Part 15

The first apartment you enter is about twenty-five feet high, and fifteen broad, and extends a considerable way to the right and left, the floor ascending towards the former; here it is very moist, from the quantity of water continually trickling from the roof. Fahrenheit’s thermometer, which stood at 67° in the air, fell to 61° in this room. A few yards to the left, on the side opposite to you on entering, a passage presents itself, which leads to a sort of anti-chamber as it were, from whence you proceed into the sound room, so named from the prodigious reverberation of the sound of a voice or musical instrument at the inside. This room is about twenty feet square; it is arched at top, and the sides of it, as well as of that apartment which you first enter, are beautifully ornamented with stalactites. Returning from hence into the antichamber, and afterwards taking two or three turns to the right and left, you enter a long passage about thirteen feet wide, and perhaps about fifteen in height perpendicularly; but if it was measured from the floor to the highest part of the roof obliquely, the distance would be found much greater, as the walls on both sides slope very considerably, and finally meet at top. This passage descends very rapidly, and is, I should suppose, about sixty yards long. Towards the end it narrows considerably, and terminates in a pool of clear water, about three or four feet deep. How far this pool extends it is impossible to say. A canoe was once brought down by a party, for the purpose of examination, but they said, that after proceeding a little way upon the water the canoe would not float, and they were forced to return. Their fears, most probably, led them to fancy it was so. I fired a pistol with a ball over the water, but the report was echoed from the after part of the cavern, and not from that part beyond the water, so that I should not suppose the passage extended much farther than could be traced with the eye. The walls of this passage consist of a solid rock of limestone on each side, which appears to have been separated by some convulsion. The floor is of a deep sandy earth, and it has repeatedly been dug up for the purpose of getting saltpetre, with which the earth is strongly impregnated. The earth, after being dug up, is mixed with water, and when the grosser particles fall to the bottom, the water is drawn off and evaporated; from the residue the saltpetre is procured. There are many other caverns in this neighbourhood, and also farther to the westward, in Virginia; from all of them great quantities of saltpetre are thus obtained. The gunpowder made with it, in the back country, forms a principal article of commerce, and is sent to Philadelphia in exchange for European manufactures.

[Sidenote: MADDISON’S CAVE.]

About two thirds of the way down this long passage, just described, is a large aperture in the wall on the right, leading to another apartment, the bottom of which is about ten feet below the floor of the passage, and it is no easy matter to get down into it, as the sides are very steep and extremely slippery. This is the largest and most beautiful room in the whole cavern; it is somewhat of an oval form, about sixty feet in length, thirty in breadth, and in some parts nearly fifty feet high. The petrifactions formed by the water dropping from above are most beautiful, and hang down from the ceiling in the form of elegant drapery, the folds of which are similar to what those of large blankets or carpets would be if suspended by one corner in a lofty room. If struck with a stick a deep hollow sound is produced, which echoes through the vaults of the cavern. In other parts of this room the petrifactions have commenced at the bottom, and formed in pillars of different heights; some of them reach nearly to the roof. If you go to a remote part of this apartment, and leave a person with a lighted torch moving about amidst these pillars, a thousand imaginary forms present themselves, and you might almost fancy yourself in the infernal regions, with spectres and monsters on every side. The floor of this room slopes down gradually from one end to the other, and terminates in a pool of water, which appears to be on a level with that at the end of the long passage; from their situation it is most probable that they communicate together. The thermometer which I had with me stood, in the remotest part of this chamber, at 55°. From hence we returned to the mouth of the cavern, and on coming into the light it appeared as if we really had been in the infernal regions, for our faces, hands, and clothes were smutted all over, every part of the cave being covered with soot from the smoke of the pine torches which are so often carried in. The smoke from the pitch pine is particularly thick and heavy. Before this cave was much visited, and the walls blackened by the smoke, its beauty, I was told by some of the old inhabitants, was great indeed, for the petrifactions on the roof and walls are all of the dead white kind.

The country immediately behind the Blue Mountains, between Bottetourt County and the Patowmac River, is agreeably diversified with hill and dale, and abounds with extensive tracts of rich land. The low grounds, bordering upon the Shenandoah River, which runs contiguous to the Blue Ridge for upwards of one hundred miles, are in particular distinguished for their fertility. These low grounds are those which, strictly speaking, constitute the Shenandoah Valley, though in general the country lying for several miles distant from the river, and in some parts very hilly, goes under that name. The natural herbage is not so fine here as in Bottetourt County, but when clover is once sown it grows most luxuriantly; wheat also is produced in as plentiful crops as in any part of the United States. Tobacco is not raised excepting for private use, and but little Indian corn is sown, as it is liable to be injured by the nightly frosts, which are common in the spring.

[Sidenote: LANDSCAPES.]

The climate here is not so warm as in the lower parts of the country, on the eastern side of the mountains; but it is by no means so temperate as in Bottetourt County, which, from being environed with ridges of mountains, is constantly refreshed with cooling breezes during summer, and in the winter is sheltered from the keen blasts from the north west.

The whole of this country, to the west of the mountains, is increasing most rapidly in, population. In the neighbourhood of Winchester it is so thickly settled, and consequently so much cleared, that wood is now beginning to be thought valuable; the farmers are obliged frequently to send ten or fifteen miles even for their fence rails. It is only, however, in this particular neighbourhood that the country is so much improved; in other places there are immense tracts of woodlands still remaining, and in general the hills are all left uncleared. The hills being thus left covered with trees is a circumstance which adds much to the beauty of the country, and intermixed with extensive fields clothed with the richest verdure, and watered by the numerous branches of the Shenandoah River, a variety of pleasing landscapes are presented to the eye in almost every part of the route from Bottetourt to the Patowmac, many of which are considerably heightened by the appearance of the Blue Mountains in the back ground.

With regard to these landscapes however, and to American landscapes in general, it is to be observed, that their beauty is much impaired by the unpicturesque appearance of the angular fences, and of the stiff wooden houses, which have at a little distance a heavy, dull, and gloomy aspect. The stumps of the trees also, on land newly cleared, are most disagreeable objects, wherewith the eye is continually assailed. When trees are felled in America, they are never cut down close to the ground, but the trunks are left standing two or three feet high; for it is found that a woodman can cut down many more in a day, standing with a gentle inclination of the body, than if he were to stoop so as to apply his axe to the bottom of the tree; it does not make any difference either to the farmer, whether the stump is left two or three feet high, or whether it is cut down level with the ground, as in each case it would equally be a hindrance to the plough. These stumps usually decay in the course of seven or eight years; sometimes however sooner, sometimes later, according to the quality of the timber. They never throw up suckers, as stumps of trees would do in England if left in that manner.

[Sidenote: TOWNS.]

The cultivated lands in this country are mostly parcelled out in small portions; there are no persons here, as on the other side of the mountains, possessing large farms; nor are there any eminently distinguished by their education or knowledge from the rest of their fellow citizens. Poverty also is as much unknown in this country as great wealth. Each man owns the house he lives in and the land which he cultivates, and every one appears to be in a happy state of mediocrity, and unambitious of a more elevated situation than what he himself enjoys.

The free inhabitants consist for the most part of Germans, who here maintain the same character as in Pennsylvania and the other states where they have settled. About one sixth of the people, on an average, are slaves, but in some of the counties the proportion is much less; in Rockbridge the slaves do not amount to more than an eleventh, and in Shenandoah County not to more than a twentieth part of the whole.

Between Fincastle and the Patowmac there are several towns, as Lexington, Staunton, Newmarket, Woodstock, Winchester, Strasburgh, and some others. These towns all stand on the great road, running north and south behind the Blue Mountains, and which is the high road from the northern states to Kentucky.

[Sidenote: LEXINGTON.]

As I passed along it, I met with great numbers of people from Kentucky and the new state of Tennessee going towards Philadelphia and Baltimore, and with many others going in a contrary direction, “to explore,” as they call it, that is, to search for lands conveniently situated for new settlements in the western country. These people all travel on horseback, with pistols or swords, and a large blanket folded up under their saddle, which last they use for sleeping in when obliged to pass the night in the woods. There is but little occasion for arms now that peace has been made with the Indians; but formerly it used to be a very serious undertaking to go by this route to Kentucky, and travellers were always obliged to go forty or fifty in a party, and well prepared for defence. It would be still dangerous for any person to venture singly; but if five or six travel together, they are perfectly secure. There are houses now scattered along nearly the whole way from Fincastle to Lexington in Kentucky, so that it is not necessary to sleep more than two or three nights in the woods in going there. Of all the uncouth human beings I met with in America, these people from the western country were the most so; their curiosity was boundless. Frequently have I been stopped abruptly by one of them in a solitary part of the road, and in such a manner, that had it been in another country, I should have imagined it was a highwayman that was going to demand my purse, and without any further preface, asked where I came from? if I was acquainted with any news? where bound to? and finally, my name?—“Stop, Mister! why I guess now you be coming from the new state.” “No, Sir,”—“Why then I guess as how you be coming from Kentuc[25].” “No, Sir.”—“Oh! why then, pray now where might you be coming from?” “From the low country.”—“Why you must have heard all the news then; pray now, Mister, what might the price of bacon be in those parts?” “Upon my word, my friend, I can’t inform you.”—“Aye, aye; I see, Mister, you be’n’t one of us; pray now, Mister, what might your name be?”—A stranger going the same way is sure of having the company of these worthy people, so desirous of information, as far as the next tavern, where he is seldom suffered to remain for five minutes, till he is again assailed by a fresh set with the same questions.

Footnote 25:

Kentucky.

The first town you come to, going northward from Bottetourt County, is Lexington, a neat little place, that did contain about one hundred houses, a court-house, and gaol; but the greater part of it was destroyed by fire just before I got there. Great numbers of Irish are settled in this place. Thirty miles farther on stands Staunton. This town carries on a considerable trade with the back country, and contains nearly two hundred dwellings, mostly built of stone, together with a church. This was the first place on the entire road from Lynchburgh, one hundred and fifty miles distant, and which I was about ten days in travelling, where I was not able to get a bit of fresh meat, excepting indeed on passing the Blue Mountains, where they brought me some venison that had been just killed. I went on fifty miles further, from Staunton, before I got any again. Salted pork, boiled with turnip tops by way of greens, or fried bacon, or fried salted fish, with warm sallad, dressed with vinegar and the melted fat which remains in the frying-pan after dressing the bacon, is the only food to be got at most of the taverns in this country; in spring it is the constant food of the people in the country; and indeed, throughout the whole year, I am told, salted meat is what they most generally use.

In every part of America a European is surprised at finding so many men with military titles, and still more so at seeing such numbers of them employed in capacities apparently so inconsistent with their rank; for it is nothing uncommon to see a captain in the shape of a waggoner, a colonel the driver of a stage coach, or a general dealing out penny ribbon behind his counter; but no where, I believe, is there such a superfluity of these military personages as in the little town of Staunton; there is hardly a decent person in it, excepting lawyers and medical men, but what is a colonel, a major, or a captain. This is to be accounted for as follows: in America, every freeman from the age of sixteen to fifty years, whose occupation does not absolutely forbid it, must enrol himself in the militia. In Virginia alone, the militia amounts to about sixty-two thousand men, and it is divided into four divisions and seventeen brigades, to each of which there is a general and other officers. Were there no officers therefore, excepting those actually belonging to the militia, the number must be very great; but independent of the militia, there are also volunteer corps in most of the towns, which have likewise their respective officers. In Staunton there are two of these corps, one of cavalry, the other of artillery. These are formed chiefly of men who find a certain degree of amusement in exercising as soldiers, and who are also induced to associate, by the vanity of appearing in regimentals. The militia is not assembled oftener than once in two or three months, and as it rests with every individual to provide himself with arms and accoutrements, and no stress being laid upon coming in uniform, the appearance of the men is not very military. Numbers also of the officers of these volunteer corps, and of the militia, are resigning every day; and if a man has been a captain or a colonel but one day either in the one body or the other, it seems to be an established rule that he is to have nominal rank the rest of his life. Added to all, there are several officers of the old continental army neither in the militia nor in the volunteer corps.

Winchester stands one hundred miles to the northward of Staunton, and is the largest town in the United States on the western side of the Blue Mountains. The houses are estimated at three hundred and fifty, and the inhabitants at two thousand. There are four churches in this town, which, as well as the houses, are plainly built. The streets are regular, but very narrow. There is nothing particularly deserving of attention in this place, nor indeed in any of the other small towns which have been mentioned, none of them containing more than seventy houses each.

+LETTER + XVIII.

_Description of the Passage of Patowmac and Shenandoah Rivers through a Break in the Blue Mountains.—Some Observations on Mr. Jefferson’s Account of the Scene.—Summary Account of Maryland.—Arrival at Philadelphia.—Remarks on the Climate of the United States.—State of the City of Philadelphia during the Heat of Summer.—Difficulty of preserving Butter, Milk, Meat, Fish, &c.—General Use of Ice.—Of the Winds.—State of Weather in America depends greatly upon them._

Philadelphia, June.

HAVING traversed, in various directions, the country to the west of the Blue Mountains in Virginia, I came to the Patowmac, at the place where that river passes through the Blue Ridge, which Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes upon Virginia, has represented as one of the soft “stupendous scenes in nature, and worth a voyage across the Atlantic.” The approach towards the place is wild and romantic. After crossing a number of small hills, which rise one above the other in succession, you at last perceive the break in the Blue Ridge; at the same time the road suddenly turning, winds down a long and deep hill, shaded with lofty trees, whose branches unite over your head. On one side of the road there are large heaps of rocks above you, which seem to threaten destruction to any one that passes under them; on the other, a deep precipice presents itself, at the bottom of which is heard the roaring of the waters, that are concealed from the eye by the thickness of the foliage. Towards the end of this hill, about sixty feet above the level of the water, stands a tavern and a few houses, and from some fields in the rear of them the passage of the river through the mountain is, I think, seen to the best advantage.

[Sidenote: PASSAGE OF RIVERS.]

The Patowmac on the left comes winding along through a fertile country towards the mountain; on the right flows the Shenandoah: uniting together at the foot of the mountain, they roll on through the gap; then suddenly expanding to the breadth of about four hundred yards, they pass on towards the sea, and are finally lost to the view amidst surrounding hills. The rugged appearance of the sides of the mountain towards the river, and the large rocks that lie scattered about at the bottom, many of which have evidently been split asunder by some great convulsion, “are monuments,” as Mr. Jefferson observes, of the “war that has taken place at this spot between rivers and mountains; and at first sight they lead us into an opinion that mountains were created before rivers began to flow; that the waters of the Patowmac and Shenandoah were dammed up for a time by the Blue Ridge, but continuing to rise, that they at length broke through at this spot, and tore the mountain asunder from its summit to its base.” Certain it is, that if the Blue Ridge could be again made entire, an immense body of water would be formed on the western side of it, by the Shenandoah and Patowmac rivers, and this body of water would be deepest, and consequently would act with more force in sapping a passage for itself through the mountain, at the identical spot where the gap now is than at any other, for this is the lowest spot in a very extended tract of country. A glance at the map will be sufficient to satisfy any person on this point; it will at once be seen, that all the rivers of the adjacent country bend their courses hitherwards. Whether the ridge, however, was left originally entire, or whether a break was left in it for the passage of the rivers, it is impossible at this day to ascertain; but it is very evident that the sides of the gap have been reduced to their present rugged state by some great inundation. Indeed, supposing that the Patowmac and Shenandoah ever rose during a flood, a common circumstance in spring and autumn, only equally high with what James River did in 1795, that is fifteen feet above their usual level, such a circumstance might have occasioned a very material alteration in the appearance of the gap.

[Sidenote: ROCKS LOOSENED.]

The Blue Ridge, on each side of the Patowmac, is formed, from the foundation to the summit, of large rocks deposited in beds of rich soft earth. This earth is very readily washed away, and in that case the rocks consequently become loose; indeed, they are frequently loosened even by heavy showers of rain. A proof of this came within my own observation, which I shall never forget. It had been raining excessively hard the whole morning of that day on which I arrived at this place; the evening however was very fine, and being anxious to behold the scene in every point of view, I crossed the river, and attended the mountain at a steep part on the opposite side, where there was no path, and many large projecting rocks. I had walked up about fifty yards, when a large stone that I set my foot upon, and which appeared to me perfectly firm, all at once gave way; it had been loosened by the rain, and brought down such a heap of others with it in its fall, with such a tremendous noise at the same time, that I thought the whole mountain was coming upon me, and expected every moment to be dashed to pieces. I slid down about twenty feet, and then luckily caught hold of the branch of a tree, by which I clung; but the stones still continued to roll down heap after heap; several times, likewise, after all had been still for a minute or two, they again began to fall with increased violence. In this state of suspense I was kept for a considerable time, not knowing but that some stone larger than the rest might give way, and carry down with it even the tree by which I held. Unacquainted also with the paths of the mountain, there seemed to me to be no other way of getting down, excepting over the fallen stones, a way which I contemplated with horror. Night however was coming on very fast; it was absolutely necessary to quit the situation I was in, and fortunately I got to the bottom without receiving any further injury than two or three slight contusions on my hips and elbows. The people congratulated me when I came back on my escape, and informed me, that the stones very commonly gave way in this manner after heavy falls of rain; but on the dissolution of a large body of snow, immense rocks, they said, would sometimes roll down with a crash that might be heard for miles. The consequences then of a large rock towards the bottom of the mountain being undermined by a flood, and giving way, may be very readily imagined: the rock above it, robbed of its support, would also fall; this would bring down with it numbers of others with which it was connected, and thus a disruption would be produced from the base to the very summit of the mountain.

[Sidenote: IRON.]