Chapter 25

THE SARACEN’S TENT, LURAY CAVERNS, VIRGINIA.—The fervid imagination of youth, or the dreamer under the influence of the delirium-inducing hashish intoxicant in India’s climes, never riveted gaze on visions more wondrously beautiful than Luray’s intervals of divine architecture. Here and there are polished stalagmites, rich bluffs slashed with white, and others like huge mushrooms, with a velvety coat of red, purple or olive-tinted crystals. Some of the stalactites have their tips under water long enough to allow tassels of crystal to grow upon them, which in a drier season are again coated over with stalactite matter, by which many singular distortions are occasioned.

CADEDENEAN FALLS, DINGMAN’S FERRY.

“The Swords of the Titans are monstrous blades, eight in number, fifty feet long, three to eight feet wide, and one to two feet thick, but are hollow and drawn down to an extremely fine edge, filling the cavern with tones like tolling bells, when struck by the hand. Their origin, and also that of certain so-called scarfs and blankets exhibited, is from carbonates deposited by water trickling down a sloping and corrugated surface. Sixteen of these alabaster scarfs hang side by side in Hovey’s Balcony, three white and fine as crape shawls, thirteen striated like agate, with every shade of brown, and all perfectly transparent. Down the edge of each a tiny rill glistens like silver, and this is the ever-plying shuttle that weaves this fairy fabric.

“Streams and true springs are absent, but there are hundreds of basins, varying from one to fifty feet in diameter, and from six inches to fifteen feet in depth. The water in them is exquisitely pure, except as it is impregnated by the carbonate of lime, which often forms concretions called, according to their size, pearls, eggs, and snow-balls. A large one is known as the Cannon-Ball. When fractured, these spherical growths are found to be radiated in structure. Calcite crystals, drusy, feathery, or fern-like, line the sides and bottoms of every water-filled cavity, and, indeed, constitute the substance of which they are formed. Variations of level at different periods are marked by rings, ridges, and ruffled margins. These are especially strongly marked about Broaddus Lake, and the curved ramparts of the Castles on the Rhine. Here, also, are polished stalagmites, a rich buff slashed with white, and others, like huge mushrooms, with a velvety coat of red, purple, or olive-tinted crystals. In some of the smaller basins it sometimes happens that when the excess of carbonic acid escapes rapidly there is formed, besides the crystal beds below, a film above, shot like a sheet of ice across the surface. One pool twelve feet wide is thus covered so as to show but a third of its surface. The quantity of water varies greatly at different seasons; hence some stalactites have their tips under water long enough to allow tassels of crystal to grow on them, which in a drier season are again coated over with stalactitic matter, by which singular distortions are occasioned. Contiguous stalactites are often enwrapped thus till they assume an almost globular form, through which, by making a section, the primary tubes appear. Twig-like projections, lateral outgrowths, to which the termhelictitehas been applied, are met with in certain portions of the cave, and are interesting by reason of their strange and uncouth contortions. Their presence is partly due to the existence of a diminutive fungus peculiar to the locality, and designated from its habitat,Mucor Stalactitis. The Toy Shop is an amusing collection of these freaks of nature.

FARM SCENE IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHENANDOAH, VIRGINIA.—The war between the States found the valley of the Shenandoah an ideal pastoral country, of rich and beautiful farms, of wealthy and aristocratic families, where life in its ease and sunshine rivaled that in older lands. The war left it a bare, blackened and blasted region, its homes destroyed, its farms desolated, and its able-bodied population decimated in the field. But it has fully recovered again. Grass and grain have woven Nature’s beautiful covering over all the scars of battle, and once more the fields and orchards are laden with flowers, while the lowing of the cattle and the song of the contented husbandman are heard in place of the discordant drum and the ruthless clash of arms.

“The dimensions of the various chambers included in Luray Caverns cannot be given, on account of the great irregularity of their outlines. Nor can their size be estimated from a diagram, because there are several tiers of galleries, and the vertical depth, from the highest to the lowest, is two hundred and sixty feet. The tract of one hundred acres, owned by the Luray Cave Company, covers all possible modes of entrance, and the explored area is much less than that. The waters of this cavern appear to be entirely destitute of life; and the existing fauna is quite meager, comprising a few bats, rats, mice, spiders, flies and small centipedes. When the cave was first entered the floor was covered with thousands of tracks of bears, wolves and raccoons, most of them probably made long ago, as impressions in the tenacious clay that composes most of the cavern-floor would remain for centuries. The traces of human occupation, as yet discovered, are pieces of charcoal, flints, moccasin tracks, and a single skeleton imbedded in a stalagmite in one of the chasms, estimated to have lain where found for not more than five hundred years, judging from the present rate of stalagmitic growth.”

Accurate and beautiful as is Mr. Hovey’s description of Luray Caverns, yet words, however ingeniously used, fail utterly to convey a true idea of the incomparable splendors of this under-world palace which gleams with unspeakable glories, such as God alone can create. Aladdin, in the Arabic tale which so delighted our youthful fancy, was permitted to enter a cave which exhibited such decorations that its very beauty both dazzled and affrighted; and to his amazement was added the greater wonder, that the cavern thus wrought of precious stones was the work of a geni, who was slave to a lamp and ring. But the fervid imagination of youth, or the dreamer under influence of the delirium-inducing hasheesh intoxicant in India’s climes, never riveted gaze upon vision more wondrously beautiful than Luray’s intervals of divine architecture; nor was Aladdin’s Cave half so charming. The Throne-Room, canopied with curtains woven of pearls and diamonds; “The Saracen’s Tent,” in which more than oriental splendors of richest damasks and golden samite sweep round the crystal couch in festoons of magic beauty; Titania’s Veil of petrified spider’s webs and crystallized harmonies, behind which the queen of fairies hides from Æolus; and the Ball-Room, with best adornments, as if to celebrate a marriage between the gods; all these and many more, in fast succession of admiring surprise, compose the Caverns of Luray, of which it has been said: “Mortal hath not made the like, nor human fancy conceived a thing more magnificent.” Let the illustrations herewith convey an idea of the beauty which language cannot express.

The uniform temperature of the cave is 54° Fahrenheit, which is the same as Mammoth Cave, and as the chamber-floors are dry, visitors are not fatigued or discomforted by long walks through the labyrinthine passages, where every step taken brings fresh marvels into view. To the curiously inclined the inquiry, not often asked, will appear very interesting: How did the animals whose foot-prints were noticed in the tenacious clay, by those who made the discovery, get into the cave? The opening by which the chambers are reached is an artificial one, made at the point where Mr. Campbell detected the hollow by stamping on the ground, as explained. No other ingress is yet known, though the cave has not been thoroughly explored; so it is possible, or probable even, that other means of entrance have long continued open, but the possibility also remains that its entering passage-ways may have been sealed up by an invasion of glacial drift, since the flood; marks of that tremendous cataclysm are plainly to be seen in the cave, and not all of the diluvium deposit has been yet removed or ground under foot by the 10,000 persons who visit the caverns annually.

A trip up the Shenandoah Valley, though made in a luxurious coach on a swift-moving train, is attended by innumerable reminders of the great civil war, for the journey is over a succession of hotly-contested battle-fields; but the beautiful scenery, rich lands, and lovely farm scenes that now compose the landscape, cannot efface the recollection which monuments and cemeteries constantly revive. General Boynton has drawn a truthful picture of this war-famous section, in this wise:

“Every foot south of the Potomac was fighting-ground; every town was, at some time, the headquarters of well-known forces; nearly every farm house was a hospital, and some of the dead and wounded of the many contests had fallen on every acre. On the Union side Fremont and Sigel, Milroy and Shields, Hunter and Banks, Kelley and Crook, Wilson and Sheridan, and others of note had there met Jackson, Ewell, Early, Stewart, Ashby, and the advance of Lee in force. There were innumerable small affairs, and many extended and fierce engagements. Columns in advance and in retreat ebbed and flowed there through every year of the war; while every gap opening eastward poured its footmen and its horsemen upon the flanks, first of the one army, and then of the other. From the opening of the contest till is close it was the vortex of strategy. The war found it an ideal pastoral country, of rich and beautiful farms, of wealthy and aristocratic families, where life in its ease and sunshine rivaled that in older lands. It was the granary and store-house of the Confederacy. The war left it a bare, blackened, and blasted region, its homes destroyed, its farms desolated, and its able-bodied population decimated in the field. But it has fully recovered again. Grass and grain have woven nature’s beautiful covering over all scars of battle, and the countless miles of parapets are green each year with verdure, and the fields and orchards are laden with flowers again.”

HARPER’S FERRY, WEST VIRGINIA, FROM BOLIVAR HEIGHTS.—Harper’s Ferry is a place of great scenic as well as historic interest; but it is the magnificent scenery surrounding the place that now chiefly attracts the tourist’s attention. From Maryland Heights, on the opposite side of the Potomac, the observer is able to look into seven counties and across stretches of three States, the view being at last arrested by a soft haze that crowns the summit of the Blue Ridge range. The Shenandoah River unites with the Potomac at this point, sprinkled with white-crested waves that dash and roar over the boulders that uselessly attempt to impede its progress.

The southwestern branch of the Baltimore and Ohio skirts the Cumberland Range, following the valley of the Shenandoah, until it joins the main line at Harper’s Ferry, where the Shenandoah and Potomac likewise form a junction, each stream cleaving a way through the mountains and watering a region of extraordinary scenic beauty. Sheridan, when operating in these valleys, declared that the country was so barren that a crow would have to carry its rations when flying over it; but the country has blossomed into fertility since that time, and now presents glorious visions of great productiveness, as well as bluffs and mountains of rugged picturesqueness.

Harper’s Ferry was well known before the war as being the location of one of the important Government armories and arsenals, which were destroyed soon after the beginning of hostilities, and have not since been rebuilt. Its chief fame, however, is derived from the fact that the town was the seat of the John Brown insurrection (in October, 1859); and at Charleston, seven miles distant, on the road to Winchester, is the place where he was tried and executed. Harper’s Ferry was thus not only the scene of the opening events of the war, but it remained the center of action for a long time, being alternately occupied by the Union and Confederate forces, who contended with varying fortunes, but always with immense loss of life, in efforts to retain it as a base for their supplies. It is the magnificent scenery surrounding the place that now attracts the tourist’s interest, for a more beautiful section of mountain country is nowhere to be seen in the East. Particularly fine views are afforded from Maryland Heights, on the opposite side of the Potomac, and from Bolivar Heights, which are above the town, the latter being a more extensive perspective, commanding as it does a long stretch of river and the huge mountain ramparts on the south. From this point of observation, too, the Shenandoah River is presented to the view, sprinkled with white-crested waves dashing over smooth-worn bowlders, that have long lain in its course, and its frowning shores that rise up into towering mountains and form a chain of peaks that girdle the horizon. From Maryland Heights the observer is able to look into seven counties, and across stretches of three States, the view being at last arrested by a soft haze that crowns the soaring summits of the Blue Ridge Range. The route from Harper’s Ferry was north by way of the Baltimore and Ohio and the Cumberland Valley Railroads to Harrisburg, and thence some of the fine scenery of Pennsylvania was visited, particularly that which lies along the line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In going East, the first view of great interest which greets the eyes of observant travelers along this road, after leaving Pittsburgh, is Johnstown, a great manufacturing place, at the confluence of Conemaugh River and Stony Creek, but whose largest fame dates from June 1, 1889, when the town was swept by one of the most appalling cataclysms that has found a record in history. On that ever-memorable date the immense reservoir away up in the Alleghenies that held the waters of South Fork, burst without warning and rushed down, a very devastating monster, into the smiling valley, which it overwhelmed with a flood forty feet deep. The result is too awful to dwell upon; two thousand people were whirled to their death, and the city was carried from its foundations, with a loss of $10,000,000. But Johnstown has recovered from the terrible blow which it received on that opening day of summer, and the blazing forge of the rolling-mills has again brought prosperity to the place.

THE HORSESHOE CURVE AT KITTANNING, PENNSYLVANIA.—This point is in one of the finest scenic localities of the great State of Pennsylvania, the rolling and broken hills rising in many places almost to the dignity of mountains. The valleys and sloping sides of the hills are covered with rich and well-cultivated farms, adorned with elegant farm-houses, barns and other improvements, superior to almost any of the other rural districts of our country. It is a region also famous for fruits of various kinds, and in the early spring the whole country seems abloom with the apple, peach, pear and other fragrant and familiar blossoms.

Beyond Johnstown a magnificent panorama of the Alleghenies breaks into view with their myriad phases of beauty and grandeur. As we follow down the Conemaugh, along the breast of the mountains are the remains of inclined planes of the Portage Railroad, by which loaded canal-boats were transported over the mountains at points where the canal was not yet constructed. This was before the days of steam railroads, when canals were the most expeditious mode of freight transportation. Beyond Cressons the road begins the ascent of the Alleghenies, and in doing so makes many turns, and from the right hand of the road a gorgeous spectacle is presented looking down into the valleys, where the houses are dwarfed by distance until they look like mole-hills, and men are not distinguishable. There are horseshoe curves as sharp and graceful as any on the roads that climb over western mountains, while the scene is often more picturesque because of the high state of cultivation of the mountain slopes. A tunnel three-quarters of a mile in length pierces the brow of one of the highest peaks, after which the road descends rapidly to Cressons, a place noted for its seven mineral springs. Altoona is next passed, and a few minutes later the train rushes around the beautiful horseshoe curve at Kittanning, affording a charming prospect of lofty mountains, surrounding a lake of exquisite beauty, made by damming a pretty stream that comes gamboling down from cool retreats in the high altitudes.

Out of the Tuckahoe Valley and on to Tyrone, where the Little Juniata is reached, along whose sweet-smelling banks the road hastens by Broad Top Mountain, Sliding Hill, through the gap of Jack’s Mountain, and thence into the Long Narrows, which is traversed by highway, river and canal, running in competition with the railroad. For several miles the scenery is wondrously beautiful, with kaleidoscopic glimpses of swift-passing mountain, foaming water-ways, laughing cascades, and bounty-bestowing valleys bedewed with the delicious waters of the blue Juniata. Thence on to Harrisburg the road speeds, with many a twist through smiling vales that swathe the mountain’s feet with ribbons of verdure; across the Susquehanna, where the river is more than a mile wide and freckled with impeding stones. Lancaster is soon reached, and thence eastward the scenery grows in grandeur until Chester Valley is passed and Paoli comes into view. This place is famous in history from the fact that here took place a massacre which will be remembered for ages as a reproach to the British. On September 20, 1777, the American forces under General Anthony Wayne were surprised by a large army of British regulars, commanded by General Gray. Notwithstanding the superior numbers of the enemy and his unpreparedness, General Wayne offered a stubborn resistance, and not until nearly one-half his men had fallen in the desperate conflict did he capitulate, upon terms of honorable surrender. Instead of observing the rules which obtain among civilized nations, after the Americans had laid down their arms the British mercilessly slaughtered many of their helpless prisoners. A monument, erected in 1817, marks the site of this shameful tragedy. Eastward from Paoli the road traverses one of the fairest sections in the world, resembling the richest agricultural regions of England, where the soil is in the highest possible state of cultivation and the farm houses are models of architectural elegance, with a gradual increase in the beauties of the prosperous landscape until the train pursues its way through Fairmount Park and into the great metropolis of Philadelphia.

Northward from Philadelphia our artist traveled, through Bethlehem to the Delaware Water Gap, where the Delaware River forges its way through the Blue Mountains, the point of passage being narrowed by walls from 1,200 to 1,600 feet high, which seem to clasp the sturdy stream in colossal arms, of half affection and half restraint. This tremendous gorge formerly bore the Indian name of Minnisink, signifying “Whence the waters are gone,” which is thus explained by a local geologist: “Here a vast lake once probably extended; and whether the great body of water wore its way through the mountain by a fall like Niagara, or burst through a gorge, it is certain that the Minnisink country bears the mark of aqueous action in its diluvial soil, and in its rounded hills, built of pebbles and bowlders.” The gap proper is about two miles long, when the mountains recede on both sides, as if at one time some terrific disturbance had thrown up a giant ridge in the path of the river. It is apparent also that centuries ago the passage, though hardly more than one hundred yards wide now, was very much narrower, and the name given to it by the Indians was no doubt suggested by this cleft through which the pent-up waters must have dashed with terrific force and roar.

NATURAL BRIDGE OF VIRGINIA.

LITTLE NECK OF THE SUSQUEHANNA RIVER, PENNSYLVANIA.—The Susquehanna River takes its rise in the northern part of Pennsylvania and flows southward into Chesapeake Bay. Its entire course passes through a richly diversified and splendid scenic region, equaling in many respects the scenery along the Rhine River in Germany, and lacking only the castles and the ancient historic associations to make it as popular with tourists as its less poetically named sister of the Fatherland.

The two mountains between which the river passes are named in honor of two famous Indian chiefs, that on the New Jersey side being called Tammany, and the one on the Pennsylvania shore being known as Minsi. Chief Tammany was of the Delaware tribe, whose bravery and magnanimity was such that he was canonized as the patron saint of America, but his name is best perpetuated by New York City’s political organization. The two mountains, adjacent, and which were no doubt one before the wearing waters cut a way through it, exhibit marked differences, which, to a casual observer, would seem to controvert this theory. Mount Minsi is a graceful peak crowned with dense forest growths, while Tammany is a gigantic rock that rises in broken ledges, almost terraces, from the river, on one of which, two hundred feet above the river, a hotel has been built to accommodate summer tourists. And the scenery is grand enough to lure lovers of the picturesque in nature. Just below the hotel falls a silvery cascade whose waters are derived from Hunter’s Spring, that bursts out of the mountain side, and perambulates through many sequestered nooks, moss-covered and beflowered, before it drops into a pool called Diana’s Bath, thence over Caldeno Falls, and slides into the river. Above the source of the waterfall is a lofty ledge known as Lover’s Leap, and to the left another promontory called Prospect Rock, while near-by is a clear lake on the very apex of the mountain, which visitors are told is of an unfathomable depth.

But though Tammany is the more ruggedly picturesque, Minsi offers the more entrancing prospect, expanding on the east until the whole of New Jersey seems to be spread out to view. A mile below the Gap the scenery becomes curiously pretty, for the river has worn the banks into grottoes and fantastic forms. Here are such objects of interest as Indian Ladder Bluff, Cold-Air Cave, Point of Rocks, Bumer’s Spring, etc., while a few miles above the Gap there are bits of nature positively charming. Bushkill Creek pours its contribution into the Delaware five miles from the Gap and a few hundred yards from its outlet the stream tumbles over a precipice twenty feet high in a sheet of water that looks like a curtain of lace. On an affluent of the Bushkill are two other cataracts of even greater beauty, known as Buttermilk and Marshall, both of which may be reached in a half-hour’s walk from the river, and are within seven miles of the hotel on Tammany’s ledge. A feature of the Water Gap, which vies in interest with the natural scenery, is the railroad-bed around the base of Tammany, where it exacts a space from both the river and the mountain, in order to secure sufficient width for passage. At this point the gap is narrowest and the cliffs most stupendous, right where the jaws of the gorge are set in firmest resolution to prevent a full flow of the river, and where a rushing current betrays irritation at the impediment by a ceaseless roar.

Twenty-five miles above the Water Gap is another section of wild and weirdly grand scenery, where Dingman’s Creek carols through the copses and takes a header into the Delaware, like a swimmer at the bath. Dingman’s Ferry is a small hamlet containing a score of houses, but what it lacks in population is made up in public interest by its picturesque surroundings. The region is intersected by numerous streams, which are noted for their impetuous courses and numerous falls. Of these Colosseum Falls are the largest, and by many are regarded as the most beautiful; but Bridal Veil Falls are more exquisitely fascinating to the artist. The stream is not large, but the precipice is high, and so gracefully terraced that the water makes a succession of leaps, and each time is spread by the ledges until at its last fall it is as airy as a bride’s veil. Its sedgy banks and bosky shelves add to the general effect in a way that compels the thought of fairy bowers and naiads’ retreats. Factory Falls are the largest cataracts of this sylvan region, pouring a considerable volume of water over serrated brinks, and twisting around in shapely ways that add ineffable grace to the boiling, laughing and playful waters. Cadedenean Falls are almost as graceful, but are spread over a greater surface, and fall into the creek in the form of an outspread fan. The “Brakes and Braes of Bonny Doon” were not more charming to the eyes of the poet than the soul-delighting coverts and falls about Dingman’s. In the spring-time these streams are swollen to immense proportions, and it is then that the falls display their greatest grandeur, filling the woods with their torrential orisons; but in summer they exhibit the most marvelous graces, for it is then the waters are crystalline in their purity, and the dewy mosses along their brinks look like garlands of diamonds, which the branches of bordering thickets stoop down to kiss.

From Dingman’s Ferry our photographer passed on to Milford, and thence by the Erie Road to New York City, where a junction was made with the two other photographers for a trip to the sunny lands of the South.

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