common road, with its sides covered
with fine shrubs and trees, you may be on it before you are aware. But the moment
you approach through the foliage to the side, you are filled with apprehension. It
has, indeed, a natural parapet; but few persons can stand forward and look over. You
instinctively seek to reduce your height, that you may gaze on what you admire with
security. Even then it agitates you with dizzy sensations.

You then make your way some fifty feet down the bosom of the hill, and are supplied
with some admirable standings on the projecting rockwork, to see the bridge and
all its rich accompaniments. There is, 200 feet below you, the Cedar River, apparently
motionless, except where it flashes with light as it cuts its way through the broken
rocks. Mark the trees of every variety, but especially the fir, how they diminish as
they stand on the margin of its bed; and how they ascend, step by step, on the noble
rockwork, till they overshadow you; still preserving such delicacy of form and growth,
as if they would not do an injury, while they lend a grace. Observe those hills, gathering
all around you in their fairest forms and richest verdure, as if to do honor to a scene
of surpassing excellence. Now look at the bridge itself, springing from this bed of verdant
loveliness, distinct, one, complete! It is before you in its most picturesque form.
You just see through the arch, and the internal face of the further pier is perfectly revealed.
Did you ever see such a pier—such an arch? Is it not most illusive! Look
at that masonry. Is it not most like the perfection of art; and yet what art could never
reach? Look at that coloring. Does it not appear like the painter's highest skill, and
yet unspeakably transcend it?

This is exquisite. Still you have no just conception of this masterpiece until you get
below. You go some little distance for this purpose, as in the vicinity of the bridge the
rocks are far too precipitous. A hot and brilliant day is, of all others, the time to enjoy
this object. To escape from a sun which scorches you, into these verdant and cool bottoms,
is a luxury of itself, which disposes you to relish every thing else. When down,
I was very careful of the first impression, and did not venture to look steadily on the
objects about me till I had selected my station. At length I placed myself about 100
feet from the bridge, on some masses of rock which were washed by the running waters,
and ornamented by the slender trees which were springing from its fissures. At
my feet was the soothing melody of the rippling, gushing waters. Behind me, and in
the distance, the river and the hills were expanding themselves to the light and splendor
of day. Before me, and all around, every thing was reposing in the most delightful
shade, set off by the streaming rays of the sun, which shot across the head of the picture
far above you, and sweetened the solitude below. On the right and left, the majestic
rocks arose, with the decision of a wall, but without its uniformity, massive, broken,
beautiful, and supplying a most admirable foreground; and, everywhere, the most delicate
stems were planted in their crevices, and waving their heads in the soft breeze,
which occasionally came over them. The eye now ran through the bridge, and was gratified
with a lovely vista. The blue mountains stood out in the background; beneath
them, the hills and woods gathered together, so as to enclose the dell below; while the
river, which was coursing away from them, seemed to have its well-head hidden in their
recesses. Then there is the arch, distinct from every thing, and above every thing!
Massive as it is, it is light and beautiful by its height, and the fine trees on its summit
seem now only like a garland of evergreens; and, elevated as it is, its apparent elevation
is wonderfully increased by the narrowness of its piers, and by its outline being
drawn on the blue sky, which appears beneath and above it! Oh, it is sublime—so
strong, and yet so elegant—springing from earth, and bathing its head in heaven! But
it is the sublime not allied to the terrific, as at Niagara; it is the sublime associated with
the pleasing. I sat, and gazed in wonder and astonishment. That afternoon was the
shortest I ever remembered. I had quickly, too quickly, to leave the spot for ever; but
the music of those waters, the luxury of those shades, the form and colors of those
rocks, and that arch—that arch—rising over all, and seeming to offer a passage to the
skies—O, they will never leave me!

CLIMBING THE NATURAL BRIDGE; BY THE ONLY SURVIVING WITNESS OF THAT EXTRAORDINARY
FEAT.

I think it was in the summer of 1818, that James H. Piper, William Reveley, William
Wallace, and myself, being then students of Washington College, Virginia, determined
to make a jaunt to the Natural Bridge, fourteen miles off. Having obtained permission
of the president, we proceeded on our way rejoicing. When we arrived at the bridge,
nearly all of us commenced climbing up the precipitous sides in order to immortalize
our names, as usual.

We had not been long thus employed, before we were joined by Robert Penn of Amherst,
then a pupil of the Rev. Samuel Houston's grammar-school, in the immediate
neighborhood of the bridge. Mr. Piper, the hero of the occasion, commenced climbing
on the opposite side of the creek from the one by which the pathway ascends the ravine.
He began down on the banks of the brook so far, that we did not know where he
had gone, and were only apprized of his whereabout by his shouting above our heads.
When we looked up, he was standing apparently right under the arch, I suppose a
hundred feet from the bottom, and that on the smooth side, which is generally considered
inaccessible without a ladder. He was standing far above the spot where General
Washington is said to have inscribed his name when a youth. The ledge of the rock
by which he ascended to this perilous height, does not appear from below to be three
inches wide, and runs almost at right angles to the abutment of the bridge; of course
its termination is far down the cliff on that side. Many of the written and traditional
accounts state this to be the side of the bridge up which he climbed. I believe Miss
Martineau so states; but it is altogether a mistake, as any one may see by casting an
eye up the precipice on that side. The story no doubt originated from this preliminary
exploit.

The ledge of rock on which he was standing appeared so narrow to us below, as to
make us believe his position a very perilous one, and we earnestly entreated him to
come down. He answered us with loud shouts of derision. At this stage of the business
Mr. Penn and servant left us. He would not have done so, I suppose, had he
known what was to follow; but up to this time not one of us had the slightest suspicion
that Mr. Piper intended the daring exploit which he afterwards accomplished.
He soon after descended from that side, crossed the brook, and commenced climbing on
the side by which all visitors ascend the ravine. He first mounted the rocks on this
side, as he had done on the other, far down the abutment; but not so far as on the opposite
side. The projecting ledge may be distinctly seen by any visitor. It commences
four or five feet from the pathway on the lower side, and winds round, gradually ascending,
until it meets the cleft of rock over which the celebrated cedar-stump hangs.
Following this ledge to its termination, it brought him thirty or forty feet from the
ground, and placed him between two deep fissures, one on each side of the gigantic
column of rock on which the aforementioned cedar-stump stands. This column stands
out from the bridge, as separate and distinct as if placed there by nature on purpose for
an observatory to the wonderful arch and ravine which it overlooks. A huge crack or
fissure extends from its base to the summit; indeed, it is cracked on both sides, but much
more perceptibly on one side than the other. Both of these fissures are thickly overgrown
with bushes, and numerous roots project into them from trees growing on the
precipice. It was between these that the aforementioned ledge conducted him. Here
he stopped, pulled off his coat and shoes, and threw them down to me. And this, in my
opinion, is a sufficient refutation of the story so often told, that he went up to inscribe
his name, and ascended so high that he found it more difficult to return than to go forward.

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460

Around the face of this huge column, and between the clefts, he now moved, backwards
and forwards, still ascending, as he found convenient foothold. When he had
ascended about one hundred and seventy feet from the earth, and had reached the
point where the pillar overhangs the ravine, his heart seemed to fail him. He stopped,
and seemed to us to be balancing midway between heaven and earth. We were in dread
suspense, expecting every moment to see him dashed in atoms at our feet. We had
already exhausted our powers of entreaty in persuading him to return, but all to no
purpose. Now it was perilous even to speak to him, and very difficult to carry on
conversation at all, from the immense height to which he had ascended, and the noise
made by the bubbling of the little brook as it tumbled in tiny cascades over its rocky
bed at our feet. At length he seemed to discover that one of the clefts before mentioned
retreated backward from the overhanging position of the pillar. Into this he
sprang at once, and was soon out of sight and out of danger.

There is not a word of truth in all that story about our hauling him up with
ropes, and his fainting away so soon as he landed on the summit. Those acquainted
with the localities will at once perceive its absurdity; for we were beneath the arch,
and it is half a mile round to the top, and for the most part up a ragged mountain. Instead
of fainting away, Mr. Piper proceeded down the hill to meet us and obtain his hat
and shoes. We met about half way, and then he lay down for a few moments to recover
himself of his fatigue.