LETTER XV. 



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NATURAL BRIDGE. 

Rockbridge County, Virginia. 

Height, 210 feet. 

Span of Arch, 90 feet. 

Thickness of Arch, 45 feet. 



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LETTERS 

DESCRIPTIVE OF 

THE VIRGINIA SPRINGS; 

THE ROADS LEADING THERETO, AND THE 
DOINGS THEREAT. 



COLLECTED, CORRECTED, ANNOTATED AND EDITED, 
BY PEREGRINE PROLIX. 

WITH A MAP OF VIRGINIA. 



-Q,ui talia legit, 



Quid didicit tandem, quid scit, nisi somnia, nueas ? 

Palingenius. 

My business in this state. 

Made me a looker-on here in Vienna. 

Measure for Measure, Act V. 



SECOND EDITION, 
CONTAINING EIGHT MORE LETTERS, 



PHILADELPHIA : 
H. S. TANNER 5 1 SOUTH THIRD STREET. 



18 37, 



V-S^M 



30 



s 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835, 

B Y H. S. T A N N E U, 

In the office of the Clerk of the District Court of the 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



TO 

ISAAC LEA, ESQUIRE, 

MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 
&C. &C. 

STite ^utfior 

INSCRIBES THIS TRIFLE, AS A MARK OF 
ESTEEM AND FRIENDSHIP. 

"Quod mihi donas magnum est, sed parvum tibi reddo. 

" Do quod adest ; opto quod abest ; tibi dona darentur 
" Aurea, sors animo siforet aqua meo." 



PREFACE 

TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

The sale of the first edition of these letters 
is the apology for the publication of the 
second ; and the obvious propriety of inform- 
ing the inquiring reader that he will find 
something in the second that was not in the 
first, causeth these few prefatory remarks. 
A preface is something said before — some- 
thing proemial ; and may or may not bear 
some relation to the matters contained in the 
book to which it is prefatory : the latter kind 
is the most fashionable, but mine shall be of 
the former. 

No alteration has been made in the first 
twelve letters, which appeared originally in 



IV PREFACE. 

the United States Gazette, but 1 have written 
eight Additional Letters, in which are describ- 
ed the route to the Springs by the way of 
Richmond, Lynchburgh, and Lexington ; the 
Blue Sulphur Springs ; the Natural Bridge ; 
and the improvements that have been made 
within two years at the White, Salt, and Red 
Sulphur, and the Hot Springs. 

As invalids have as deep an interest in 
these matters as any other class of mortals, I 
have placed in an appendix authentic state- 
ments of several interesting cases and cures. 

The Table of Contents will be found at the 
end of the volume. 

P.P. 
Philadelphia, January, 1837. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

Some time in last October, after my return 
from a somewhat lengthy sojourn in that 
pleasant region of Virginia which containeth 
the mineral and thermal Springs, I perceived 
in the United States Gazette, under the 
editorial head, the following paragraph or 
annunciation : 

" Three of our old friends, full blooded 
" Philadelphia cockneys, have lately broken 
" loose from their moorings in the comfort- 
" able city, and have perpetrated a tour 
" through the mountainous parts of Virginia, 
" to see the world, and pick up health. They 
" have favoured us with several letters de- 

" scriptive of their journeyings, which we 

#2 



VI PREFACE. 

" suppose contain some things that may be 
" useful to any cockneys who may wish to 
" go over the same ground next summer ; 
" and also a small modicum of amusement ; 
" and though we know that some parts of 
" said epistles are a little tedious, yet if they 
" were ten times as tedious, we have gene- 
" rosity enough to bestow it all upon our 
"readers; and so we give the first of the 
" series to day." 

The which notice was accompanied by the 
first o'f the following series of letters, which 
do purport to give some account of said 
springs and the ways to them and at them. 

The letter and its promises did somewhat 
disturb my equanimity and unsettle my pur- 
poses ; the latter of which had in view no less 
an object than to give to the world a thick 
folio, a cosmogonical, geological, mineralogi- 
cal, chemical, geographical, hydrographical, 
geodesical, geometrical, astronomical, meteor- 
ological, agricultural, horticultural, tetrapo- 



PREFACE. Vll 

dological,* ornithological, icthyological, con- 
chyliological, serpentine, philosophical, pop- 
ulationary, graphical, statistical and historical 
account of that beautiful and salutiferous 
region; which 1 did intend to concoct and 
construct from twenty foolscap quires of notes, 
which were written on the very spots to which 
they do refer. 

The contents of said letter embracing many 
topics on which I should have delighted to 
dilate, did check and nip in the bud my bene- 
ficent intention, and made me resolve to await 
the appearance of the whole series, before I 
should dive deep into the bowels of my pro- 
jected folio, or waste much valuable labour 
upon subjects which might be made stale and 
tedious as a twice told tale, by this unknown 
anticipator. Having waited patiently until at 
last the last has come, and having found in 
them some things useful (among many things 
useless) to spa-hunters and health-seekers at 
this time of year, and my own folio not being 

*Tetrapodology, is the history of four-footed beasts. 



Vlll PREFACE. 

so much as begun, I have determined to res- 
cue these letters from the oblivious pages of 
a diurnal, and to give them to the public in a 
form convenient to carry and easy to read, 
illustrated by a Map, whereon are accurately 
laid down the places and roads whereof the 
letters do treat. 

Courteous reader, here you will find noth- 
ing wonderful or astounding ; 

" Non hie Centauros, non Gorgonas, Harpyiasque, 
" Invenies ; hominem pagina nostra sapit." 

Martial. 

Not Centaurs here, nor monsters out of nature, 
Gorgons nor Harpies of a, fossil age ; 
But modern men, half-horse half-alligator, 
And recent Harpies illustrate our page. 

Men and things are the subject-matter ; 

" Quidquid agunt homines, votum timor, ira, voluptas, 
" Gaudia, discursus, nostri farrago libelli." 

Juvenal. 

What men enact ; desire, anger, pleasure, 
Fear, joys, hurry, and talk without measure. 

I have meddled but little with the author's 
text, except where I have suspected it to have 



PREFACE. IX 

been corrupted by the wicked printers ; and 
in a few instances I have introduced some 
lines making mention of sundry matters use- 
ful for travellers to know, that were omitted 
to be set down in the letters. I have prefixed 
captions or syllabi to the letters, and a table of 
contents, to enable the reader to find any par- 
ticular matter or thing about which he may 
be curious ; and I have added a few notes 
intended to elucidate and explain several dark 
and difficult passages in the text. 

The letter writer has given but a super- 
ficial view of the region about which he treats, 
and has left undescribed many things inter- 
esting to one like myself, who delight in poring 
over matters usque ad stuporem ; yet the 
things he has described are those most inter- 
esting to the majority of travellers who skim 
the surface with a rapidity which does not 
permit them to penetrate the substance. 

I cannot close these few prefatory observa- 
tions without expressing my thanks to the wor- 
thy publisher of this little book, for the white 



X PREFACE. 

paper and readable type he has bestowed upon 
it, and particularly for the valuable Map which 
he has prefixed to it, on which are accurately 
set down certain pleasant places not to be 
found on any other Map. 

P.P. 

Philadelphia, January, 1834. 



LETTERS 



OF A 



TRAVELLER IN VIRGINIA. 



LETTER I. 



Route from Philadelphia to Charlottesville — Steam boat 
— Extract of Tobacco — Baltimore — Washington — 
Fredericksburgh — Orange Court House — Charlottes- 
ville — University — Stage Coach difficulties. 

I left Philadelphia on the 13th August, 
1834, in company with two friends, to 
perform a tour of six or seven weeks 
in the mountains of Virginia. We left 
Chestnut street wharf at six a. m., in the 
Robert Morris, an excellent boat, no doubt 
as good as that of any other line. We va- 
poured across the Peninsula in an hour, and 
were paddled down the Chesapeake in the 



12 LETTERS ON THE 

Carroll of Carrollton, a spacious, rapid, and 
very clean boat. An excellent practice ob- 
tains in this boat : one or two servants are 
constantly employed in wiping up the extract 
of tobacco, with which our southern friends 
are wont to describe parabolic curves in every 
direction ; touching which singular custom, 
the refined Trollope has some pertinent re- 
marks. This is done by the servant with a 
view of keeping the skirts of the ladies clear 
of this great offence ; and — * ne quid nigh 
Miss? as Terence hath it. 

We were detained half an hour near the 
mouth of the Patapsco, by putting some pas- 
sengers and baggage on board the Norfolk 
boat. When the boats approached each 
other, the effect of their mutual attraction 
was evident. 

We arrived at Baltimore at 3| p. m., and 
stept from the steamboat into the coach for 
Washington, where we arrived at 9| p. m. 
The road is very bad, and will grow worse, 
and is expected to become impassible just as 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 13 

the Baltimore and Washington Rail-road* be- 
comes ripe for use. Thus we Americans 
make the two ends meet. 

We went to Fuller's, where every thing 
was good except the weather, which was alto- 
gether too hot for comfort. I take this op- 
portunity of hinting to friend Fuller, that it is 
a bad plan in very hot weather to set out a 
dinner for three, on that end of his long din- 
ing table which is immediately over his fur- 
nace. We made an attempt to reach the 
happy spot, but the heat drove us to take 
refuge in private apartments, where we had 
an excellent dinner at greater cost. 

As I intend these letters to be useful as 
well as agreeable, I shall here set down a few 
items of route information. You can go to 
the Virginia Springs, by Fredericksburgh or 
Richmond ; but, when you have come to 
Washington, the former is the best route ; 
the latter I think preferable for those who do 

* The Rail Road is now in use and the distance is 
performed in two hours and a half. 1837. 



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not wish to visit Washington, and who can 
transfer themselves to the Norfolk boat near 
the mouth of the Patapsco, and be in Rich- 
mond the following evening. 

To go by Fredericksburgh, you leave your 
hotel in Washington, at 6 a. m. in an omnibus, 
to which you pay half a dollar for carrying 
you and your baggage, to a very good steam- 
boat, in which you do not get as good a 
breakfast as Robert used to give us in the 
Trenton. I advise the Captain of that same 
boat (who is quite a clever fellow) always 
hereafter to have two or three kinds of corn 
bread on his table ; for when Hyperboreans 
go to the South, they look for the good things 
of the South, and are by no means to be 
fobbed off with abominable imitations of 
buckwheat cakes, which can not be made good 
any where but in Philadelphia. 

You go down the grand Potomac about 
fifty-five miles, passing Mount Vernon and 
one of Uncle Sam's old Forts, to Potomac 
Creek, where you take coaches and ride nine 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 15 

hilly miles to Fredericksburgh, the view of 
which, with its river and valley, is exceedingly 
beautiful as you descend from the hills, a mile 
from the town. 

Here you dine ; pas grande chose ; and 
at 3 p. m. take coach for Orange Court 
House, a distance of thirty-six miles, over a 
stone turnpike in bad repair and rough, but 
not dangerous. You sleep at Orange Court 
House, having arrived at half past 9 p. m., 
if you can sleep in cotton sheets on a feather 
bed in hot weather. You get a very good 
supper about seven miles east of Orange C. 
H. at about seven o'clock. 

When you have got about half through 
your first nap, CufFee knocks at your door, 
bearing in his hand a dipt and flaming minis- 
ter, as unwelcome as Othello. He announces 
that the coach is almost ready, which is cor- 
roborated by the driver's sounding horn. It 
is two hours before sunrise, and you have to 
ride three hours before breakfast ; the road 
is not bad, but the breakfast is. 



16 LETTERS ON THE 

At 11a. m. you arrive at Charlottesville, 
passing under the brow of Monticello ; and 
near which is Mr. Jefferson's great Univer- 
sity, which has met with some success since 
that great man's death. 

The University buildings are many, vari- 
ous in architecture, and handsomely arranged 
on three sides of a grassy parallelogram ; at 
the upper end of which stands a large Rotun- 
da, containing Lecture-rooms, and a large and 
commodious Library, well furnished with 
books. It requires a sojourn of one day at 
Charlottesville to enable the traveller to see 
the University buildings, which are one mile 
from the town. 

The line of coaches in which you have 
come, intersects another line at Charlottes- 
ville, in which you are to continue your jour- 
ney through Staunton to the Springs, and in 
which you have a preference over the Char- 
lottesvillians ; but if you remain a day, you 
become as a Charlottesvillian and lose your 
preference ,* and some unhappy people have 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 17 

been detained here a week, when they very 
innocently intended to remain only one day. 
At Charlottesville you are almost sure to get 
into a crowded coach, but fortunately the road 
to Staunton is very good, and affords some 
magnificent mountain and valley views. Our 
Virginia friends are sound economists, and 
follow Adam Smith's principle of keeping the 
market rather understocked in the commodity 
of stage coaches. 

I shall continue the account of our journey 
in another letter. 



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VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 19 



L E T T E R 1 1. 

Stage Coach Civility — Mountain Roads — Blue Ridge — 
Rock Fish Gap — Tuckahoes and Quo'hees — Fried 
Chickens — Staunton — Weyer's Cave — Frazier's — 
Clover Dale — Warm Spring Mountain — Pass — Hotel 
—Table Etiquette— Cabins— Bath— Mode of Bath- 
ing*. 

We left Charlottesville, at m. in a coach 
with nine passengers ; and when we were just 
about starting, the coach-agent, bringing to 
the coach door a decent looking country girl, 
made the following apostrophe' — ' will no gen- 
tleman have the politeness to ride outside, to 
make room for this young lady !' three voices 
instantly answered, I will ,* the sounds having 
proceeded from an Irishman, just arrived in 
the country, a Philadelphian and a Virginian. 



20 LETTERS ON THE 

The Philadelphia)! suited the action to the 
word, and without more ado vacated his seat. 
I mention this to show, that in this country 
civilization has invaded even the stage coaches. 
The road from Charlottesville to Staunton is 
here called a turnpike, and is made by cutting 
to a depth of three or four feet into the side of 
the mountain, and throwing the earth so as to 
produce a level. A road made in this way, 
is very good in summer. In some places, to 
the inexperienced, it has an awfully danger- 
ous appearance, running up the side of a 
steep mountain, and having no parapet wall. 
The safety, however, lies in the horses, who 
cannot by any means be persuaded to run off 
the road. The coaches, horses and drivers 
are good, and the latter take the precaution of 
locking one of the hind wheels, in going down 
steep or long hills. With the wheel locked, 
they drive down very fast. Before you reach 
Staunton, the. Blue Ridge is crossed, through 
Rock-fish Gap, which affords splendid views 
of the great valley. This ridge divides the 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 21 

Ancient Dominion into two nations, called 
Tuckahoes and Quo'hees ; the former inhabit- 
ing the lowland, and living ' more majorum ,-' 
the latter occupying the mountains and eleva- 
ted valleys, and having somewhat sophisti- 
cated the liberal and comfortable ways of old 
Virginia, by introducing outlandish customs 
from Pennsylvania and other foreign coun- 
tries. We dined somewhere, I forget where, 
and arrived at Staunton, at 7 p. m. I advise 
every traveller, who comes from the northern 
side of Mason & Dixon's line, to eat fried 
chickens, whenever he meets with them in 
Virginia. 

Twelve miles from Staunton is Weyer's 
Cave, which those can spend a day in visiting, 
who are fond of scrambling over rocks and 
stones, for an extent of three miles under 
ground, at the risk of being detained several 
days in Staunton, by losing their preference in 
the coach. It is a magnificent cave and well 
worth a visit. 

As soon as our coach stopped at the tavern, 



22 LETTERS ON THE 

I jumped out and engaged single -rooms, and 
seats for the next day, for the Warm Springs. 
The house is good, both for supper and lodg- 
ings. 

At 4 a. m. the next morning, we were 
repacked in the coach, with nine insides, to 
travel fifty-two miles to the Warm Springs. 
In three hours, we reached Frazier's, a dis- 
tance of fourteen miles, where they detained 
us an hour and a quarter, to give us a tolera- 
ble breakfast. 

In nineteen miles more, we reached Clover- 
Dale, where we obtained a good dinner ; 
whence we started at 2 p. m. and reached the 
Warm Springs, at 7 p. m. The road* from 
Staunton to the Warm Springs, is in progress, 
and will be finished by next summer. But 
little of it is bad, and the portions leading 
over the two mountains are excellent. 

The road over the Warm Springs moun- 
tain, is very skilfully graded, and leads you to 
a fearful height by a very easy ascent ; now 
*This turnpike (so called) has since been finished. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 23 

winding its slow length up one side of a deep 
ravine, now up the other ; now turning short 
round the projecting angle of a mountain 
spur, now leading through the gap which 
forms the mountain pass. As you approach 
the Pass, the view towards the east is exten- 
sive and grand. In the Pass is a small farm 
house, where you can get a draught of good 
water, and you will certainly be tired and 
thirsty. Passing on a few yards, you sud- 
denly behold lying at your feet, the Hotel and 
cabins of the Warm Springs ; that celebrated 
and inevitable spot which is the beginning and 
the end, the Ay and Izzard of a tour to the 
Virginia Springs. It reposes in an elevated 
valley, at the western foot of the mountain, 
and is about three-quarters of a mile from the 
pass. The descent is not steep, but has, in 
its course, several very acute angles, which 
the coach describes with fearful rapidity ; but 
fortunately the traveller's sense of danger has 
worn away before he has reached this des- 
cent. 



24 LETTERS ON THE 

The Warm Springs' Hotel, which is under 
the management of Mr. Fry, a very worthy 
and obliging person, is a two-storied brick 
building, about one hundred feet in front, im- 
mediately on the road, and having a spacious 
piazza extending along its whole front ; and 
possessing a room for dancing, and a common 
parlor. There is a large and airy eating- 
room, in which, thrice a day, is spread a table 
amply supplied with a variety of good things. 
Each plate has a card near it, bearing the 
name of the person who has the right to use 
it ; a custom which prevails at all the Vir- 
ginia Springs, and which cannot be too much 
commended. After the meal is over, the 
cards are taken up in their order, and re- 
placed in the same way at the next meal ; the 
cards of the departed being withdrawn, and 
their places being filled by promoting the 
next in order ; the last comers always begin- 
ning at the foot of the table. It is easy to 
see that this system must effectually prevent 
confusion, and disputation about seats. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 25 

Besides the large house, there are five or 
six rows of huts, ( Virginice cabins) some built 
of logs and mud, and some of brick and mortar. 
Most of them contain two small rooms, in one 
of which is generally a fire place. 

When we arrived, the establishment was 
rather full, and Mr. Fry stowed one of us 
in a small room in the Hotel, and the other 
two in the most ancient log cabin on the pre- 
mises, consoling us by the observation that 
Mr. Jefferson had formerly spent three weeks 
in the self-same mud edifice ; at the same time 
hinting (which was the most solid part of the 
consolation) that the next day he could trans- 
late us into a better residence. 

The place derives its name from an abun- 
dant Spring of limpid water, containing a 
small quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen, and 
emitting bubbles of nitrogen, which flows 
through an octagonal bath, thirty-eight feet 
in diameter, having the sides of stone masonry, 

and the bottom of large loose rounded pebbles. 
4 



26 LETTERS ON THE 

It is covered with a wooden building,* having 
a large opening in the middle of the roof to 
admit air and light. The water in the bath 
always exhibits a temperature of ninety-six 
degrees, according to the scale of Fahrenheit, 
and is so pellucid, that you scarcely see it 
upon first entering the bath house. There is 
a small room at each side of the bath with a 
little fire, to undress and redress by. There 
are stone steps leading from these rooms to 
the bottom of the bath ,* but by far the best 
way, is to plunge in head foremost, as you are 
then instantly transferred to the comfortable 
element, and are out of your pains in a mo- 
ment, as the boys say. 

The water is five feet deep for the gentle- 
men, and four for the ladies. The two sexes 
bathe alternately ; spaces of two hours each 
being allotted, from 6 a. m. to 10 p. m. You 
may take three baths a day without injury. 
To bathe comfortably, you should have a large 

* The covering has since been rebuilt, with various 
improvements. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 27 

cotton morning gown of a cashmere shawl 
pattern lined with crimson, a fancy Greek cap, 
Turkish slippers, and a pair of loose panta- 
loons ; a garb that will not consume much 
time in doffing and donning. Stay in the bath 
fifteen minutes, using very little exercise 
whilst in the water. As soon as you come 
out, hurry to your cabin, wrap yourself in a 
dry night gown, go to bed, cover up warm, go 
to sleep, get into a fine perspiration, grow 
cool by degrees, wake up in half an hour, 
dress and go to dinner with what appetite you 
have. 

This process, except the dinner, may be 
repeated twice a day with great profit and 
pleasure, and on one occasion, breakfast or 
supper can take the place of dinner. At this 
comfortable, well kept and agreeable estab- 
lishment, the charge is eight dollars per week, 
or one and half per diem ; and half price for 
servants and horses. If you want fire in your 
room you have it for asking ; and in truth 
every effort is used to give comfort and satis- 
faction to the visiters. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 29 



LETTER III. 

Amusements — Route to the White Sulphur — Shumate's 
— Callaghan's — White Sulphur — Qualities of the 
Water — Dining-room, Stables, Cabin, &c. — Ac- 
commodations, Table, Company — Customs and 
manner of Living. 

The means of amusement at the Warm 
Springs, consist of a bagatelle table entirely 
used up, a ten-pin alley with three wooden 
balls of different sizes, not round ; and the 
Warm Spring Mountain to walk or ride up 
and down. Every visiter should ascend to 
the top of the mountain, which can be reach- 
ed in half an hour on horseback ; and whence 
may be seen a sublime mountain-view, con- 
sisting of parrallel mountain ridges, one be- 
4* 



30 LETTERS ON THE 

yond the other as far as the eye can reach* 
like a dark green sea of giant billows, instantly 
stricken solid by nature's magic wand. 

The coach for the White Sulphur Springs 
being engaged for many days beforehand, we 
were in danger of remaining at the Warm 
Springs longer than we wished. Fortunately 
however for us, an ancient hack came with 
two gentlemen from Staunton, and just as old 
Henry was starting to return to his master, 
we fell in with him, and engaged him to carry 
us to the White Sulphur. We left the Warm 
Springs at 3^ p. m. on the 19th of August, 
and crept along to Shumate's, a tavern at 
fourteen miles distance, where we supped and 
slept. It began to rain just after our arrival, 
and rained all night and all the following 
morning. We were in motion again before 
sunrise the next morning, and all got wet, 
because the respectable old vehicle was not 
water tight. We breakfasted at Callaghan's, 
so called from a merry Irishman who former- 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 31 

ly lived there ; but now the house is very 
well kept by an English family, named Plum. 

We arrived at the White Sulphur at l£ 
p. m. and found it overflowing with company, 
humming like a bee hive. This is the great 
lion of the Virginia mountains, and like the 
worshippers of Juggernaut, the votaries of 
pleasure are willing to be crushed to death, 
to obtain a chance of laying their offerings on 
the shrine that fashion has set up in this happy 
valley. 

The water has the pleasant flavour of a half- 
boiled, half-spoiled egg, is very clear and not 
cold enough to please the taste of a Philadel- 
phia cockney. The spring is covered with a 
handsome dome, supported on columns, and 
is contained in an octagonal marble case, 
about seven feet long, five feet wide, and four 
and a half feet deep, the bottom being formed 
of the rock from which the water gushes. It 
is very beautiful and tempting, and cures the 
following diseases, according to popular be- 
lief — Yellow Jaundice, White Swelling, Blue 



32 LETTERS ON THE 

Devils and Black Plague ; Scarlet Fever, 
Yellow Fever, Spotted Fever, and fever of 
every kind and colour ; Hydrocephalas, Hy- 
drothorax, Hydrocele and Hydrophobia ; Hy- 
pochondria and Hypocrisy ; Despepsia ; 
Diarrhoea, Diabetes, and die-of-any-thing ; 
Gout, Gormandising and Grogging ; Liver 
Complaint, Colic, Stone, Gravel and all other, 
diseases and bad habits, except chewing, 
smoking, spitting, and swearing. 

My own private opinion is, that the White 
Sulphur water, is an excellent alterative, and 
combined with the exercise necessary to 
reach it, the pure mountain air and agreea- 
ble society found in these elevated regions, 
performs wonderful cures in many chronic 
complaints not removable by medicine swal- 
lowed at home. 

It contains sulphuretted hydrogen, nitrogen, 
and oxygen ; sulphate, carbonate and muriate 
of lime, sulphate of magnesia, and a very 
strong infusion of fashion. The latter being 
an animal substance, its quantity cannot be 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 33 

precisely ascertained ; it is supposed, however, 
to be gradually increasing, and no doubt con- 
tributes greatly to the efficacy of the water. 
When submitted to the ordeal of analysis, it 
vanishes in smoke. 

This celebrated spring, bursts forth in an 
elevated valley, situated on the western side 
of the main Allegheny ridge, and its precious 
waters flow towards the gulf of Mexico ; whilst 
the sweet spring, distant only eight miles in a 
direct line, sends its abundant stream towards 
the Atlantic Ocean. 

Like that of Rasselas, this valley seem3 to 
be surrounded by insuperable hills ; but at both 
extremeties are passes wide enough to admit 
the entrance and exit of one of the tributaries 
of the Green Brier ; along whose banks and 
through whose rocky bed passes by turns the 
great mail route from Washington to Guyan- 
dotte. 

The middle of the valley where the build- 
ings stand, is cleared of forest ; care having 
been taken to leave a few noble trees for orna- 



<34 LETTERS ON THE 

ment and shade. The buildings consist of a 
frame dining room about 120 feet long ; with 
which is connected a large kitchen and bakery; 
a frame ball room with lodging rooms over it 
and at each end ; two very large frame stables 
with 80 stalls in each, of which the exterior 
rows are open to the air ; and many rows of 
cabins tastefully arranged around the larger 
edifices, and standing on rising ground. The 
cabins are composed of various materials, 
brick, frame or logs, and the view of the tout- 
ensemble, is very pleasing. Most of the modern 
cabins are furnished with little piazzas, and 
shaded by forest trees, purposely rescued from 
the ruthless axe. There are several straight 
and dusty walks laid out with rectangular art ; 
and many artless paths more agreeable to the 
foot and eye. The cabins are, in general, 
comfortable and the bedding clean ; some sus- 
picion of fleas I confess too, but I detected no 
bugs, which are perhaps kept away by the 
nature of the water, for Virgil says in the 
fifth book of his Georgics : 
" Foeiidum in aqua non gaudet sulphured bedbug ;" 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 35 

which being translated into the Virginia vern- 
acular, means, " the stinking chinch, does not 
like sulphur water." The last word of the 
above quoted hexameter, I take to be an 
ancient Latin neuter indeclinable noun. 

This elysium of summer, is the property of 
one individual, whose venerable silver locks, 
placid and care-free countenance, frank and 
agreeable manners, win the favourable regard 
of all who have the pleasure of making his 
acquaintance ; and it is under the manage- 
ment of a man, small indeed in stature, but 
mighty in management and merit — the mag- 
nanimous, mysterious, mellifluent Metternich 
of the mountains. This gentleman spares no 
pains to accommodate his guests, and succeeds 
beyond hope, in making four hundred people 
comfortable in quarters calculated for half 
the number. The table is liberally supplied 
with esculents, and good tea and coffee, and 
bread of various kinds, all of which will come 
to you of their own accord, if you sit quiet for 
five minutes, during which time the servants 



36 LETTERS ON THE 

are occupied in supplying those refined per- 
sons who fee them for the first cuts ; and the 
supply is always so liberal that nothing is lost 
by waiting. 

The greatest charm of this place, is the 
delightful society which is drawn together in 
every agreeable variety, by its health-restor- 
ing spring. From the east you have con- 
solidationists, tariffites and philanthropists; 
from the middle, professors, chemical analysts, 
and letter writers ; from the west, orators, and 
gentlemen who can squat lower, jump higher, 
dive deeper, any come cut drier, than all 
creation besides; and from the south, nullifiers, 
union men, political economists, and states- 
men ; and from all quarters, functionaries of 
all ranks, ex-candidates for all functions, and 
the gay, young, agreeable and handsome of 
both sexes, who come to the White Sulphur 
to see and be seen, to chat, laugh and dance, 
and each to throw his pebble on the great heap 
of the general enjoyment. 

The customs here are very liberal towards 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 37 

the guests. A good ball room, and excellent 
band of music, are in occupation every even- 
ing, free to all the boarders, without charge. 
Nobody at the public table is expected todrink 
or pay for any wine or other liquors he does 
not want ; and any body can have fire enough 
in his cabin to roast an ox, by saying, with 
Horace, ' Boy, (meaning old uncle Duncan) 
fetch me some wood :' ' Puer^ pone lignum 
super foco. 1 Uncle Duncan is a highly re- 
spectable yellow character, with a hawk's eye 
and an eagle's nose, and perhaps a drop of 
the imperial blood of Powhattan, who makes 
his bivouac among the trees on the hill in the 
rear of Alabama Row, under a slantindicular 
shed, lighted up most romantically by a large 
watch fire ,* and if you want any thing, you 
have only to open your postern, and your 
mouth, and screech, * Duncan, oh, Duncan.' 
There are no bells, as captain Hamilton says ; 
and what do we want with bells, when we have 
good lungs ? Neither are there any shovels and 
tongs — and why should there be ? when a 



38 LETTERS ON THE 

small stick of wood is so much better to poke 
a fire withal, than a cold heavy pair of tongs, 
which generally give your hand a pinch. 

If you are happy enough to be a bachelor, 
get into Alabama row . if your state is a 
happy duplicity, Paradise Row is your befit- 
ting asylum — opposite to which is a pretty 
isolated cottage, resting under the refreshing 
shade of several ancient sons of the forest. 
Running from the east end of Paradise Row 
at right angles, towards the south, is a row 
of beautiful white cabins, piazza-fronted, and 
looking towards the dome-covered spring. On 
the other side of the road are Compulsion 
Row and Wolf Row ; the latter of which 
avoid, unless you be young and foolish — fond 
of noise and nonsense, frolic and fun, wine and 
wassail, sleepless nights, and days of head- 
ache; Mercury and Nimrod have taken up 
their abode there, and Macbeth-like, nightly 
murder sleep. 

If you are geological, do not forget that 
you are within the edge of the great basin of 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 39 

the Ohio ; and that you can obtain a great 
variety of interesting fossils in the stratum of 
limestone which is bare in the beds of the 
water courses and the steep sides of the hill. 
If conchyliological, search the hills for he- 
lices, and the waters for naiades, planorbes, 
physae, lymnaeae, and other fluviatile shells ; 
and all that you find, wrap separately, mark- 
ing their respective localities on the papers, 
and bring them home for my cabinet. The 
waters of the Warm Spring, and of the White 
Sulphur, have been accurately analysed by 
Professor William Barton Rogers,* of Wil- 
liam and Mary College, a scientific and prac- 
tical chemist of great experience, who intends 
to apply the fiery test to all the mineral waters 
of western Virginia; and it is to be hoped, 
will give to the world of invalids the result of 

* It is understood that the learned Professor has since 
been appointed by Virginia, to make geological surveys 
within her borders ; and that he will give in his report to 
the state, the results of his analytical experiments, on the 
Mineral Waters. 



40 LETTERS ON THE 

his valuable labours, before the revolving sun 
shall again call them to the region of renova- 
tion and amusement. 1 had the pleasure of 
being present at some of the learned Profes- 
sor's experiments, and can vouch for the un- 
remitting care and severe accuracy with which 
they were performed ; and I believe that all 
the information that has lately been circula- 
ted respecting the contents of the Virginia 
Springs, has been derived from the analyses 
of Professor Rogers. 

And now, Reader, I hope I have shown 
you enough of the delights of the White 
Sulphur Springs, to induce you to go there 
next summer. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 41 



LETTER IV. 

Excursions — Lewisburg — Sweet Springs Dinner 

Party at Confectioner's — Rifling Sheep, not stealing 
Mutton — Hounds — -Sunday — Difficulty of getting 
away — Departure in a Shower — Route to the Salt 
Sulphur. 

Those who have carriages, can make plea- 
sant excursions to Lewisburg and the Sweet 
Springs. The former is distant from the White 
Sulphur nine, and the latter sixteen miles. 
The road to Lewisburg crosses the Green 
Brier River and one of its tributaries ; and 
passes over several hills, (quasi mountain,) 
affords some beautiful and romantic views, is 
turnpiked all the way, and is in very good 
order. The * hotel there, affords very good 

* The Star, kept by Mr. Frazer. 

5# 



42 LETTERS ON THE 

dinners, and the undulation of the road affords 
the aspiring young Jehus a fine opportunity of 
displaying their want of skill in the noble sci- 
ence of the whip. 

The road to the Sweet Springs is also very 
good, and the ride there and back feasible in 
one day. The turnpike crosses the main 
Allegheny ridge, which divides the waters 
flowing into the Atlantic from the tributaries 
of the Ohio. The direct distance is not sup- 
posed to exceed eight miles, but the windings 
of the road necessary to overcome the inter- 
posed elevation, make it extend to sixteen. 
The road is so judiciously laid out, that you 
go up and down the mountain without being 
aware of the great height you have passed. 
The scenery on the eastern, is more beautiful, 
but less wild, than that on the western side of 
the ridge, and the geological phenomena are 
very interesting. 

Parties of gentlemen frequently go to dine 
at a confectioner's half a mile off, where they 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 43 

eat venison and other good things sub dio, and 
quaff their wine and puff nicotian fumes most 
delightfully, under the shade of the forest 
trees. I dined there with a party, of whom 
three were from Virginia, three from Louisi- 
ana, one from Scotland, two from North Caro- 
lina, one from New York, one from Boston, 
and three from Philadelphia. Such meetings 
are very agreeable, and tend to render the 
Union of the States ' more perfect.'* 

Pic Nic parties embracing some of the 
fairer part of creation, often take place in 
some beautiful spot in the forest, or on the 
bank of the Green Brier, and are the occa- 
sion of much pleasure and amusement. 

On the first afternoon of a stranger's arri- 
val at the White Sulphur, he is sometimes 
startled, by the sharp crack of a rifle re- 
peated seven or eight times ; on inquiry, he 
is informed that the marksman of the estab- 
lishment is thus unceremoniously converting 
certain innocent and unconscious sheep into 
* Constitution of the United States. 



44 LETTERS ON THE 

mutton, for to-morrow's dinner. This yellow 
functionary never fails to send his bullet 
through the victim's brain, and argues, that 
shooting is a much more honorable death, than 
cutting of throats. There is a fine pack of 
hounds kept here, and frequently used for 
hunting the deer, which abound in the neigh- 
bouring forests. Every one who likes, can 
join in this spirit-stirring sport, provided he 
owns, or can beg, borrow or steal a horse. 

On Sunday, the bar-room is converted 
into a chapel for the nonce, and the gay into 
the devout. On the Sundays I passed at the 
White Sulphur, the Divine Service of the 
Episcopal Church, was rubrically performed 
by a young clergyman from Petersburg, and 
was followed by an excellent sermon from the 
same gentleman. The congregation was nu- 
merous and devout. 

The fascinations of the White Sulphur are 
so many, that you do not soon wish to leave 
them : and when you have made up your 
mind that you are ready to go, it is no easy 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 45 

matter to get away, unless you have your own 
locomotive. The supply of travelling conve- 
niences is by no means commensurate with 
the demand, at certain seasons, and therefore, 
a week before you go, you must engage your 
seat in some coach going whither you wish. 
My two friends left me here, and I joined 
myself to another learned Theban, a philoso- 
pher, who, like myself, was hunting health 
and knowledge in the mountains. 

One fine morning, with tears in our eyes, 
we left the White Sulphur just after break- 
fast, to proceed to the Salt Sulphur Springs : 
whence a kind Virginia friend had sent his 
carriage for us. The distance is twenty-four 
miles, a great part of which may be called 
tolerably bad road. The route follows the 
course of a mountain rivulet, which it crosses 
more than a dozen times, and in some places, 
passes for many yards along its stony bed. 
The scene for miles is wild and romantic, 
being laid in the heart of an ancient forest, 
flanked at intervals by mountain spurs, ter- 



46 LETTERS ON THE 

minating in lofty promontories of rock. After 
travelling about fourteen miles, we emerged 
from the forest, and saw a smooth unpainted 
board stuck up by the road side, with certain 
characters traced thereon in black. The let- 
ters having various dimensions and directions, 
and the N's and S's being turned the wrong 
way, we had some difficulty in making out 
1 John Rogers's Organ Cave." We stopped, 
and a little brown-faced, bare-footed moun- 
taineer, the watchman of the sign, asked us 
if we wished to go into the cave. I sounded 
a Strombus Gigas, (i. e. conk) and John 
Rogers soon appeared with an armful of split 
pine for torches, and a chump of fire to ignite 
them, wherewith to light us through his sub- 
terraneous domain. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 47 



LETTER V. 

Organ Cave — Pine Torch — Brownface — Journey in 
Cave — Organ Room — Smashpipe Quo'hees — Great 
coat — Robbers — Gil Elas — Saltpetre — Daylight. 

The mouth of the Organ Cave is situated 
nearly under the road, at the bottom of a deep 
ravine, which seems as if it had formerly dis- 
charged a large stream of water into the Cave. 
The superincumbent earth over which the 
road passes, is supported by an almost hori- 
zontal and very thick stratum of secondary 
lime-stone. The approach is very romantic, 
descending the steep and wooded side of the 
ravine, by a zigzag path, which leads by an 
easy slope, (" facilis descensus Averni") to 
the black and yawning chasm. 

The preparation for exploring one of these 



48 LETTERS ON THE 

cyclopean caves, consists of a supply of pilch- 
pine sticks, faith in your guides and folly in 
yourself. 

The sticks are about two feet long, and 
each one as thick as a thin finger ; fifteen or 
twenty of which being held together in the 
hand, and fired at the upper end, make the 
best of torches, will burn bright for two hours, 
and distinctly show the floor, sides and roof of 
the cave through the palpable obscure. 

Little magazines of sticks are judiciously 
left at intervals of a quarter of a mile, as you 
penetrate deeper and deeper into the bowels 
of the land, to replenish from time to time 
the moribund luminaries. 

John Rogers lighted one torch, little brown 
face another and myself a third ; my Theban 
friend not fearing Boeotian darkness, was con- 
tent to walk with borrowed light. 

We first entered a spacious apartment, 
about thirty feet high, fifty broad, and three 
hundred long, arched with rock, of which 
fallen fragments strewed the floor. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 49 

The floor dips about ten degrees from the 
entrance ; and near the lower end of this 
apartment, on the right hand, is a small aper- 
ture, just large enough to suffer a man to 
creep through, which leads into a passage 
about ten feet wide, four feet high, and two 
hundred and fifty feet long. The floor of this 
passage is almost smooth and nearly level, 
and the sides and roof formed of compact 
rock. No fragments seem to have fallen 
here from the roof; but it has very much the 
air of shutting down upon you bodily, and 
you suffer much inconvenience from the ne- 
cessity of stooping, and now and then rubbing 
your back against the impending rock. 

This passage opens into a spacious apart- 
ment, rough and rocky, and full of yawning 
gulphs and dangerous passes. A stone thrown 
into one of these awful pits, was heard for a 
time to bound from side to side, and then sul- 
lenly to plunge into the water far below. 

After some distance, this great apartment 
branches to the left and right ,* the latter 



50 LETTERS ON THE 

course, as John Rogers told us, leads over a 
rocky mountain, which we had to ascend and 
descend to reach the organ room, the jewel 
of the cave. Toil and danger attend the pas- 
sage of this tartarean hill. For some dis- 
tance, you pass along a path or ledge of rock 
about a foot wide, with the perpendicular side 
of the cavern on your right hand, and a preci- 
pice whose foot is lost in darkness on your 
left ; then for a space you scramble over 
rocks, until big drops of healthful exercise 
course one another down your innocent nose. 
Now you reach a living spring which leaps 
from the rock into a stalactitic basin, and 
here you stop and stoop and drink ; and here 
you also pull off your great coat, if it happens 
to be on. 

Thus refreshed and lightened you resume 
your march, and in a few minutes pass through 
a narrow opening into the organ room. This 
room is not very large, but is extremely in- 
teresting from the numerous stalactites of vari- 
ous forms which it contains. Near the en- 



VIRGINIA SFRINGS. 51 

trance is a perfect column extending from the 
floor to the roof, which it seems to support, 
and increases your sense of security. 

In another part of the room depend from 
the roof, a great number of distinct but par- 
allel stalactites, which do not reach the floor, 
are arranged after the manner of organ pipes, 
and upon being gently stricken with a stick 
or stone, do forthwith emit Memnonian sounds. 
The organ has been much injured and put out 
of tune, by certain barbarous Quo'hees, who 
have, unknown to John Rogers, invaded this 
deep recess, and broken some of the pipes. 
The organ room is distant from the cave's 
mouth about three quarters of a mile. 

Time and newspapers wait for no man ; so 
1 must forthwith quit this cave, and translate 
myself into the upper element, leaving the 
rest of the wonders of the organ room, to be 
described by my learned friend, in a profound 
work he is now putting together, for the bene- 
fit of his fellow-creatures. He remained some 
time in the room with John Rogers and the 



52 LETTERS ON THE 

torch after Brownface and I had commenced 
retreating. When about half out, (ourselves 
and the torch,) I stopped to put on my great 
coat and accidentally turning and looking 
back, I saw a light glaring behind us, at the 
distance of a furlong, and presently the torch- 
bearer and the Philosopher emerged from a 
turn in the cave, making the darkness visible 
and transporting me in imagination to the 
Robbers' Cave in Gil Bias. Instead of fol- 
lowing us, they took the aforesaid left hand 
branch, which following two furlongs, they 
found a spot, where formerly, certain Troglo- 
dytes digged villainous saltpetre from the 
harmless earth, to slay their fellow men. 
Now threading the low passage, and emerg- 
ing into the great vestibule, I saw again 
in the distance, through the cave's mouth, 
the bright and cheerful colours of the sunny 
world. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 53 



LETTER VI. 

Brownface, a nascent schoolmaster — Salt Sulphur — 
Contents and Non-contents of the Water —Contents 
of the Table — Comforts — Dairy — Butter — Cream — ■ 
Sweet Sulphur Spring — Nullification Row — Road to 
Red Sulphur. 

I waited at the cave's mouth for the forth- 
coming of my companion for the space of 
twenty minutes, which I spent in agreeable 
converse with little Brownface, who gave me 
to understand that he wished to follow the 
trade and mystery of a school-master ; and 1 
verily believe, the only science the poor lad 
has, is a little knowledge of the rifle, where- 
fore he opines, that he can teach the young 

idea how to shoot. 

6# 



54 LETTERS ON THE 

On re-entering our carriage, we found that 
two hours had fled, whilst we were in the cave; 
I advise you therefore, patient reader, to take 
a whole day to it, if you would see all its 
wonders. We met with no more very bad 
roads, and arrived at the Salt Sulphur Spring, 
at 5 p. m. totally tired and hollow with hun- 
ger, as we had dined in the cave upon mere 
curiosity. 

The Salt Sulphur Spring is situated in an 
elevated valley on the western side of the main 
Allegheny ridge, and contains nearly the same 
ingredients as the White Sulphur, with the 
addition of a little Sulphate of Soda, which 
makes it a sure purgative, if three or four 
glasses be taken before breakfast. Professor 
Rogers, made an accurate analysis of the water 
whilst I was there, and found in it, no Muriate 
of Soda, although the worthy proprietors had 
been accused by the unlearned, of throwing 
into the Spring a daily supply of that common 
condimentj'upon whose presence they supposed 
its purgative power to depend. This discovery 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 55 

in the water of Sulphate of Soda or Glauber 
Salt, made by the learned professor, was 
therefore very agreeable to the friends of 
Messrs. Caruthers dc Erskine, the estimable 
and enterprising proprietors, as it solved at 
once the mystery of purgation. 

Every good thing for the sick and sane is 
to be found here in the greatest abundance. 
At breakfast, twelve to fifteen different kinds 
of wheat, bran, maise, buckwheat, rye, rice, 
hot and cold bread and cakes; milk without 
water, and cream without milk ; coffee and 
tea, green and black ; sausages, eggs, honey, 
maple molasses, and cheese ; mutton and 
venison chops, fried and boiled ; fried chickens 
and colid corned beef and ham ; and all these 
well cooked and arranged on a snow white 
table-cloth, supported by a table having ample 
room and verge enough for all the guests to 
sit comfortably, and partake of the aforesaid 
dainties without indecent hurry. 

The dining room is 160 feet long, and 40 
feet wide, and the air is gently and pleasantly 



56 LETTERS ON THE 

agitated, and the maurauding flies effectually 
put to flight by a long line of fans, pendant 
from the ceiling, co-extensive with the table, 
and diligently kept in motion by the muscular 
power of a young aethiop, applied to one end 
of a rope ingeniously connected with each 
particular fan. 

At dinner you have venison, beef and mut- 
ton ; turkies, ducks and chickens ; corned 
beef and ham, cooked in all sorts of ways, and 
followed by a dessert consisting of a variety 
of excellent pastry and preserves, with abun- 
dance of rich milk and cream. For supper, 
see the foregoing account of breakfast. The 
butter is always fresh and good, and made in 
their own dairy, which go and look at ; Mr. 
Caruthers will show it to you with much 
pleasure, and he has a right to be proud of it. 
There are hot and cold mineral and fresh 
water baths. 

If you have a whim or fancy for any thing 
that is out of the common routine, ask and 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 57 

you will get it, for accommodation is the com- 
mon law of the place. 

At the distance of five hundred yards is a 
spring called the Sweet Sulphur, which has 
no Glauber Salt in it, and is a very agreeable 
beverage before dinner or in the evening. 
You can walk to it by the road, or by a path 
which leads over a romantic hill. 

The rides and walks are very pleasant, em- 
bracing every variety of scenery ; mountain, 
valley, hill and dale, wood, lawn, rocks and 
streams. Many interesting fossils reward the 
labour of the geologist ; and the conchyliolo- 
gist finds several genera of fluviatile and ter- 
restial mollusca. 

The accommodations are sufficient for two 
hundred and fifty persons, and until the middle 
of September, there is a large and agreeable 
society to be found there, consisting chiefly 
of families from the more southern states. 

Besides the chambers over the dining-room 
there are many rows of comfortable cabins, 
well furnished with bedding, chairs and tables ; 



58 LETTERS ON THE 

and even shovels and tongs are to be found 
here. 

There is a commodious ball room, in which 
are music and dancing every evening, and 
preaching every Sunday. A sitting parlour is 
provided for gentlemen, and another for ladies, 
in which is a piano. 

There is a row of pretty new cabins, with 
piazzas in front joining each other, thus form- 
ing a covered walk of considerable length for 
rainy or sunny weather. This is called Nul- 
lification Row, in honour of a certain gallant 
little state, and was occupied by a number of 
agreeable South Carolinians of the Union 
party. 

I passed eight days very pleasantly in this 
abode of comfort and abundance, and on the 
8th September at noon, started for the Red 
Sulphur Spring, in the regular stage coach. 
My companion wishing to make little explor- 
ing episodes by the way, our worthy hosts 
lent him a capital gray charger, to ride and 
keep ab libitum as to distance and time. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 59 

The distance to the Red Sulphur is eighteen 
miles over a mountainous and woody region, 
which grows wilder and more romantic as you 
proceed. You pass two or three little valleys, 
into which the sun's rays penetrate between 
the branches and trunks of the gigantic trees, 
which have been robbed of their leafy honors 
by the process of girdling ; the ground below 
being occupied by Indian corn. After ascend- 
ing several successive elevations, the road 
reaches the top of a narrow mountain ridge, 
along which it runs for several miles, and 
affords a prospect into the deep and precipitous 
valley on either side. After descending from 
this ridge, the road follows for several miles, 
the bank of a beautiful creek, and at 4 p. m., 
brings you to the Red Sulphur Spring. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 61 



LETTER VII. 

Red Sulphur — Mysterious Red Substance — Water Cool 
and strongly Sulphurous — Gray Sulphur — It's First 
Summer — Redolent of the Palmetto — Two Springs, 
one Anti-dyspeptic, the other slightly Aperient — 
Salt Pond heard of. 

The Red Sulphur Spring is one of the most 
beautiful and interesting objects in the Vir- 
ginia mountains. It flows from the rock into 
a quadrangular reservoir, composed of four 
slabs of white marble, the lower edges of which 
rest on the rock from which the water gushes. 
The reservoir is about six feet long, five wide, 
and four and a half deep ; and a beautiful red 
and mysterious substance covers the bottom, 
which, extending some distance up the sides, 
sheds through the transparency of the water, 
its own lovely hue. 

The water is clear and cool, (its tempera- 



62 LETTERS ON THE 

ture being fifty-four of Fahrenheit,) is very 
strongly charged with Sulphuretted Hydrogen 
Gas, and contains portions of several neutral 
salts. It possesses in a high degree, the val- 
uable property of retarding a quick pulse, 
and is gently diuretic and aperient. To a 
Philadelphia palate, its coolness is very grati- 
fying. 

The Spring is situated near one side of a 
little triangular plain, almost buried in moun- 
tains, and therefore cut short of its fair pro- 
portion of sunshine. The buildings consist- 
ing of two large and commodious hotels and 
three rows of cabins, are conveniently ar- 
ranged upon the plain. The best row of 
cabins is called Philadelphia Row, and each 
cabin contains two good rooms, in one of 
which is a fire-place. 

The beautiful red mysterious substance is 
not oxyde of selenium, nor vermillion, nor red 
precipitate, nor any other precipitate or oxyde ,* 
but it is *, but no, I will not say what 

* Touching this red mysterious substance, I have 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 63 

it is, because Professor Rogers examined it 
carefully and chemically, and as I believe, 
first discovered its real nature, and will give a 
proper scientific account of it in his forth- 
coming report. 

The table and other accommodations are 
very good, and Mr. Burke, the proprietor, is 
making every effort, by new and expensive 
improvements, to increase the comforts of his 
future guests. 

At 10 a. m. on the 10th September, we left 
the Red Sulphur Spring in a private carriage, 
to pay a visit to the Gray Sulphur, situated 
at the distance of nine miles in a south-west 
direction, just within the border of Giles 
County. 

This is a new establishment, grown up by 
magic since the first of June last. It belongs 
to John D. Legare, Esq. of South Carolina, a 

diligently inquired, and after much labour I am enabled 
to suspect that the learned professor opines that it is a 
cryptogamous plant, and that the letter-writer holds the 
same sentiment. 



64 LETTERS ON THE 

gentleman of established literary talent, who 
by his great enterprise and good taste, has 
made this lovely wilderness blossom like the 
rose, and bring forth the fruits of civilization 
and comfort. There is a comfortable new 
brick house standing near the middle of a 
gently sloping plain of about twenty acres, 
nearly cleared of trees, and entirely surround- 
ed by forest-covered mountains, between 
whose base and the house are several beauti- 
ful conical hills, rendering the view from the 
portico exceedingly pleasing.* Everything 
here is conducted after the polished and agree- 
able manner of South Carolina ; all is redolent 
of the Palmetto, and a little pleasant circle 
from that state, may generally be found here. 
There are two springs under the same cover, 
within ten feet of each other ; one containing 
inter alia bicarbonate of soda, which is an 
excellent anti-dyspeptic, and is well taken an 
hour after dinner, which is always so good 

* The buildings and accommodations are greatly 
increased within two years. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 65 

here, that every body eats too much. The 
other contains some sulphuretted hydrogen 
and several neutral salts, rendering it aperient 
and diuretic. It should be taken an hour be- 
fore breakfast. The breakfasts and suppers 
are capital, furnished forth with various cakes, 
in form and color new to northern eye, of 
rice, of corn and wheat; and in discussing 
these interesting subjects, a quiet deliberation 
reigns, affording the epicure the double op- 
portunity of curing hunger and gratifying 
taste. The wine is so good, that he who 
drinks it, falsifies the old adage, that " omnes 
errorem bibunt" there is no mistake about it. 
The road from the Red Sulphur, to this 
" ultima Thule" novissimaque of the Virginia 
Springs, is good, but so hilly, that it requires 
three hours to overcome its nine miles. 

The little plain is skirted on one side by a 
rivulet, which flows close at the base of Chim- 
aey Ridge, a spur of Peters's mountain, and 
washes a very thick stratum of limestone, con- 



7* 



00 LETTERS ON THE 

sisting almost entirely of casts of several 
genera of marine shells. 

We passed here, two pleasant days, enjoy- 
ing the quiet of the wilderness, combined with 
every comfort brought from the busy haunts 
of men, and then retraced our steps by the 
same vehicle to the Red Sulphur. 

On a fine day the ride is delightful, the road 
passing for eight miles through the heart of 
the virgin forest, yet untouched, save by the 
hand that traced the road. 

We passed the night at the Red Sulphur, 
and at six the next morning, I mounted beside 
the driver of the Salt Sulphur coach, leaving 
my fellow traveller, who was desirous of visit- 
ing Salt Pond, on the Allegheny mountain. 
As I did not see Salt Pond with my own eyes, 

1 shall not describe it, only observing, that 
though the pond is salt, yet the water is fresh ; 
and that it may be paradoxically considered 
as one of nature's artificial curiosities, as it is 
said to have been made without hands, with- 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 67 

in the memory of the mountaineers;* and 
although it is at the top of a high mountain, 
yet many of the sagacious neighbours suspect 
that it has no bottom. The foundation of this 
belief is supposed to rest on the fact, that it 
has never been sounded with a very long line. 

* On page 789 of my notes, I find the following entry : 
Salt Pond, a sheet of fresh water on the Allegheny 
mountain, which has collected there during the memory 
of man. It is said that formerly a rivulet which ran 
through a hollow on the top of the mountain, made its 
escape by sinking into the earth. It was a place much 
frequented by cattle, both tame and wild, for the pur- 
pose of quenching their thirst ; and in process of time, 
it came to pass, that the trampling of many feet pressed 
down a sufficiency of earth to fill up the crevice, by 
which the water had previously made its escape ; and 
so the accumulations of the rivulet and the rain gradu- 
ally submerged the forest, and formed a pond. As this 
was done by feet , our letter writer is correct in saying 
it was made without hands. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 69 



LETTER VIII. 

An accident, almost — Driver's ingenuity — Humphrey 
Clinker — English Watering Places — Route to Sweet 
Springs — their aspect — temperature — Jean Delorme, 
the Genius Loci — Road to Hot Springs. 

A very good coach runs every other day, 
from the White to the Red Sulphur, and back 
again on the intervening days, stopping an 
hour at the Salt Sulphur, which is generally 
improved by the passengers, in swallowing a 
good dinner. This line continues only during 
the season of fashionable visitation, and during 
that period generally runs full, so that it is 
necessary to engage places several days in 
advance. 



70 LETTERS ON THE 

I found nine places taken, and so was 
obliged to mount up beside the driver at 
6 a. m. on a cold misty morning ; the rough- 
ness of the road and the quickness of the 
driving which was like the driving of Jehu, 
kept me warm. 

After about an hour's ride, in passing over 
a sort of gutter, the king-bolt or body-pin 
broke, and the coach was just on the point of 
falling from the fore axletree, when the driver 
discovered the accident, and drew up his 
horses. I anticipated some delay, but the 
driver had several spare king-bolts and repair- 
ed the damage with such dexterity and expe- 
dition, as convinced me of his deep reading in 
the chapter of accidents. 

At 11 a. m. we arrived safely at the Salt 
Sulphur, where I was soon ensconced in my 
former comfortable apartment. 

I took a small book . from the mantel 
which proved to be the first volume of the ex- 
pedition of Humphrey Clinker, and I passed 
the rest of the day very pleasantly in the 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 71 

society of the sensible Matthew Bramble, his 
good-tempered sister and the rest of his agree- 
able family. 

The company here was reduced to about a 
dozen, of whom I knew not one ; so that I 
was very lucky to fall in with my old Welsh 
acquaintance from Brambleton Hall. 

I was particularly interested in the amusing 
and pointed account which the caustic Matthew 
gives of some of the English watering places, 
which no American can fail to read with sat- 
isfactions. I refer my readers, if there be any 
such people, to Mr. Bramble's letter, dated 
Bath, 28th April, for a most accurate and in- 
teresting picture of the miseries endured by 
hypochondriacs at that celebrated watering 
place ; some parts of which marvellously re- 
semble some little conveniences to be met with 
at our own Spas. By all means, take Clinker 
with you next summer on your Virginia ex- 
pedition, and make it a point to peruse him 
from beginning to end, " ab ovo usque ad 



72 LETTERS ON THE 

malum ,•" but no, it will not be ad malum, be- 
cause it will result in your own good. 

The next day, at 9 a.m. I started for the 
Sweet Springs, and had the whole coach to 
myself. The distance is sixteen miles, and 
the road is pretty good, passing over the main 
ridge of the Allegheny by a succession of hills 
of such easy ascent and descent, as to convey 
to the traveller, no notion of the mountain 
height he has traversed. 

The ride is very interesting both to Artists 
and Naturalists, the fossils being numerous 
and curious, and the scenery assuming a more 
beautiful and civilized aspect, as you come 
within the edge of the Atlantic Basin. 

Four hours brought the coach to the Sweet 
Springs, one of the most ancient and celebra- 
ted Watering places in the United States. 

The aspect of the place is lovely, the harsh 
and rough features which belong to more re- 
cent clearings, having been mellowed and 
moulded into symmetry by the gentle touch of 
time, that great innovator ,* and in the Vir- 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 73 

ginia mountains, almost the sole improver, 
because nobody else has capital enough, and 
time is a capital fellow, for time is money. 

You drive into a spacious green undulating 
area, shaded here and there with trees, and 
surrounded by motley groups of frame build- 
ings of all shapes and ages, and you see in 
front of you, rising behind a row of modern 
cabins, a remarkably beautiful rounded hill, 
whose tree-clad top seems to lead by a gentle 
acclivity to a mountain range which bounds 
the view. 

In a little valley on your left, is a frame 
building containing two large and separate 
baths for the two sexes, and under its piazza 
is a famous spring, sweet in name, but slight- 
ly acidulous in taste, sparkling and spirit-stir- 
ring like champaigne, and ever copiously flow- 
ing like the stream of time : 

" Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis cevum." 
Flows, and will flow, the ever-fleeting spring-, 
'Till the last trump its piercing note shall sing. 
8 



74 LETTERS ON THE 

This is what the neighbours call a powerful 
Spring, meaning that it sends forth a power 
of water, and it fills two very large plunging 
baths, which are very agreeable, from the 
sparkling transparency and high temperature 
of the element. 

I think its temperature is about 70 of Fah- 
renheit ; though, being " vix umbra philoso- 
phi" I cannot venture a statement on my own 
authority ; neither do I know its gaseous or 
solid contents, for Professor Rogers, with his 
tests, retorts, receivers and evaporating dishes, 
had not yet arrived. 

In a little unilocular cabin, near the bath 
buildings, resides the ancient Jean Delorme, 
the custos balneorum, who may be seen from 
morn to night, limping about the decrepid 
bath-house, a compound of contented simpli- 
city and ignorant bliss, the very genius loci. 
Jean's accent and politeness betray his Gallic 
origin, and his simplicity and age excite an 
interest. — One evening, after dark, I tapped 
at his cabin door, which was opened by him- 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 75 

self. He was half undressed, preparing for 
his night's rest, and looked surprised, but I 
told him I came to make him a visit, and he 
very politely invited me to take a seat, put on 
his coat, and prepared to support his part in 
the conversation with becoming vigour. I 
gathered from him the following information. 
He was born within twenty miles of Paris on 
a farm, and came to Alexandria, D. C. in 
1791, with a number of French people, who 
intended to settle on the Scioto ; he stopped 
near Alexandria, and wrought on a farm for 
a year, and then engaged with a dentist to go 
to the Sweet Springs. Jean lived with the 
dentist two years, when the latter died, leaving 
Jean poor in the wilderness, not possessing 
English nor money enough to carry him to 
Alexandria, whither he did much incline to 

go- 
In his deep distress, he prevailed upon the 
landlord of the Sweet Springs, (him of forty 
years ago,) to let him oversee the baths, and 
endeavor to draw a precarious subsistence from 



76 LETTERS ON THE 

the/b' pence ha' pennies and nine pences (hat 
the generosity of the bathers might bestow 
upon his indigence. Jean has pursued this 
metier two-and-forty years, and has grown old 
and lame but not rich and proud. 

In a few years he fell in love, and by way 
of bettering his poor condition, married a 
widow many years his senior, with three 
children, and (to use his own words,) as poor 
a man as himself. I inquired of him, if there 
were any Indians there when he first arrived, 
he said no, but there were plenty of bears 
panthers, rattlesnakes, wild cats, and other 
vermin. His wife died about two years ago, 
leaving him several generations of descend- 
ants, (by her former lord,) to solace his old 
age. Jean says he has not grown rich be- 
cause he had no learning ; with good old Sir 
Hugh, he laments his lack of Latin and Greek. 
He makes from eighty to one hundred dol- 
lars during the fashionable season, which 
keeps him comfortable for the remaining 
eight months ; a period that he passes with his 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 77 

step-son, in a log hut on a little clearing in 
the mountain, which Jean gave him some 
years since. 

When you go to the Sweet Springs, do not 
forget to have some pleasant chat with Jean 
Delorme, and be sure to give him a quarter 
as a souvenir. 

The accommodations at the Sweet Springs 

are good, and in general, quite sufficient for 
the company, which suffers a diurnal ebb and 
flow. 

The road from the Sweet to the Hot Springs 
is very good, and I travelled it in the stage 
coach, between 9 a. m. and 5 p. m. stopping 
an hour and a half at Plum's (olim Callaghan's) 
to demolish a good dinner. 



8* 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 79 



LETTER IX. 

Hot Springs — Buildings — Scenery — The Spout Bath — 
The Boiler — Mode of Bathing— Effect— Diet- 
Taking Seventy Baths — Hot and Cold Springs — 
Physa. 

The Hot Springs are seated in a valley, 
deeply embosomed among mountain peaks, 
and at first sight as you descend the hill com- 
ing from the Warm Springs, appearances do 
not invite a long sojourn. 

The scenery, however, is interesting, and 
grows into your affection the deeper, the long- 
er you remain. 

The old frame hotel stands on the south- 
ern side of the road, and presents its narrow 



80 



LETTERS ON THE 



piazza to the north, in which direction the 
land descends by a gentle slope to the valley 
of thermal Springs, in which stand the bath- 
ing houses and several rows of cabins, and 
which is bounded by an abrupt, forest-clad 
mountain top. 

Towards the left, the valley spreads out 
into a beautiful verdant meadow of many acres, 
bounded on all sides by forests, rising on the 
steep mountain side, embellished at this time, 
by the many brilliant tints of autumn. 

The present proprietor is Doctor Goode, 
an intelligent physician, who is using great 
exertion and investing much money to render 
the establishment pleasant to travellers, and 
comfortable and useful to valetudinarians. 
The table is very good, and the accommoda- 
tions quite comfortable at present ; but the 
nests of brick cabins rising here and there, 
promise additional enjoyment for the coming 
year. There are two famous baths here, the 
Spout and the Boiler ; the former is said to be 
preferred by Orators, the latter by Poets and 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 81 

Warriors. The temperature of both is about 
106 Fahrenheit, a degree of heat which is 
a little scalding at first, but which becomes 
pleasant as soon as the bather is chin deep in 
the health-restoring fluid. 

The Spout bath is so called, because a con- 
stant stream of water is led from a hot spring 
through a perforated log, from the end of 
which (quasi spout) it pours into the bath, 
affording the bather an opportunity of receiv- 
ing the stream upon any part of his body or 
limbs, into which rheumatism has thurst his 
uncomfortable claws. This is covered by a 
wooden building, open at top, and has adjoin- 
ing to it a dressing-room, in which is a fire. 
After emerging from this bath you must go 
to your room well wrapped up, and sit or lie 
still until the perspiration subsides. 

The boiler is enclosed in a large wooden 
house which excludes the external air, and in 
which are ten or twelve little rooms, each 
containing a cot and matrass whereon to lie 
and perspire after leaving the bath. You 



82 



LETTERS ON THE 



remain in the bath until the big drops have 
started on your forehead, and begin to chase 
one another down your innocent nose ; then 
you walk out of the bath into one of the lit- 
tle rooms previously prepared for you by the 
attentive and judicious superintendant, who 
wraps you in flannel from top to toe, yea, in 
toto, except the tip of your nose ; then he lays 
upon you six blankets, and having put you in 
a comfortable fix, leaves you to be amused 
with reflection and perspiration, while he fixes 
the other bathers. Perspiration soon starts 
from every pore, and you distinctly feel it 
tickling and trickling down your sides. Some- 
times it penetrates the blankets, matrass and 
sackenbottom, and streams upon the floor. 

When you have sweat enough, which will 
be in from thirty to ninety minutes, you call 
to the attendant, who comes, and removes one 
blanket, and at intervals of five minutes, the 
others one by one. Thus you are gradually 
cooled, and rise and dress, without the least 
danger of taking cold. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 83 

The effect of this bath on rheumatic and 
gouty affections, and on old deep-seated and 
chronic complaints, that medicine does not. 
seem to reach, is very beneficial. It restores 
the surface to a good condition, and promotes 
the healthy action of the skin ; and every 
person who drinks the water of the various 
Sulphur Springs, should afterwards stop here 
two or three weeks, and try the virtue of the 
boiler. 

I remained here six davs, and took the 
bath every day, with the best results ; and the 
last day I bathed, a friend of mine, who had 
arrived in a very debilitated condition ten 
weeks before, Was taking his seventieth bath, 
and had entirely recovered his health, having 
gained in weight nearly a pound a day. 

If taken every day, the boiler exerts a pow- 
erful action on the system, and therefore it is 
well to use a simple diet. Roast or boiled 
mutton and rice are capital for dinner. By 
the way, talking of rice, do you know why 
rice is like nullification ? To be sure, cry 



84 LETTERS ON THE 

several voices, because they both grow in 
South Carolina. No, Ladies and Gentlemen, 
that is not the reason. Do you give it up 1 
It is because it is a sovereign and bloodless 
remedy for attacks on the Constitution. 

For breakfast and supper, take tea and 
crackers, black tea and water crackers. Not 
those horrid things commonly called water 
crackers, that the wicked bakers sophisticate 
with butter or lard to please the multitudi- 
nous taste, (for the pure water cracker is 
caviare to the general, it pleases not the mil- 
lion,) but those genuine compounds of sweet 
superfine flour and pure hydrant water, made 
by Wattson, away up Front street. Take 
with you a tin canister full of these, for they 
will keep a long time, and are of rare occur- 
rence beyond the sound of Christ Church 
Bells. The maker's name is on the crackers, 
and you will perceive that he spells it with a 
superfluous T, a proof that tea and crackers 
should go together. 

There is another bath here of the temper- 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 85 

ature of ninety-six, which is called the plea- 
sure bath. * It is circular ; thirty-eight feet 
wide, from four to five feet deep, and is cov- 
ered with a handsome wooden building, with 
a large opening in the roof. 

There are, near the hotel, a hot and cold 
spring issuing so near each other, that you 
can dip the thumb and fore finger of the same 
hand into hot and cold water at the same time. 
These two springs run in the same water 
course, which is inhabited by a beautiful 
species of Physa, multitudes of which seem 
to linger about the line of junction of the hot 
and cold water ; so that they can change their 
climate, to suit the fancy of the moment. 

Here I was joined by three friends, and we 
engaged an extra coach, to take us to Har- 
per's Ferry, travelling to suit our own con- 
venience. 

* This has since been altered. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. €7 



LETTER X. 

Departure — Warm Springs— Monsieur Lange — Route 
from Frazier's to Harrisonburg — New Market — 
Mount Jackson — Landlady of the Swan — Bad Road 
to Woodstock — Winchester — Taylor's capital Hotel 
— Rate of Living. 

At 3 o'clock, p. M. on the 26th September, 
the weather being fine, we left the Hot 
Springs in our chartered Winchester Coach, 
owned and commanded by Lewis Hardon. 
Our coach was comfortable, our horses good, 
and our driver skilful. In an hour we safely 
crawled over the little mountains which re- 
pose between the Hot and Warm Springs, 
and came to anchor for the night at the latter 
place. Much pleasant company was still lin- 
gering there, lest they should overtake the 
ague, yet loitering on the eastern plains. 



88 LETTERS ON THE 

We were well supped, bedded, and break- 
fasted, and were snugly repacked in the coach, 
with two additional compagnons de voyage, 
by 9 the next morning, at which hour we left 
the valley of thermal waters, and began to 
wind our toilsome, slow and zigzag course, up 
the western acclivity of the Warm Spring 
mountain. 

The labour of ascent is well repaid, by the 
magnificent mountain view, which, as you 
pass the gap, opens on your vision from the 
east, now beautifully chequered by the bril- 
liant tints of autumn. 

The road, our horses, and our appetites 
were so good, that by 2 r. m. we were ready 
to stop at the house of Abraham Lange, and 
eat our dinner. Mr. Lange looks, and talks 
English very like our germanico-Pennsylva- 
nians ; but his politeness and omelets soon 
betray his gallic origin. He is skilful at 
draughts, (I do not mean of whiskey,) and if 
you want a good dinner, ask him to favour 
you with a game, he will beat you, and then 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 89 

administer inward consolation, in the shape 
of fried chickens, and a capital omelet. He 
has resided there more than thirty years, and 
grown with the country into competency and 
comfort, and can give you interesting sketches 
of the progress of men and things in his 
locality. 

At dusk we arrived at Frazier's having 
performed a journey of forty-two miles since 
breakfast, with the same horses. The next 
morning at eight, we took the direct road to 
Harrisonburg, leaving Staunton twelve miles 
on our right, and saving so much of our dis- 
tance. The distance from Frazier's to Har- 
risonburg is twenty-two miles, and the road, 
though not turnpiked for the first eleven 
miles, is very good ; now agreeably winding 
through the forest, and now emerging into the 
open and more cultivated country. The re- 
maining eleven miles is a well made turnpike, 
which ends at Harrisonburg. 

We arrived at the last named place at 

9* 



90 LETTERS ON THE 

noon, and stopped two hours at the George 
Washington, (venerabile nomen /) to feed our 
horses and ourselves. — After demolishing a 
good dinner, we started again at 2 p. m. in- 
tending to pass the night at New Market, 
twenty miles off. We now became sensible 
that the road was growing worse, and before 
we reached New Market, we were well sha- 
ken. At 5| p. m. we drove into New Mar- 
ket, and not perceiving any symptoms of good 
cheer, we determined to make an effort to 
reach Mount Jackson, seven miles farther on. 
It rained, and the road had become bad, and 
the night was becoming very dark ; but by 
dint of careful driving and good horses, we got 
through our troubles before 8 p. m., almost 
feeling our way through the palpable obscure. 
Our driver, who is knowing about these parts, 
took us to the sign of the Swan, on the right 
hand, a tavern kept in very good style by the 
landlord's wife, who is as well developed a 
specimen of fat female good nature and use- 
fulness as may be found in the old Dominion. 



VIRGINIA SPRfNGS. 91 

Here we were very comfortable, fared sump- 
tuously, and lay in fine linen, and at 6 a. m. 
the next morning, were bid farewell with the 
gentle charge of three 'levenpenny-bits each 
for supper and lodging. 

We now reached very bad roads, nay abso- 
lutely abominable, which if you were to see, 
you would think impassable ; and if I were 
to describe, you would exclaim impossible ! 
The route for many miles, passes over the 
edges of limestone strata, very much inclined 
from the horizontal plain, and in many places 
entirely denuded, so that the horses were 
obliged to lay aside all their accustomed gaits, 
and adopt one for the occasion, which may be 
appropriately termed, a scramble. But what 
obstacles will not a Virginico-yankee equipage 
overcome ? Our driver was Yankee, our 
vehicle Trojan,* and our horses Tuckahoe. 

In four hours we reached Woodstock, where 
we got a very good breakfast at Reamer's, for 
thirty-one cents, and at 11 a. m, started for 

* Built at Troy in the state of New York. 



92 LETTERS ON THE 

"Winchester, the capitol of the Quo'hees. The 
road is pretty considerable bad, being super- 
fluously supplied with rocks by nature, who is 
no miser, nor macadamiser neither, and there- 
fore, she has not broken them small enough 
to ifiake a good road. 

Five o'clock, p. m., however, brought us safe 
and hungry to Taylor's magnificent hotel, in 
the pleasant town of Winchester. This is, 
in every respect, a first rate house, full of 
comforts, luxuries and reasonable charges. 
The annual rate of board here, with a single 
bed room, is one hundred and twenty-five dol- 
lars. Here we finished our day's journey, 
and here I finish this epistle. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 93 



LETTER XI. 

Road to Harper's Ferry — Mr. Jefferson's description — 
Jvirauea — Tomboro — Potomac — Shenandoah— Town 
— Fitzsimmons's — Factory of Arms — Chapel — Strait 
Gun Stocks — Turning Machine — Mr. Jefferson's 
Rock, a rocking Stone. 

At 1\ a. m. on the 30th September, we 
left Winchester for Harper's Ferry, a distance 
of about thirty miles. The greatest part of 
the road is tolerably bad, but the country is 
interesting, and becomes more so as you draw 
nigher to Harper's Ferry, which every 
neophyte traveller must approach with a suffi- 
cient preparation of astonishment and admira- 
tion : at least such must be his condition if 



94 LETTERS ON THE 

he has ever read Mr. Jefferson's description 
of this celebrated spot, which is in the follow- 
ing words : " The passage of the Patowmac 
through the blue ridge is perhaps one of the 
most stupendous scenes in nature. You stand 
on a very high-point of land. On your right 
comes up * the Shenandoah, having ranged 
along the foot of the mountain a hundred miles 
to seek a vent. On your left approaches the 
Patowmac, in quest of a passage also. In the 
moment of their junction they rush together 
against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass 
off to the sea." Notes on Virginia, N. Y. 
1801, p. 27. What will the neoterick geolo- 
gists say to the notion of two quiet rivers 
joining and in a moment rending asunder the 
solid mountain ! When the first two lines of 
this eloquent passage were penned, the writer 
probably had not seen the ocean cataract of 
Niagara ; nor the Val del Bove on Mount 
iEtaa, an enormous chasm running down the 

* A.n exception to the general rule : most rivers flow 
down. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 95 

mountain for twelve miles, bounded by almost 
perpendicular cliffs, in some places three 
thousand feet in depth, and containing within 
its ample bosom volcanic craters communi- 
cating with the fiery gulph below. 

The scientific world had not then heard of 
Kirauea a mountain in Hawaii, on whose side 
an immense opening many miles in circum- 
ference, exhibits to the light of day some of the 
greatest operations performed in the laboratory 
of nature; within whose tall and blackened 
cliffs may be seen hundreds of volcanic cones 
perpetually burning, mountains of sulphur, and 
still more strange and awful, an earthly 
Phlegethon, or lake of melted lava, several 
miles in extent, and continually raging like 
ocean waves. 

Nor then had Tomboro, in the island of 
Sumbawa, blown off his towering head, cover- 
ing five hundred miles of ocean with the frag- 
ments, almost ground to powder ; and astound- 
ing by its deep-toned bellowing, the savage 
nations for a thousand miles. 



96 LETTERS ON THE 

The rending off the top of such a mountain 
by a sudden explosion, must leave a scene 
much more stupendous than that in question. 

The scene at Harper's Ferry is indeed 
beautiful and romantic, and may approach to 
the sublime in the spring, when the rivers are 
well filled with water. But when I saw it the 
streams were scarcely commensurate with 
their rugged beds, and the waters rippled 
sluggishly over the pebbles, and flowed quietly 
between the rocks. 

The Potomac just below the point at which 
the Shenandoah joins it, passes the Blue Ridge 
through a wide gap, which had to my eye no 
appearance of having been burst or cut through 
the mountain by the force of water ; but seems 
rather to have existed on the ridge at its first 
upheaving above the surface of the ocean. 
The sides of the gap slope up from the river 
with a steepness not greater than the natural 
angle of repose. 

We arrived at the ferry at 2| p. m. and 
stopped at Fitzsimmons's Hotel ; whose in- 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 97 

terior and good cheer are much better than 
its outside promise. The approach to the 
town, as you descend a long hill and come in 
sight of the Shenandoah is very imposing. 
The principal part of the town is close on the 
Shenandoah immediately under the high hill 
which divides the rivers. The Federal Manu- 
factories of Arms, extend up the right bank 
of the Potomac. There are several houses 
and a beautiful Catholic chapel perched upon 
sites cut from the solid rock at elevations of 
from fifty to one hundred feet, which are ap- 
proached by flights of steps also cut from the 
rock, which have a beautiful and romantic 
appearance, and command a fine view of the 
whole scene. There is a^ substantial covered 
bridge across the Potomac. 

After dinner we made the tour of the ar- 
senals and the manufactories. The arsenals 
seem to be in very good order and the arms 
well kept ; but upon handling one of the mus- 
kets I found the stock so strait, that when I 

brought it to my shoulder, it was impossible 
10 



98 LETTERS ON THE 

for the eye to range along the barrel. This is 
a fatal defect, and troops using these in action, 
would inevitably fire above the heads of their 
antagonists. 

We saw in the manufactories that ingenious 
yankee lathe which turns gun stocks and shoe 
lasts ; but if it cannot make better stocks than 
those I saw, it would have been better had it 
turned its last, before it came to Harper's 
Ferry. 

We ascended two high hills, from which 
we had splendid views in several directions ; 
and we visited Jefferson's rock, so called be- 
cause tradition says the Philosopher sat there- 
on, when he wrote his account of Harper's 
Ferry. 

This singular rock is on a high hill which 
overhangs the town : its top is flat, almost 
horizontal, nearly square, and about twelve 
feet wide ; its base does not exceed four or 
five feet in width, and rests upon the top of a 
larger mass of rock jutting from the hill ,* its 
height is about four or five feet. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 99 

My companions got on the top to enjoy 
the extensive prospect which lay beneath. 
From its narrow base and nicely balanced at- 
titude, it struck me that it might be caused 
to vibrate on its base ; and taking hold of its 
edge and applying my utmost strength, I made 
it shake so sensibly, that those upon it ex- 
claimed that it was like an earthquake. At 
our Inn they told us, that they did not know 
that Mr. Jefferson's rock could be moved. 

The table and accommodations at Fitzsim- 
mons's Globe Inn are very good, but at cer- 
tain seasons are liable to be over-crowded at 
night ; so that it is expedient for travellers 
who care for comfort, to contrive to arrive 
before dinner, that they may engage their 
rooms before the evening flood comes in. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 101 



LETTER XII. 

The Ancients— Idleness — Pliny — Dogberry— Spa-hun- 
ters — Canal boat veracity and comforts — Point of 
Rocks Rail Road— Scenery Ellicott's Mills- 
Route to Richmond — Powhatan House— From Rich- 
mond by Lynchburgb to Sweet, and by Charlottesville 
to Warm Springs — Mr. Jefferson's notice of the 
Sweet and White Sulphur Springs— Concluding Hint. 

Mr. Editor — It is so long since I have 
favoured you with an epistle, that I suppose 
you began to flatter yourself that I was gath- 
ered to my ancestors, and no doubt, had you 
honoured me with a letter, you would have 
begun and ended as Pliny to Fabius, " Olim 
nullas mihi epistolas mittis. Nihil est, (inquis) 
quod scribam. At hoc ipsum scribe, nihil 
esse quod scribas, vel solum Mud, unde inci» 



102 LETTERS ON THE 

pere Priores solent, Si vales ; bene est ; ego- 
valeo. Fac sciam quid agas ; quod sine soli- 
citudine summa nescire non possum. Vale" 
There is no such good luck, however, for you 
and your compositors ; I am neither dead nor 
sick, but for the last three months I have been 
suffering under a most paralysing spell of 
idleness, and in such a case, spelling is all 
one is up to ; reading and writing are as 
much out of the question, as if they did not 
come by nature, as the sagacious Dogberry 
hath hinted. Be not alarmed, however, for 
this is positively the last ; duodecima, novis- 
sima, ultimaque* 

So many of my acquaintances from down 
east and other foreign parts have come to 
town, seeking the land of health and promise 
in the Virginia mountains, and speering so 
many questions after the best way to get there, 
that I feel wide awake, and somewhat dis- 
posed to afford inquiring friends some informa- 
tion touching that pleasant country. Orus 
quando te aspiciam ! 

* In this edition there are eight more last letters. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 103 

The end of my eleventh letter left us at 
Harper's Ferry, just after shaking the Philoso- 
pher's stone. We had an excellent dinner at 
Fitzsimmons's, after which the agent of the 
canal boat came in to engage us for his pas- 
sengers in the morning ; telling us we should 
be called at six next morning — having di- 
vined by some hidden process that we did not 
glory in early rising ; after that veracious per- 
sonage had taken himself off with our money, 
Mr. Fitzsimmons giving us a knowing wink, 
hinted that we should be routed between four 
and five. With that agreeable suspicion in- 
fused into our minds, we retired to our beds, 
which were comfortable, but alas ! not long to 
be enjoyed ; for at 3 a. m. the sable mes- 
senger of unrest, with murky dip in hand, 
thrust his ugly phiz into my dormitory, wear- 
ing on his careful brow a doubt of welcome, 
and communicating the distressing news that 
the Captain of the Canal Boad was collecting 
his passengers and baggage, to make an early 
start. 



104 LETTERS ON THE 

We found the captain and a shower of rain 
waiting for us. There were carriages for the 
ladies and baggage, to carry them dry across 
the bridge to the beginning of the Canal, 
which is on the Maryland side of the Poto- 
mac. The boat looked as if it had been bor- 
rowed of Charon for the nonce, as it had just 
been rescued ab imoby dint of bailing, whither 
an uncivil stone had sent it the day before, by 
knocking a hole in its bottom. The crew were 
still bailing, and as it was dark, the aquatic 
vehicle had a most uncomfortable appearance. 
There was on board a French diplomatic 
family, who shrugged their shoulders awful- 
ly, and looked unutterable things, but said 
never a word. As it was too dark and pluvio- 
misty to see the scenery, I tumbled into a 
berth and slept away an hour and six miles. 
In two hours we arrived at the Point of Rocks, 
twelve miles from Harper's Ferry, having 
passed through the gap in the Blue Ridge, 
through which the Potomac flows. The canal 
runs between the river and the foot of the 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 105 

mountain, occupying nearly the whole space. 
The scenery is romantic and beautiful, and 
well worth a view by daylight. 

The necessity of getting up before daylight 
and travelling twelve miles in a boat that has 
been sunk, will probably be obviated next sum- 
mer, as it is understood that the Rail Road 
will be finished as far as Harper's Ferry, 
when additional locomotive accommodations 
will no doubt be found upon this route. 

From the Point of Rocks to Washington 
the access is very easy through the canal, 
which is in good navigable order, and on 
which there is a good line of packets. The 
Charonic Boat goes no further than the Point 
of Rocks. 

At the Point of Rocks we landed, got a 
good breakfast and took the Rail Road Cars 
for Baltimore at half past 8 a. m. At half 
past 9 we met the train from Frederick 
which was to carry us to Baltimore. The first 
half of the distance we were drawn by good 
horses and the last half by steam. The ap- 



106 LETTERS ON THE 

pearance of the country between Frederick 
and Ellicott's Mills is very interesting. The 
land is good, farms well cultivated, the houses 
comfortable and handsome, and the whole 
surface wears the aspect of long settlement 
and civilization. The cuts along the Rail 
Road, here and there, expose large masses of 
that beautiful pudding stone, of which are 
made the magnificent columns that support 
the dome of the Representatives' Chamber in 
the Capitol at Washington. We dined at 
Ellicott's Mills, where there are a commo- 
dious Hotel and many large manufactories. 
Several hours may be spent here very agree- 
ably in viewing the scenery, and the passage 
of the Rail Road across the Patapsco. 

We arrived at Baltimore at 4 p. m. and 
rested from our labours at the Fountain Inn 
in Light street, which we found an excellent 
house ; the chambers and beds being particu- 
larly comfortable. I shall say nothing of the 
route to Philadelphia, as its reverse is des- 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 107 

cribed in my first letter, which you can read 
backwards, if you like. 

If the traveller wishes to visit Richmond 
on his way to the Virginia Springs, he will 
leave Philadelphia at 6 a. m. in steamboat ; he 
will meet the Norfolk boat at about 2 p. m. in 
the Patapsco, into which boat he will tranship 
himself and baggage, and steam down the bay 
towards Old Point Comfort, near which, and 
near 6 the next morning, he will meet a boat 
that will take him to Richmond before night. 
Arrived there he will take a hack and drive 
immediately to the Powhatan House, which 
stands on the Hill fronting the Capitol. This 
house is beautifully situated, is spacious, airy 
and convenient, and is under the direction of 
Mrs. Duvall, who spares no pains to contri- 
bute to the comfort and satisfaction of her 
guests, and her efforts are always crowned 
with success. 

Here being comfortably nestled, the travel- 
ler would do well to remain at least one week ; 
for Richmond contains many persons and 



108 LETTERS ON THE 

things worthy of attention. An excursion of 
twenty-five miles may be made to Petersburg, 
where begins a good Rail Road that leads 
directly into North Carolina. The Capitol, 
the canal walk, and the great flour mills are 
objects of interest. 

From Richmond the traveller can reach the 
Springs by one of two routes — by Char- 
lottesville to the Warm Springs ; or by Lynch- 
burg and Fincastle to the Sweet Springs. 
The distance to Charlottesville is about eigh- 
ty-four miles and the road is pretty good. 
There is a good house at Powell's fourteen 
miles from Richmond, and about thirty miles 
further is another very good house kept by 
Mrs. Tinsley. 

On the Lynchburg and Fincastle route, the 
traveller can visit the Natural Bridge and 
the Peaks of Otter, on his way to the Sweet 
Springs. The distance from the Sweet to the 
White Sulphur Springs is only sixteen miles of 
good road, leading by a very gradual ascent 
over the Allegheny Mountain. The White 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 109 

Sulphur, now the lion of Virginia, and the 
Sweet Springs, now an ancient establishment, 
are barely mentioned by Mr. Jefferson in his 
notes. After bestowing some lines on the 
Warm and Hot Springs, he bestows the fol- 
lowing words on the other two : — " The 
Sweet Springs are in the county of Bote- 
tourt, they are still less known. They are 
different also in their temperature, being as 
cold as common water," Notes on Virginia 
p. 50. 

" We are told of a Sulphur Spring on How- 
ard's creek of Greenbrier." Notes on Vir- 
ginia, p. 51. 

We are told of it now too ; but it is by the 
thousands who have been there, and the ten 
thousands who are going. 

I have now done Mr. Editor; I do not 
mean to trouble you, nor your subscribers, 
with any more letters ; my farrago has come 
to an end, and I cannot refrain from saying, 

" Cum relego, scripsisse pudet, quia plurima cerno, 
" Me quoque qua fuerant judice dicrna lini ;" 
11 



110 LETTERS, &C 

but if I have induced two or three to inhale 
the pure air of the Allegheny, or to gather 
sweets in mountain wood, or flowery vale, 

" Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant" 

I am content ; and conclude with a single hint 
to the Millionary from the East, and the 
Exquisite from Gotham qui, ' nil rectum, 
nisi quod placuit sibi, ducitj not to be hasty 
in judging people from their outsides (ex 
habitu hominem metiens,) else in these re- 
gions, they may neglect a diamond in the 
rough, or reject a shell which contains a 
pearl. 



ADDENDUM 



BY THE EDITOR. 



Northern Neck — Route to Bath — Magnesia — Water — 

Maryland — Hancock — Hagerstown Frederick — 

Emmctsburg Catholic Seminary Nunnery 

Pennsylvania — -Gettysburg — York Susquehanna 

Columbia — Lancaster. 

The unconscionable man of types hath sent 
his devil after me, to communicate the un- 
welcome intelligence that the twelfth letter is 
all in type, and yet there is not matter enough 
to fill the last form ; so that after having sunk 
down into an agreeable comatose state of re- 
pose, in the comfortable hope that my edito- 



112 ADDENDUM. 

rial labours were ended pro hac vice, I am re- 
duced to the direful necessity, at this eleventh 
hour, (for the press-gang will not be denied,) 
of again returning to my inky work. 

In Morgan County, in the Northern Neck 
of Virginia, about six miles south of the Mary- 
land line, where that state is not more than 
a mile and a half in breadth, is situated a 
pretty little village called Bath. Here are 
copious springs of almost tepid water strongly 
charged with magnesia, which supply a num- 
ber of agreeable baths. There are two good 
Hotels, well prepared for the reception of 
visiters, a beautiful promenade laid out with 
much taste and planted with shady trees. 

Having arrived at Winchester on your re- 
turn from the Warm Springs, and being de- 
sirous of prolonging your tour, you may reach 
Bath in one day by a very hilly and romantic 
road of thirty-six miles in length. About mid- 
way on the top of a high ridge, and embow- 
ered in trees is a little tavern, where you can 
dine and rest your horses. 



ADDENDUM. 113 

Bath is the halfway house between Balti- 
more and the Bedford Springs, and the com- 
pany generally consists of families from Bal- 
timore, who stop there on their way to and 
from Bedford, of Virginians from the neigh- 
bouring counties, and a few ubiquitary travel- 
lers like myself. 

The country here about is wild and roman- 
tic, and abounds in beautiful rides and walks. 
Six miles to the north, just over the Potomac, 
is situated the town of Hancock in Maryland, 
on the state turnpike road, which passes 
through Hagerstown and Frederick. The 
distance to Hagerstown is twenty-eight and 
thence to Frederick twenty-two miles. The 
country is beautiful, the land good and well 
cultivated, and the Blue Ridge is crossed 
before reaching Frederick. 

When you have arrived at Frederick, if 

you are in haste, you will take the Rail Road 

to Baltimore ; if not, and you wish to see the 

best cultivated portion of Pennsylvania, you 

will hire a carriage to take you to Emmetts- 
11* 



114 ADDENDUM. 

burg, distant from Frederick about twenty- 
six miles, and one mile south of Mason & 
Dixon's line. The road is excellent and runs 
within sight of the Blue Ridge the whole dis- 
tance. There is at Emmettsburgh a very- 
good tavern to sleep at, kept by Mr. Agnew. 
About two miles from the town, and some dis- 
tance up the side of the Blue Ridge, is the 
Roman Catholic Seminary, from which is a 
beautiful and extensive prospect. The nun- 
nery, where dwell the pious and benevolent 
sisters of charity, is nearer to the town. 

From Emmettsburg to Gettysburg in Penn- 
sylvania is ten miles of rough road. 

At Gettysburg you come to the Pennsyl- 
vania turnpike, a good road, which in thirty 
miles brings you to York, through a very in- 
teresting country. In twelve miles more you 
reach the noble Susquehanna, which you 
will cross on the new bridge, which will land 
you in the town of Columbia, situated at the 
west end of the great Rail Road. While on 
the bridge turn your eyes to the left, and two 



ADDENDUM. 115 

miles up the river you will see the town of 
Marietta. The scenery on the river is en- 
chanting ; and you can spend a day very 
comfortably at Jeffrey's, which is a very good 
house. 

From Columbia you can reach Philadel- 
phia in eight hours by the Rail Road ; but if 
you have never passed this way before, you 
had better travel through Lancaster County 
in some kind of vehicle drawn by horses, as 
the country is too interesting to pass through 
like a streak of chalk. The city of Lancas- 
ter also is worth seeing, and you will find 
there plenty of good cheer. 

I guess my addendum is now long enough 
to fill up the measure of the printer's wishes ; 
and, as 1 am afraid the compositors will 
strike, if the press should wait any longer, I 
must now make an 



END. 



ERRATUM. 



In page 36, line 13, for " any come cut" read 
" and come out" 



EIGHT MORE 

LETTERS 

DESCRIPTIVE OF 

THE VIRGINIA SPRINGS; 

THE ROADS LEADING THERETO, AND THE 

DOINGS THEREAT, 

IN 1836. 



WRITTEN BY 

PEREGRINE PROLIX. 



Epistolas quotiilianis verbis texere solemus. 

Cic. Fam. 9, 21. 



PHILADELPHIA : 
H. S. TANNER 51 SOUTH THIRD STREET. 

18 37. 



Entered, according- to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, 

By H. S. Tanner, 

In the office of the Clerk of the District Court of the 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



LETTERS 



OF A 



TRAVELLER IN VIRGINIA. 



LETTER XIII. 

Departure — Trans-shipment — Chesapeake Bay — North 
Point and Bodkin — Mouth of Patapsco— General 
Ross — Dutch Galleot — Annapolis — Washington's 
Surrender of his Sword— Light Houses — Mild Night 
—Smooth Water — Spondees — Old Point Comfort — 
Rip Raps— Hampton Roads— Norfolk — Marine Hos- 
pital — Steamer Patrick Henry — Mouth of James 
River — Banks of Do. — Country Seats — Jamestown 
— Brandon — Cypress Trees — Westover— City Point 
— Appomattox — View of Richmond — Powhatan 
House — Expense of Journey — Monumental Church 
— Obsequies of Madison — Soldiery — Oration — The 
Capitol — Statue of Washington by Houdon — Decent 
Christian Costume— Beautiful Inscription on Pedes- 
tal — Ample, yet terse and true. 

At 6. a. m. on the 22d July, 1836, the 
steamer Ohio carried me and my companion 



120 LETTERS ON THE 

from Chestnut street wharf down the noble 
river Delaware. Having landed at New 
Castle, loco-moved across the peninsula, 
embarked in another steamer, and sped 
forty miles down Chesapeake Bay, at 2| p. 
m. being between North Point and the Bod- 
kin, we descried the steamer Pocahontas 
coming out of the river Patapsco. In ten 
minutes the boats had touched, we and our 
baggage had been trans-shipped, and we 
were rapidly pursuing our path through the 
wide waters of the Chesapeake towards the 
Atlantic Ocean. 

The day was fine and pleasant, and the 
water smooth. We soon passed the Bodkin, 
a small island connected with the main land 
by a wooden bridge on piles, and having on 
it a light house, and a telegraph to commu- 
nicate marine intelligence to Baltimore. 
This island forms the south side of the em- 
bouchure of the river Patapsco, of which the 
northern side is North Point, celebrated as 
the landing place of the iated General Ross. 



VIRGINIA SPUINGS. 121 

The Bodkin and North Point are about three 
miles and a half asunder. Here we passed 
a Dutch galleot, looking dull and stupid, 
stem and stern much alike. 

Fifteen miles below the Bodkin we passed 
the harbour of Annapolis, and saw towering 
in the distance the dome of that Capitol, in 
which George Washington, the great and 
good, set the seal to his sincerity, and fin- 
ished the edifice of his glory, by voluntarily 
surrendering his conquering sword to the 
civil authority of his country. 

On the western shore of the bay from the 
Bodkin to Hampton Roads are the following 
Light Houses ; Thomas's Point, Cove Point, 
Back River Point, Point Lookout, Smith's 
Point, New Point and Old Point Comfort ; 
and the following floating lights, Wolftrap, 
Mouth of Rappahannock, Mouth of Potomac, 
Willoughby's, and Craney Tsland. As the 
boat proceeds down the bay, keeping at a 
distance of two or three miles from the west- 
ern shore, many islands lying near the eastern 

12 






122 LETTERS ON THE 

shore are successively visible, but so distant 
as to look like forests growing in the water. 

The night was mild and more than half 
moonlight, as that luminary did not set until 
an hour after midnight ; and the bay contin- 
ued so smooth, that we might have enjoyed a 
good night's rest, but for the presence of 
troops of those little spondees* mentioned by 
Virgil in the fifth book of the Georgics. 
Old steamers seem to have a peculiar pro- 
pensity to produce and protect these provok- 
ing little plagues. 

At day-light we past a light just expiring 
in the socket, and descried Old Point Com- 
fort in the distance. At 7 a. m. we passed 
into Hampton Roads between Old Point 
Comfort on the right or north-west, and 
the Rip Raps on the left or south-east, which 
seem to be six furlongs apart. The latter of 
these places is an artificial island, and they 
are both strongly fortified to protect this 

* See Letter III. page 34. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 123 

entrance to Hampton Roads and James River 
from Marine attacks. 

Old Point Comfort looks strong, and the 
Rip Raps wicked, so that a hostile vessel 
would find no comfort between them, but 
would get hard raps from Old Point, and be 
ripped to pieces by the missiles from the 
island. We proceeded into Hampton Roads 
until we came in sight of part of Norfolk ; 
having on our starboard bow, one mile dis- 
tant, the beautiful Naval Hospital. Here we 
met the steamer Patrick Henry bound from 
Norfolk to Richmond, which came alongside, 
and we were soon trans-shipped and on our way 
to Richmond. The wind was N. E., the morn- 
ing cool and the water rough, as we passed 
across Hampton Roads by a N. W. course into 
the mouth of James River. The mouth of the 
river is wide, and its course very winding, and 
varying much in width. The southern bank is 
much bolder than the northern, and both are 
embellished with handsome country seats, to 
many of which are attached immense tracts 



124 LETTERS ON THE 

of fertile land, where old Virginia hospitality- 
still reigns in the midst of plenty and comfort. 
Thirty-two miles up the river on an island 
near the north bank, the steamer touches at 
a wharf; this is the site of what was once 
Jamestown, and a melancholy sight it is. All 
the remains of this once nourishing town (the 
first founded by the English,) are two or three 
superannuated houses, the ruin of the brick 
tower that once supported the spire of the 
oldest American Episcopal church, and the 
last and most lasting of human dwellings, the 
graves in the churchyard. Passengers are 
landed here to go to Williamsburgh, eight 
miles distant in a N. E. direction, where 
there is an ancient and respectable college 
called William and Mary. 

A few miles above Jamestown is the estate 
of Mr. Bowling, said to contain eight thou- 
sand acres. The buildings are near the 
river, and are extensive and handsome, and 
have near them the greatest ornament a 
country residence can possess — some old and 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 125 

magnificent forest trees, whose massy trunks 
and wide spread arms have witnessed the rise 
and fall of generations. Still higher up on 
the northern bank is Brandon, where are the 
estates of several of the Harrison family, near 
relatives of the late distinguished candidate 
for the presidency. Near Brandon are 
many cypress trees growing on a shoal in the 
river, the surface of which is under water ; 
their appearance, from its novelty, is inter- 
esting to northern eyes. Not far above this 
spot, the southern bank of the river is disfig- 
ured by the remains of an ill-contrived fort, 
built with fearful haste in 1813. 

On the north side of the river some miles 
above, is Westover, formerly the property of 
the Byrds, now of the Seldens. From the 
river, the mansion seems to be of princely 
magnitude, resembling an ancient French 
chateau, and the domain of corresponding 
extent. 

Forty-five miles below Richmond, near the 

confluence of the rivers James and Appo- 
*12 



126 LETTERS ON THE 

mattox is City Point, which is the head of 
navigation for large ships. Petersburg, a 
flourishing commercial town and port of 
entry is situated on the Appomattox twelve 
miles above its mouth, in Dinwiddie county, 
and is twenty-five miles south of Richmond. 
Here is the north end of a rail road sixty 
miles long, which runs into North Carolina, 
by a course a little west of south. 

Above City Point the James River becomes 
very crooked and much narrower, and its 
banks increase in variety and beauty. When 
you first come in sight of it, Richmond is a 
city seated on a hill, and has the imposing 
aspect of a large and populous capital. 
It owes this first-sight dignity, in some 
measure, to the happy and elevated position 
of its capitol, which stands on Shockoe hill, 
and afar off has a handsome and classical 
appearance : when, however, you approach 
within criticising distance, it loses some of 
that enchantment which distance lends the 
view. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 127 

Though Richmond is not a great capital, 
it is nevertheless a flourishing and handsome 
city, and now probably contains more than 
eighteen thousand inhabitants, and has been 
the seat of some historical scenes of great 
dignity and importance. The distance from 
Hampton Roads to Richmond is rather less 
than one hundred and twenty miles by com- 
mon estimation ; but I think it cannot exceed 
one hundred, as we ran it in nine hours and a 
half. We arrived at 4^ p. m. and found 
plenty of good hacks on the wharf, in one of 
which we drove to the Powhatan House,* - 
where we obtained very comfortable accom- 
modations. 

The expense of transporting one person 
from Philadelphia to Richmond is as follows: 

Fare from Philadelphia to Baltimore, $4 00 
Breakfast and dinner, both good, 1 00 
Do. from Baltimore to Norfolk, in- 
cluding meals, 6 00 



$11 00 
* See Letter XII. p. 107. 



1-28 LETTERS ON THE 

amount brought up, $1100 
Do. from Norfolk to Richmond, in- 
cluding meals, 4 00 
Porterages, 75 
Hack at Richmond, 1 25 



$17 00 



The next day being Sunday, I went to the 
Monumental Church, and heard an excellent 
sermon from the venerable Diocesan of Vir- 
ginia. This church is built on the site for- 
merly occupied by the theatre, which was 
burnt in 1811, by which disaster seventy- 
two persons lost their lives. It is a hand- 
some, substantial building, of octagonal form, 
well lighted within, and in front of its vesti- 
bule is a monument commemorative of the 
fire and its victims. 

On the following day the inhabitants of 
Richmond were engaged in celebrating the 
obsequies of one of Virginia's most distin- 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 129 

guished sons, the illustrious Madison, late 
President of the United States. In our 
happy country the indispensables of a cele- 
bration are a speech and a drum, and some- 
times unfortunately, they are equally noisy 
and hollow. Such was not the case however 
on this occasion, for the oration by Mr. 
M'Farland was well written and agreeably 
delivered ; and the appearance of the military 
was soldierlike and respectable. Along pro- 
cession, consisting of the civil officers of the 
state, several companies of horse and foot, 
and many citizens, marched to the solemn 
music of Pleyel's hymn, and the startling 
roar of artillery repeated every minute. The 
place selected for delivering the oration was a 
concave slope in the square of the capitol ; of 
such formation as to allow a number of 
benches of rou^h boards knocked together 
for the nonce, to be arranged in semicircular 
concentric rows, rising one above the other 
after the manner of an ancient theatre. A 
stage was erected on the spot towards which 



1 30 LETTERS ON THE 

all eyes looked, whereon stood the orator, 
and sat some thirty dignitaries of the town. 
There were seats enough to contain about 
two thousand persons, and they were well 
filled with ladies and gentlemen. Where 
trees were wanting the auditors were pro- 
tected by awnings from the scorching rays of 
the summer sun. The whole scene and sub- 
ject were appropriate and agreeable, and the 
ceremonies were conducted with dignity and 
decorum. 

The next day a friend took me through the 
interior of the capitol. The capitol stands 
on an elevated plain, near the brow of 
Shockoe Hill, and its front looks towards the 
valley of James River, and over the compact 
part of Richmond. The view from the por- 
tico is extensive, various and beautiful. It is 
a Grseco-American building, having a portico 
at one end consisting of a colonnade, entabla- 
ture and pediment, whose apicial angle is 
rather too acute. There are windows on all 
sides, and doors on the two longer sides, 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 131 

which are reached by high and unsightly 
double flights of steps placed sidewise, under 
which are other doors leading to the base- 
ment. 

Entering by one of the upper doors, an 
entry leads to a square hall in the centre of 
the building, surmounted by a dome which 
transmits light from above. The Hall is 
about forty feet square, and about twenty-five 
above the floor, has a gallery running round 
it, in which are nine doors, communicating 
with various apartments. There are eight 
niches in the walls, in one of which is a mar- 
ble bust of La Fayette. Virginia could 
now easily and honourably fill six of the re- 
maining seven. Patrick Henry, Thomas 
Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, 
John Randolph, and John Marshall, would 
almost complete the octave. 

In the centre of the square hall above 
described, I was agreeably surprised to find 
a marble statute of GEORGE WASHING- 



132 LETTERS ON THE 

TON", on which the sculptor's legend reads 
* Fait par Houdon Citoyen Francais, 1788." 
The statue is mounted on a rectangular 
pedestal, four and an half feet high, on one 
of the larger sides of which is the following 
honest and affectionate inscription : 

" The General Assembly of the Commonweath of 
Virginia, have caused this statue to be erected, as a 
monument of affection and gratitude to 

GEORGE WASHINGTON; 

who, uniting to the endowments of the Hero, the 
virtues of the Patriot, and exerting both in establish- 
ing the Liberties of his Country, has rendered his 
name dear to his Fellow Citizens, and given the world 
an immortal example of true Glory. Done in the 
year of 

CHRIST 

One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty-Eight, 
and in the year of the Commonwealth the Twelfth." 

The simplicity, dignity, and truth of that 
inscription are worthy of the great original 
commemorated, and of the young and chival- 
ric state, whose ready gratitude so early 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 133 

erected this lasting monument, and overflowed 
in language so beautiful and appropriate. 

The statue (like the inscription,) is an 
honest Christian statue, and is decently clad 
in the uniform worn by an American General 
during the Revolution, and not half covered 
by the semi-barbarous and pagan toga, with 
throat uncovered and naked arm, as if pre- 
pared for the barber and the bleeder. It is 
of the size of life, and stands resting on the 
right foot, having the left somewhat advanced 
with the knee bent. The left hand rests on a 
bundle of fasces, on which hang; a milita- 
ry cloak and a small sword ; and against 
which leans a plough. The feet are plunged 
in whole boots, which are strapped to the 
knee buttons of the breeches, which are sur- 
mounted by an old-fashioned waistcoat forti- 
fied with deep flaps and most capacious 
pockets. Military spurs defend the heels, and 
a capital pair of Woodstock gloves the hands. 
The head wears no hat, and has the hair in 

the fashion of forty years ago, and looks just 
13 






134 LETTERS ON THE 

like his, when he raised his hat in answer to 
the salutation of some humble fellow-citizen 
encountered in his morning walk in Chestnut 
Street. The attitude is natural and easy, and 
the likeness to the great original (whom I well 
remember,) is strong. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 135 



LETTER XIV. 

State Library — Vicinity of Capitol — Destiny of Rich. 
mond — Falls of James River — Tariff — Canal — Depar- 
ture — Mayo Bridge — Manchester — Road — Hopkins- 
ville — Harris's — Butter and Cream — Coal Region — 
Forest — Land — Tobacco — Profitable Killing— Lynch- 
burg Coach — Cumberland C. H. — Raine's, table better 
thaa beds — Shocking early Start — Moon — Read — 
New Store — Patterson's — Thirty mile Breakfast — 

Hilly Chilton's Mountainous Lynchburg 

Franklin Hotel — Singular projection — Pluto — Lex 
Talionis — Spitting before Roasting — New Turnpike 
— Exterior and Interior Driver — The Eagle's Eyry 
— Scow and Shower — Blue Ridge — Ascent, Descent 
— Darst's — Bad Road — Pioneer and Prop— Lexing- 
ton. 

The several bureaux of the State Govern- 
ment are in the Capitol, and a spacious 
and convenient apartment is appropriated 



136 LETTERS ON THE 

to the State Library. The Library contains a 
well selected collection of books on almost all 
subjects, including English and American law. 
The square around the Capitol is beginning 
to improve, and when the trees shall be well 
grown, it will be a delightful promenade. 

The land in the neighbourhood of the 
Capitol, is laid out in wide streets, crossing 
each other at right angles; and there are 
many beautiful mansions in this part of Rich- 
mond, generally separate and having large 
gardens. When three or four houses are 
built in contact, the cluster is called a tene- 
ment. From its high and airy position this 
locality is doubtless destined toarapid increase. 
The rapids or falls of James River extend 
six miles above the city, having a descent 
of eighty feet ; which valuable water power 
will no doubt be brought 'permanently and 
'profitably into manufacturing use, when the 
Tariff and its countless evils shall be forgotten. 
The navigation of the upper part of the river 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 137 

is open to the town by means of a canal, 
that avoids the rapids. 

At 2 r. m. of the 27th of July, I left Rich- 
mond in a good carriage furnished me by 
Major Duval of the Powhatan House, for a 
reasonable consideration, to carry me and 
my companion to Hopkinsville, a distance of 
twenty miles, where we should sleep. 1 had 
first paid for seats in the Lynchburg coach, 
which was to pick us up on the morrow. 
This was done to avoid a too early rising, a 
thing not good for man or beast, for the coach 
leaves Richmond at three in the morning. 
We crossed the river on Mayo's bridge and 
passed through the village of Manchester, and 
along a pretty good road, nearly level, and 
reached Hopkinsville at half past six. Hop- 
kinsville con sists of Mr. Harris's excellent 
tavern and his various outhouses. If there 
are any other buildings I was not fortunate 
enough to see them. Attached to the tavern 
is a farm of seven hundred and fifty acres, 

producing all sorts of good things that are 
13* 



138 LETTERS ON THE 

turned to very good account on Mr. Harris's 
table. We supped, slept, and breakfasted at 
this house, which excels in cleanliness, com- 
fort and £Ood cheer, and we saw the butter 
made for our breakfast. I verily believe, I 
had more thick sweet cream with my mush 
at supper, than the whole city of Richmond 
could furnish on any day of the year. 

The road to Hopkinsville passes through 
the region of Richmond Coal, and comes in 
contact with the Rail Road on which the coal 
is conveyed to Richmond. There is much 
forest in this region, some of which is virgin, 
and some has been cut, and the land cultivated, 
and worn out by tobacco ; two crops of which 
kills this land. The virgin soil is worth from 
five to ten dollars per acre, and the wood and 
tobacco pay well for the killing. 

At nine the following morning the Lynch- 
burg coach came and picked up us and our 
baggage, and fortunately we had plenty of 
room, as there were but three passengers 
from Richmond. We travelled thirty-seven 



\ 
VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 139 

miles over a road generally level to Cumber- 
land Court House, whence may be seen the 
mountains near Charlottesville, distant sixty 
miles. In thirteen miles more we arrived 
at Raine's, the sleeping house for the passen- 
gers going east and west. The supper here 
was very good, but the sleeping accommoda- 
tion needs much improvement. The road to- 
day has been good, except in a few places 
where the excessive rains have made it 
deep, 

We left Raine's at two the next morning, 
under the auspices of a bright and cloudless 
moon, that counterfeited day light beautifully. 
For two miles the road was a little rocky but 
not dangerous, and afterwards hilly, hard, 
and good. In twelve miles we reached New 
Store, and in seventeen more we came to 
Patterson's, where we got a good breakfast, 
well earned by a ride of twenty-nine miles. 
The country became more hilly as we increas- 
ed our westing, and the road harder and 
better, and the scenery more beautiful and 



140 LETTERS ON THE 

romantic. In ten miles we passed Chilton's, 
and in seventeen more arrived at Lynchburg 
at one o'clock p. m. 

For the last ten miles the road is moun- 
tainous but good, and the first sight of Lynch- 
burg is striking and beautiful. It is seated 
on a hill of moderate elevation, on the south 
bank of James River, and you come in sight 
of it in descending a mountain,* looking 
across a beautiful intervening valley, and 
seeing on your right the James River, which 
washes the northern part of the town. The 
site of Lynchburg rises very rapidly as it 
retreats from the river, so that the streets 
parallel to the river are like terraces, one 
above another, and those which cross the 
others at right angles, seem almost too steep 
for the use of carriages. The town is well 

* I was told the peaks of Otter can be seen from the 
western brow of this mountain when the atmosphere is 
clear ; I looked sharp, but could not discern them, it 
may be, because there were some clouds in the western 
heaven. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 141 

and compactly built, principally of brick 
houses ; it is well paved, and is furnished with 
good water from an artificial reservoir on the 
hill-top, by means of pipes running through 
the town. 

We stopped at the Franklin Hotel kept by 
Mr. Morris, which would be an excellent 
house, if it were kept a little cleaner ; but how 
can a popular and much frequented house be 
kept clean, in a region where travelling gen- 
tlemen* whilst lying in bed, do absolutely 
project the salivary extract of tobacco upon 
the walls of their chambers! When Pluto 
catches these offenders, according to the lex 
talionis, he will spit them before roasting. 

At five the next morning we started on the 
new turnpike for Lexington, in Rockbridge 
County, forty miles distant from Lynchburg. 
During the night a copious rain had fallen, 
and saturated the surface of the newly made 
earthen road, so as to afford the advantage of 

* Dixm' ego vobis, in his esse Atticam eleganiiam ? 
Ter. Eu. 5. 10. 45. 



142 LETTERS ON THE 

a layer of stiff mud four inches thick. Our 
speed was thus reduced to three miles an hour, 
though we had a light six-seat coach, four 
good horses, two drivers, and the wife and 
two children of one of them ; one Jehu and 
his wife and children being inside the coach. 
He was a civil, intelligent native, and was 
going to take a station on the line. 

In three hours and a half we reached the 
gap on the top of the first mountain, ten 
miles, where we were to breakfast. The 
landlord Mr. Davis, who keeps a good table, 
told us with a smile of exultation, that he 
calls his house the eagle's eyry ; and a good 
name it is, for verily it seems perched in the 
clouds. This road, though mountainous, is 
well made, and so judiciously graded, that 
most of the declivities can be trotted down 
without locking the wheel ; and in fine wea- 
ther it must be very good. After travelling 
twelve miles further on the south side of the 
James, we came to the station of our inte- 
rior driver, Mr. Moore, and here he left his 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 143 

family ; but like a prudent man wishing to 
learn the nature of the route he was to drive 
over, before assuming the responsibility of 
life and death, he requested our exterior driver 
Mr. William Johnson, to take him up beside 
him on the box. # 

Here we crossed the James in a scow and 
a shower, and on its northern bank began to 
ascend the Blue Ridge. The ascent and 
descent of this mountain afford a great 
variety of magnificent views, with occasion- 
ally an almost perpendicular glimpse of 
James River glimmering far below in the 
deep abyss. The turnpike winds gradually 
down the mountains at a trotting dip, and 
turns the sharp corners of many mountain 
spurs. In approaching one of these sharp 

* I have mentioned the names of these drivers, be- 
cause they are civil, sober and careful, and performed 
their duty well ; contributing much to our safety and 
comfort on the journey. On the route from Richmond 
to the Springs, and thence to Winchester, I met with 
but one uncivil driver : and he was an outcast from one 
of the northern states. 



] 44 LETTERS ON THE 

turns the road seems to end in the air, and 
the carriage seems about to rush into the 
abyss, thrilling the traveller with dread, until 
the turn is past, and his satisfied eye rests on 
the continued road. 

At the western foot of the Blue Ridge the 
turnpike ceases, the rest of the route to 
Lexington not being yet finished. From this 
point to Lexington the road is very bad ; but 
there are hopes that the turnpike will be 
finished before 1838. 

About a mile from the foot of the mountain 
we came to a large good-looking house, kept 
by Mr. Darst, (pronounced Durst by some, 
and Dust by others,) where we had an excel- 
lent dinner. This house is only eight miles 
from the Natural Bridge, and would be a 
convenient point of departure and return, in 
a trip to that wonder of wonders, if the road 
were good, and if Mr. Darst could furnish his 
visiters with carriages and horses. After we 
left Darst's, we experienced the great advan- 
tage of two good drivers ; for when neces- 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 145 

sary, one of them alighted and acted as 
pioneer or prop, as occasion might require. 
The last six miles of the road is very rocky, 
resembling that between Woodstock and 
Winchester. At seven p. ai. we arrived in 
safety at Lexington, and put up at the Jeffer- 
son Hotel, which we found so comfortable 
and well kept, that we determined to stop 
two nights, and on the intervening day to 
visit the natural bridge. 



H 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 147 



LETTER XV. 

Doubtful Distance — A melanthrope — Road inconceiv- 
ably bad — Purgatory — Arrived in five hours — Path 
into the Chasm — Natural Bridge — The Ruin of a 
Cave — Double Astonishment — Arch, Thickness, 
Width, Span, Height — Road across it — Creek under 
it — Points of View — Buttresses and Pinnacles — 
Strong Head, thick Scull — Symmetrical ellipsoidal 
Concave — Mush and Milk — Return to Lexington- 
North Mountain — Mr. and Mrs. Armentrout — Jack- 
son's River — Tackett's. 

Every body in this vicinity will tell you 
that the distance from Lexington to the 
Natural Bridge is twelve miles ; but the 
shortest route is fourteen miles, six of which 
being supposed to be impassable, in conse- 
quence of the superabundance of rain, the 
driver of my hack, by name Oliver, (a mel- 
anthrope* of great skill in his art,) pursued 

* From fxt\ci( niger, and avflgaiTrof homo. 



148 LETTERS ON THE 

a route three miles longer. Not being aware 
of the inconceivable badness of the road, and 
being naturally averse to early rising, I did 
not leave Lexington until nine o'clock. Oliver 
soon horrified me bv turning into the road we 
travelled last evening, and informing me we 
must pursue it for six miles, and then take a 
cross road for three miles to get into the 
direct route. This was bad news, for in a 
region of bad roads, the cross roads are the 
worst, and are as bad as the cross women. 
And indeed, until within two miles of the 
bridge, the road is so preeminently abomina- 
ble, that it has won to itself the title of pur- 
gatory, and like that uncomfortable place, 
when once in, it requires much whipping to 
get you out. 

Notwithstanding the difficulties of mud 
and mire, rut and rock, hill and hollow, the 
skilful Oliver landed me safe at the house 
near the bridge at two p. m. A melanthropic 
guide conducted me immediately down a 
winding rocky path to the bottom of the deep 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 149 

chasm, in which flows the little stream called 
Cedar Creek, and across the top of which 
from brink to brink there still extends an 
enormous rocky stratum, that time and 
gravity have moulded into a graceful arch. 
The bed of Cedar Creek is more than two 
hundred feet below the surface of the plain, 
and the sides of the enormous chasm, at the 
bottom of which the water flows, are com- 
posed of solid rock maintaining a position 
almost perpendicular. These adamantine 
walls did not seem to me to be waterworn, 
but suggested the idea of an enormous cavern, 
that in remote ages may have been covered for 
miles by the continuation of that stratum of 
which all that now remains is the arch of the 
Natural Bridge. I do verily believe that this 
stupendous object is the ruin of a cave, one 
of those antres vast, in which our limestone 
regions abound, and which perhaps existed 
previous to the upheaving of our continent, 
and was tenanted by Naiads, Tritons, and 
other worthies of the deep. 
14* 



150 LETTERS ON THE 

The first sensation of the beholder is one 
of double astonishment; first at the absolute 
sublimity of the scene ; next, at the total 
inadequacy of the descriptions he has read, 
and the pictures he has seen, to produce in his 
mind the faintest idea of the reality. The 
great height gives the arch an air of grace 
and lightness that must be seen to be felt, and 
the power of speech is for a moment lost in 
contemplating the immense dimensions of the 
surrounding objects. The middle of the arch 
is forty-five feet in perpendicular thickness, 
which increases to sixty at its junctions with 
the vast abutments. Its top, which is covered 
with soil supporting shrubs of various sizes, 
is two hundred and ten feet high. It is sixty 
feet wide, and its span is almost ninety feet. 
Across the top passes a public road, and 
being in the same plane with the neighbouring 
country, you may cross it in a coach without 
being aware of the interesting pass. There 
are several forest trees of large dimensions 
growing near the edge of the creek directly 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 151 

under the arch, which do not nearly reach its 
lowest part. 

The most imposing view is from about 
sixty yards below the bridge close to the 
edge of the creek ; from that position the 
arch appears thinner, lighter and loftier. 
From the edge of the creek at some distance 
above the bridge, you look at the thicker side 
of the arch, which from this point of view 
approaches somewhat to the gothic. A 
little above the bridge, on the western side of 
the creek, the wall of rock is broken into 
buttress-like masses, which rise almost per- 
pendicularly to a height of nearly two hun- 
dred and fifty feet, terminating in separate 
pinnacles which overlook the bridge. It re- 
quires a strong head, (perchance a thick 
scull,) to stand on one of these narrow emi- 
nences and look into the yawning gulph 
below. 

When you are exactly under the arch and 
cast your glances upwards, the space appears 
immense ; and the symmetry of the ellip- 



152 LETTERS ON THE 

soidal concave formed by the arch and the 
gigantic walls from which it springs, is won- 
derfully pleasing. From this position the 
views in both directions are sublime and 
striking, from the immense height of the 
rocky walls stretching away in various 
curves, covered in some places by the dra- 
pery of the forest, green and graceful, and in 
others without a bramble or a bush, bare and 
blue. 

I gazed upon this wondrous scene for an 
hour and a quarter, a period ten times too 
short to realize its grandeur ; but having be- 
fore my eyes, (my mind's eyes, Horatio,) the 
fear of a bad road and a moonless night, I 
forced my reluctant footsteps up the hill, 
swallowed my mush and milk too hot with 
haste, and at half past three began my toil- 
some travel back to Lexington. 

We met some heavy wagons before we 
arrived at the place to turn off, and Oliver 
ascertaining that they came by the shortest 
road, inferred that he could safely return 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 153 

by the same ; and by dint of tacking and 
veering like a ship with a head wind, without 
moon or lamp, he landed me safe at the Jeffer- 
son Hotel at nine p. M. 

Reader, do not allow the coolness of the 
neighbours, or the heat of the weather, 
or the badness of the roads, or the good- 
ness of your equipage, or the inertia of 
your disposition, or the gravity of your 
baggage, or the levity of your purse, or the 
nolition of your womankind, or any other 
creature of any other kind to prevent you 
from going to see the Natural Bridge ; you 
never saw its like before, and never will you 
look upon its like again. You can pass a 
night at Mr. Johnston's close to the bridge 
very comfortably. Having tried and truly 
tested the driving talent of the trusty Oliver, 
I hired him and his horses and his hack to 
convey us to the White Sulphur Springs, a 
distance of sixty-two miles, for the conside- 
ration of twenty-one dollars, and he was to 
find himself and his horses, and we were to 
pay the tolls. We left Lexington at seven 



154 LETTERS ON THE 

a. m. on the first of August, hoping to reach 
Covington before night, a distance of forty 
miles. 

In nine miles we came to a house where 
we stopped one hour to bait our horses and 
prepare them for the ascent of the North 
Mountain. The road was good, and hitherto 
most of it was trotting ground; but now a 
change came o'er the nature of the road, for 
the ascent of the mountain is three miles in 
extent, and so steep, that two hours and a 
half were consumed in reaching the top. The 
ascent affords many fine views towards the 
east, and the frequent and necessary stops 
afford abundant opportunity to enjoy them. 
Near the top is a very short turn round the 
sharp angle of a lofty spur, where the road 
passes over a terrace supported by an almost 
perpendicular wall of masonry, from which is 
seen a most extensive and magnificent pros- 
pect. This turn is so sharp, and at such an 
immense elevation, that the engineer has 
thought it necessary to guard the dizzy 
brink for about fifty yards with the defence of 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 155 

a low parapet wall, which is the only instance 
of the kind I have met with in the mountains 
of Virginia. 

The descent of the mountain on the west- 
ern side is five miles long, but the road was 
so good, that an hour brought us to the 
mountain's foot. About four miles further 
we came in sight of a neat looking dwelling, 
consisting- of a string of clean cabins of vari- 
ous sizes, belonging to C. Armentrout a 
Virginia German, born here in 1770, a vene- 
rable person, and in face resembling not a 
little President Jackson ; glory enough as 
the late Major Downing would say, for one old 
German on this mundane sphere. His wife 
is a Pennsylvania German, from Bucks County, 
who came here at an early age, and brought 
with her, Pennsylvania habits of industry and 
neatness. It was quite refreshing to see 
with what celerity and cheerfulness the old 
lady cooked us a chicken and broiled us 
some nice fresh eggs, and equally refreshing 
to eat them, and to observe how soon she 



156 LETTERS ON THE 

cleared away the table, had every thing in 
its place, and sat down to her work, the very 
picture of industry and thrift. Reader, when 
thou wendest this way, stop at Armentrout's. 
Though the road is good, yet there is much 
hill and mountain, and the sun sank below the 
horizon when we were still nine miles from 
Covington. We had many grand mountain 
views, but when we came in sight of Jack- 
son's river, the character of the scene chang- 
ed from sublime to beautiful. We rode 
many miles along the banks of the river, and 
crossed it three times over substantial bridges 
of timber, each hanging from a single arch 
and protected by a roof. About eleven miles 
from Covington, opposite to Colonel Jordan's 
forge, is a section of a high hill, which exhi- 
bits a stratum of rock apparently forty feet 
thick, and bent into a regular elliptical arch, 
seemingly a quarter of a mile long, and 
parallel with the upper outline of the hill. 
At an hour after sunset we arrived at 
Tackett's tavern, where we were obliged to 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 157 

sleep : — * illius tristissima noctis imago /' 
Ovid Tristia, L 1. 3. Travellers are inform- 
ed that beds have two sides ; an inside and 
an outside, and the latter should be used when 
the former is not inviting. This house is 
five miles from Covington. 






15 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 159 



LETTER XVI. 

Ford Jackson's River Covington — Callahan's 

White Sulphur — Borrow a Cabin — Prince Metter- 
nich — Late Improvements — Statue of Hygeia — 
Poisoning a Serpent — Enlargement of Dining Room 
— Improvement in board — Infallible sign — Improve- 
ments in contemplation — Crowds to come — Excellence 
of the White Sulphur Water — Patients should be 
patient and prudent — Pleasant Perceptions — Daily 
Dose — -Misty Mornings — George and Duncan — 
Hounds — Hunting at Home — Ancient Custom — 
Nimrod — Horace — Paraph rase. 

The next morning at six we started, and 
crossed Jackson's river for the last time by a 
ford, having Covington in sight on the right 
hand, distant a quarter of a mile. At half 
past eight we reached Callahan's, having 






160 LETTERS ON THE 



travelled ten miles and a half, over a good 
road. Here we stopped two hours to bait our 
horses and get an excellent breakfast for 
ourselves. The distance hence to the White 
Sulphur is eighteen miles, which we accom- 
plished in five hours. On account of the 
heavy rains and the immense numbers of 
visiters to that agreeable watering place, the 
roads were not so good as usual. The place 
was overflowing with company, but a good 
friend from Norfolk lent us a cabin for the 
night, and that able and adroit prime minister 
Prince Metternich, promised to establish us 
on the morrow, in a dwelling of our own in 
Virginia Row, and he kept his princely word. 
The improvements that have been made 
within two years are very considerable. 
Alabama Row has been continued towards 
the north so as to leave just space enough 
between it and Paradise Row, for a gentleman 
of New Orleans to build himself a handsome 
two story house with a double portico, which 
occupies a commanding position, and finishes 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 161 

the western side of the parallelogram with a 
fine effect. The dome over the spring is 
surmounted and embellished by a handsome 
statue of Hygiea standing on a cylindrical 
pedestal shaped like a Stilton cheese, having 
the word Hygiea engraven thereon in golden 
letters ; the Stilton rests upon a large single 
Gloster, whose periphery bears the follow- 
ing legend : Presented by S. Henderson, Esq. 
of New Orleans. 

The statue is a buxom, hearty, handsomelass, 
with her bones of pine well covered with wood- 
en flesh and drapery, and pigment of snowy 
white. Her left arm is folded in the coils of 
a serpent, which it is probable she has just 
poisoned with a draught of sulphur water out 
of a bowl which is in her right hand. This 
is emblematical of the power of that excellent 
water to destroy all noxious diseases. The 
statue is a great ornament to the dome, 
though its attitude might have been more 
graceful. 

The dining room has been considerably 
15* 



162 LETTERS ON THE 

enlarged, and the attendance of the servants 
of the establishment is very good : an im- 
provement has also taken place in the rate 
of board, which has risen from eight to nine 
dollars per week. This is an infallible sign 
of a general improvement in the accommoda- 
tions. Also, from the fact that the great 
isolated forest trees in the quadrangle are 
no longer used as coach-houses, it may plainly 
be inferred that the stabulary department has 
been considerably increased. 

In addition to what is mentioned above, 
rumour hath bruited that many great things 
will be achieved before the commencement of 
the next season : [Omnia jam jient, fieri qua 
posse negabat. Ovid Trist. Lib. 1. El. 7. I. 
7.) That the road is to be removed farther 
to the east, so as to include within the 
magic square, Virginia Row, that of the 
Wolf and another row whose name I gather- 
ed not : that the old Ball Room is to be 
removed, and a larger and better one built 
with drawing rooms attached, where the 



VIEGINIA SPRINGS. 163 

visiters can meet before and after meals to 
walk and talk. It is to be hoped also, that 
some of the innumerable stones found ready 
for use in the bed of Howard's Creek will be 
brought into the quadrangle, and carefully 
laid in a row in front of all the cabins ; which 
row should be continued to the piazza of the 
dining room, so that the ladies may come to 
dinner without walking through the mud. 
(Non in muddio tvtissimus ibis.) The im- 
mense crowds that will come to the White 
Sulphur in 1838, (after these letters have 
been well circulated) will undoubtedly require 
an additional dining room and many more 
cabins, which the liberal proprietors will no 
doubt provide ; and here let it be suggested 
to their wisdom, that the ceiling of the new 
dining room should be at least fifteen feet high, 
and that the windows should reach nearly 
from top to bottom. 

The healing powers of the White Sulphur 
water are acquiring increased reputation 
with every revolving summer ; and with 



164 LETTERS ON THE 

every sufferer from chronic disease, who is 
patient and prudent in their use. It is plea- 
sant to perceive the gradual change which 
takes place in the countenances of your 
valetudinary acquaintances ; how, during the 
first week, the hypochondriac aspect begins 
to cheer ; during the second the sallow south- 
ern hue begins to shade off into a healthy 
white and red ; during the third, the tongue 
from white to red begins to turn, and finally 
in the fourth week the elasticity of the step 
and the keenness of the appetite are a double 
witness that the man is well. Observe, 
reader, these effects are produced on those 
who are suffering under chronic complaints 
of the stomach and bowels, produced by 
sedentary occupation, or long exposure to 
unhealthy climates, and who use the water 
prudently, as an alterative, and not as a 
medicine. From five to eight glasses a day 
are enough ; but the water should be taken 
for three or four weeks ; and the diet should 
be light, and little in quantity, and digestible 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 165 

in quality. Some people erroneously sup- 
pose, that if a little is good, more is better ; 
the Hibernian did not err more, when being 
told if he used a stove he would save half his 
fuel, exclaimed, Och then, I will use two and 
save it all. When the complaints are such 
as to require the powerful action of the bath 
at the Hot Springs, it is extremely beneficial, 
first, to drink the White Sulphur water three 
or four weeks, to improve the condition of the 
stomach. 

When the morning is misty, the invalid 
should not go to the spring, but should take 
his ante-breakfast dose of three glasses in 
his chamber at six o'clock, at which hour 
George or Duncan is sure to bring to the 
cabin a pitcher of sulphur water. Thou 
needest not ' wake Duncan with thy knocking,' 
for he is always up in time. 

For the young and hearty, the fine pack of 
houndskept here is a great resource, and affords 
both exercise and pleasure. Their musical 
throats often rouse the sylvan echos and the 



166 LETTERS ON THE 

timorous deer, before the sun has shaken from 
his flaming hair the mists of the Atlantic ; and 
sometimes those who cannot partake of the 
spirit-stirring sport, are treated with a mimic 
chase and the music of the hounds at home. 
This is produced by an ingenious contrivance 
that is probably as old as the mighty hunter 
Nimrod. The hide of a slain deer is first 
drawn through the grass in such direction as 
the huntsman wishes the pack to pursue, and 
then the hounds are put upon the scent, 
which they follow at full speed, and in full 
cry. There is no new thing under the sun. 
Horace draws a simile from a similar 
custom, that no doubt was old in his time : 
in the second epistle of the first book, he 
says, 

Venaticus, ex quo 



Tempore cervinam pellem latravit in aula, 
MUitat in silvis cuiulus. 



which may be paraphrased thus, 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 167 

The hide is hunted by the hound, 
Before he leaves his master's ground ; 
And thus is trained his dogged nose 
To chase the stag, where 'er he goes. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 169 



L ETTER XVII. 

Trip to Lewisburg — Army, Navy and Bar in Lewis 
Hardon's coach — Star Hotel — Court of Appeals — 
An hour of a Speech — Matter and Manner — Law 
Books — Good Dinner — Good things shaken from the 
Army, Navy and Bar — Flying visit to Blue Sulphur 
Spring — Route — Distance twenty-five miles — Face 
of the Country — Great Fertility — Sinks — Fine 
Hotel — Cabins — Hot Water and Vapour Baths — 
Beautiful plain — Grove of Maples — Good Manager 
— Good Dinner — Blue Sulphur Water — Taste — 
Colour — Mysterious Deposite — White Do. — Analysis 
— Good Sleeping — Good Stopping Place on the way 
to and from Guyandotte. 

On the morning of the fifth of August, 

I went with a party of seven to Lewisburg. 

TVe were three from Baltimore, one from the 

Navy, one from Virginia, one from South 

16 



170 LETTERS ON THB 

Carolina, and one from Pennsylvania ; more- 
over, we were one General of the land forces, 
one Captain of the maritime defence, two 
Lawyers, two Planters and one Letter-writer. 
We had one of Hardon's capital coaches and 
four, with Lewis himself to drive us, and 
had a pleasant and right merry ride. We 
arrived at Lewisburg at m., and went to the 
Star Hotel, an excellent house, kept by Mr. 
Frazer, and bespoke our dinner. We then 
went into the Court of Appeals, and were 
gratified by hearing for an hour, part of a 
speech from one of the leading members of 
the Virginia Bar ; the matter was excellent, 
the manner not quite so good. 

Even in this remote region, there is a 
good collection of law books in the Court 
House, furnished at the expense of the State. 
Mr. Frazer gave us an excellent dinner, and 
we were home again by six p. m. If I were 
to put down all the good things that emanat- 
ed, from the Army, the Navy, and the Bar, 
shaken from them, as it were, by the jolting 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 171 

of the coach, there would be no room for the 
rest of my book. It is a pleasant ride to 
Lewisburg ; the road being a turnpike, and 
too hilly to be spoilt by the rain. The road 
crosses the river Greenbriar and one of its 
tributaries, and affords some agreeable views. 
On the eleventh of August I joined a party 
of five Baltimoreans, and at six a. m, in a 
coach and four chartered for the trip, we 
left the White, to pay a flying visit to the 
Blue Sulphur. We had merchants, lawyers, 
and a great traveller,* who had just returned 
from a six years' tour in Europe, Asia and 
Africa, having passed through Egypt, Arabia, 
and Palestine. We breakfasted at Lewisburg, 
and then continued our route on the Guyan- 
dotte turnpike for eight miles ; we then 
turned to the left at a right angle, and travel- 
led two miles on a good natural road, when 
we reached a new turnpike, which in six 
miles brought us to the Blue Sulphur Springs. 
The whole distance from the White Sulphur 

* I wish I had his Diurnal, to make letters out of. 



172 LETTERS ON THE 

is twenty-five miles, and the road is good, 
though there are some very long hills. 

The country between LevvisburgandtheBlue 
Sulphur is very interesting from its curious 
structure and the great* fertility of the soil. 
Its surface, which is very elevated, is com- 
posed of rounded hills and intervening valleys, 
and the occurrence of sinks of various sizes 
is very frequent. These are large funnel- 
shaped hollows, that look as if they ought 
to be full of water, as there is no apparent 
passage for its escape ; but the central de- 
pression is supposed to communicate by small 
openings with the stratum of cavernous lime- 
stone below, and thus a means is afforded for 
the escape of the water which falls from the 
clouds. 

* The soil for several miles next to the Blue Sulphur 
is rank with richness, and the spontaneous growth 
along the road side, and in the angle of the worm 
fences is gigantic. The common rag weed which 
covers our stubbles in Pennsylvania in the autumn, 
and reaches a height of three feet or less, I saw here 
nine or ten feet high, and other well known weeds 
magnified in proportion. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 173 

The buildings at this place are a large brick 
Hotel, one hundred feet in front, and fifty 
feet deep, three stories high, with a finished 
garret and a three storied piazza in front 
wide enough to make it a convenient prome- 
nade. There is a dining room one hundred 
feet long, by thirty wide, well aired and 
lighted ; and there are two large parlours, 
and thirty lodging rooms. There are twenty 
neat frame cabins, containing two or three 
rooms each, and hot mineral water and vapour 
baths, very conveniently arranged in a brick 
building. On the same line of front with the 
hotel, distant eighty-six feet, is a two story 
brick building containing twelve single rooms ; 
the front of this building is to be increased to 
one hundred and forty feet, and the space 
between it and the hotel is to be filled with a 
Bali-Room and drawing-room, over which 
are to be lodging rooms, and in front a 
piazza. 

In front of the Hotel is a beautiful plain, 

perfectly level, perhaps three hundred yards 
16* 



174 



LETTERS ON THE 



wide, and six hundred long, flanked on both 
sides by mountains, and bearing near the 
house a delightful grove of sugar maples, and 
along its centre a wide smooth walk leading 
to the spring and baths. One of our party, 
who has a fine taste in drawing, left a beauti- 
ful design for a building to cover the spring ; 
it is to be Greek, square, presenting four 
fluted columns surmounted by an entablature 
and pediment on every side. 

We arrived at this beautiful abode of the 
youngest of the sulphurous sisters at three 
p. m., a little too late for the regular dinner ; 
but major Vass who governs here, and whose 
obliging disposition is famous in these moun- 
tains, bestirred himself and his household 
staff with such effect, that we soon were 
seated at a dinner made up of an incredible 
number of good things, considering our 
geographical position ; beef, mutton, venison, 
fowls, potatos, corn, tomatos, various pastry, 
preserves, ice cream, and even Chinese ginger, 
all served to furnish forth our feast. It 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 175 

is plain from what we saw and ate, that the 
owners arid the manager of this establishment 
are determined to spare no expense or trouble 
to contribute to the comfort and enjoyment of 
their visiters, both sick and sane : the major 
is a capital caterer ; Accepit homo nemo 
melius prorsum, neque prolixius. Ter. Eu. 
5. 10. 

The Blue Sulphur water, in taste, resembles 
the White so nearly, that the nicest palate 
would find it difficult to discriminate between 
them. The spring is not so copious as the 
White, but more abundant than the Salt. It 
is at present contained in a rectangular wooden 
box, about two feet wide and four feet long ; 
and the bottom is covered with a red mysteri- 
ous substance, looking like that in the Red 
Sulphur, which lends the water a purplish hue ; 
and there is deposited on the sides of the box, 
along the edge of the water, and extending a 
little below, a white substance, which looks 
like that at the White Sulphur. A gentleman 
having the air of a Physician, handed us seve-» 



176 LETTERS ON THE 

ral manuscript copies of the following general 
chemical examination of the Blue Sulphur 
water, by a celebrated chemist. 

" This water contains much free sulphuret- 
" ted hydrogen, and a small quantity of 
" nitrogen, and carbonic acid. 

" Thirty-two cubic inches of the water, 
" contain about fourteen grains of solid mat- 
" ter, consisting of sulphate of lime, carbon- 
" ate of lime, sulphate of magnesia, sulphate 
" of soda, muriate of soda, muriate of mag- 
" nesia, with a trace of organic matter, sul- 
" phur, &c. 

" The deposite, which is of a purplish 
" colour, is analogous to that of the Red Sul- 
" phur, and some other springs in this state ; 
" and is a peculiar organic matter mingled 
" with a trace of sulphur. 

" It is of the nature of a substance, found 
" in some of the sulphuretted waters of 
" France and Spain, and is called Glairine, 
" or Glarea." 

" The above analysis was taken from 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 177 

" twelve bottles of water sent to Professor 
" Rogers at Charlottesville." 

The chambers are furnished with good 
thick hair mattrasses not yet invaded by the 
fleas, and he that sleeps on one of them, non 
fiebit in the morning. After a good night's 
rest we took an early breakfast and left the 
Blue Sulphur at seven a. m., dined at Lewis- 
burg and reached the White Sulphur at 
three p. m., having enjoyed a very pleasant 
excursion. The position of the Blue Sulphur 
is such as to make it very convenient for 
those who come by way of Guyandotte to 
visit the White Sulphur, to stop a few days, 
to ascertain by letter whether they can get in 
at the latter place ; for visiters arriving there 
unexpected are sometimes put to the incon- 
venience of taking refuse in a tavern distant 
several miles. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 179 



LETTER XVIII. 

Black Sulphur Spring — Lymnaea — Bad Weather — 
Departure — Callahan's — Good House — Son of Den- 
nis — Fine Farm — Its Products — Allegheny — 
Dickson's New White Sulphur— Route to Hot 
Springs — Potent Waters — Immense Crowds coming 
next Summer — Water just hot enough — Hot Spring 
of Carlsbad in Bohemia — Great Geiser — Bath in 
England — Aix La Chapelle — Barege — Wiesbaden — 
Ancient Faith in Thermal Springs — Roman Baths — 
The place should be called Thcrmopolis— Hot 
Springs at Thermopylae — Orientals, not subject to 
the caprice of fashion ; why — Pococke — Prusa — 
Turks — Hot Springs of Palestine — Pliny's opinion — 
Callirhoe — Log Cabins in Asia Minor. 

About twenty yards from the principal 
White Sulphur Spring is another of similar 
water under a plain shed, which a witty- 
friend and fellow-townsman was wont to call 



180 LETTERS ON THE 

the Black Sulphur Spring, because it was ex- 
clusively used by the Melanthropes. In a little 
swamp in contact with the foundation of the 
shed, and supplied with the same water, there 
are thousands of a small species of Lymnsea 
about three-sixteenths of an inch in length. 
My science is not large enough to determine 
whether it is new or not. 

During this season, the weather has been 
very unfavourable for the Springs ; the super- 
abundance of rain having caused the roads to 
be much cut up in some level places; and 
confined the visiters to their cabins much 
more than is agreeable. During my stay at 
the White Sulphur it rained nearly every day 
either in the morning or afternoon, though 
not the whole day ; and the weatherwise 
remark, that a thick morning mist is gene- 
rally the harbinger of a fine day ; but by the 
otherwise this is doubted. We found a fire 
necessary almost every morning and evening. 
Having remained twelve days (only half 
long enough,) at the White Sulphur, with 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 181 

great benefit to two or three of my com- 
plaints, I left that beautiful place, and its 
multifarious and agreeable crowd " inter 
spem curamque, timores inter et iras"* at 
ten a. m. on the fourteenth of August, to go 
to the Hot Springs to try the virtues of the 
boiler and the spout, for the rest of my phy- 
sical ills. The road being pretty good, we 
reached Callahan's atone p. m., where finding 
pleasant chambers and everything else comme 
il faut, we determined to remain all night. 

The present proprietor of this establishment, 
Mr. Callahan, who keeps an excellent house 
at very reasonable charges, was born here in 
1788, and is the son of that worthy and face- 
tious Hibernian, Dennis Callahan, who set- 
tled in this valley in 1787. The farm now 
consists of nine hundred and fifty acres, much 
of which is good land and well improved, and 
produces good beef, mutton, fowls, eggs, but- 
ter, cream, corn, tomatos, potatos and 

* Hor. Ep. 4, Lib. 1. 
17 



182 LETTERS ON THE 

bread, all of which fill their allotted posts 
upon the table very agreeably to the eye and 
to the appetite. We dined, supped, slept and 
breakfasted very satisfactorily, being charged 
one dollar and a quarter apiece. 

The distance from the White Sulphur is 
eighteen miles, in passing which you cross 
the main ridge of the Allegheny Mountain, 
thus leaving the basin of the Ohio, and en- 
tering that of the James River. There runs 
by Callahan's a rivulet, whose waters flow 
into the Atlantic through Jackson's River and 
the James; while those of Howard's Creek, 
which flows by the White Sulphur, seek the 
Ohio, through the Greenbrier and the Great 
Kenhawa. The ascent and descent of the 
mountain is very easy, and the road is good. 
Two and a half miles from Callahan's is Mr. 
Dickson's tavern, at which there is a Sul- 
phur Spring. He calls it the New White 
Sulphur ; it is a pleasant, cool water, and 
tastes of sulphuretted hydrogen. 

After an early breakfast, we left Callahan's 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 183 

at 7 a. m. and did not reach the Hot Springs, 
until one p. m., in consequence of the level 
parts of the road, which are long and fre- 
quent, being much cut up, though the distance 
is but twenty-two miles. We found the estab- 
lishment overflowing with visiters, besides 
many out-door patients waiting to enter ; but 
having engaged a room a week before, we 
were so fortunate as to get in. The curative 
powers of these thermal waters have in- 
creased so much in reputation within two 
years, that the place has been crowded during 
the whole season ; and unless the worthy 
proprietor uses every effort, and invests no 
small sum in additional accommodations, he 
will not be able to receive one half of the 
visiters who will throng here next summer. 

As regards benefits done to suffering hu- 
manity, this is undoubtedly one of the most 
interesting localities in the world. The waters 
are abundant, and exhibit the exact degree of 
heat that is proper to produce a quick and 
beneficial action on the human system, when 



1 84 LETTERS ON THE 

externally applied ; and they hold in solution 
such matters, and in such quantity, as to 
make them very wholesome when internally 
taken. 

Most of the large springs, at their points of 
issue from the earth, exhibit the temperature 
of 106° of Fahrenheit ; which is about as 
hot as one can bear to get into, and commu- 
nicates a slight scalding sensation to the 
skin until the person is chin-deep, when there 
is a feeling of comfort, and in fifteen, twenty, 
or twenty-five minutes, (according to the 
bather's idiosyncrasy,) a profuse perspiration 
breaks out. If the water were hotter, it 
would be necessary to reduce its temperature 
by drawing it off into a bath at some distance 
from the source, and thus it might lose some 
of its valuable volatile contents, before the 
body could be immersed : on the other hand, 
if the water were cooler, it would not produce 
the required sweat. 

There are many springs in the other hemi- 
sphere hotter than these in various degrees, 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 185 

and perhaps on that account not so valuable ; 
and containing in solution various silts in 
much larger quantities, and perhaps for that 
reason, dangerous in the use. 

The hot spring of Carlsbad (Charles's 
Bath) in Bohemia, which was discovered by 
the Emperor Charles IV. in the year 1370, 
issues with great violence through a stalac- 
titic aperture which the water itself has 
deposited, and has, since its discovery, inva- 
riably exhibited the temperature of 165° of 
Fahrenheit, and probably has been of the 
same heat ever since the last great cata- 
clysm. One hundred cubic inches of this 
water contains 32 cubic inches of carbonic 
acid, and 158f grains of solid matter, con- 
sisting of 

Dry Carbonate of Soda, 39 grs. 

(equal to 107£ gr. when chrys- 
tallised.) 

39 
17* 



186 



'O LETTERS ON THE 






(brought up) 


39 


grs, 


Dry Sulphate of Soda, 


70£ 


it 


(equal to 168 gr. when chrys- 






tallised,) 






Muriate of Soda, 


34£ 


u 


Carbonate of Lime, 


12 


(( 


Silex, 


2J 


(C 


Oxyde of Iron, about 


i 

158f 


a 



The temperature of this water must be 
reduced before it can be used either inter- 
nally or externally, and in cooling it rapidly 
loses its carbonate of lime and oxyde of iron. 
It is so abundant, as to throw out in one year 
more than three millions of cubic feet of 
water, and 700,000 pounds of chrystallised 
carbonate of soda, 1,100,000 pounds of chrys- 
tallised sulphate of soda, 230,000 pounds of 
muriate of soda, and 990,000 cubic feet of 
carbonic acid gas. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 187 

This is perhaps the most remarkable ther- 
mal spring in the world, if the great Geyser 
in Iceland be excepted ; which by fits and 
starts throws a column of boiling water seve- 
ral feet in diameter to a perpendicular height 
of eighty or ninety feet. 

The celebrated hot spring at Bath in Eng- 
land, which has been used for twenty centu- 
ries successively by Briton, Roman, Saxon, 
Dane, Norman, Whig and Tory, possesses a 
temperature of 116°. 

At Aix la Chapelle, the favourite city of 
Charlemagne, the principal spring has a heat 
of 143°. 

At Barege in France are four thermal 
springs, ranging from 73° to 120°. 

At Wiesbaden, in the Duchy of Nassau, in 
Germany, there are fourteen hot springs, the 
hottest of which reaches 151°. A friend 
who has visited Wiesbaden informed me that 
the water of the Hot Spring tastes very much 
like hot mutton broth, and as you sip it re- 
quires cooling in like manner with the breath. 



188 



LETTERS ON THE 



Natural hot springs were held in such high 
repute hy Greek, Roman and Barbarian, 
both for retaining and restoring health, that 
enormous sums of money were expended in 
erecting magnificent and convenient baths, 
both for the use of the public, and for indivi- 
dual enjoyment ; and the remains of the baths 
ofCaracalla and Diocletian are among the 
most wonderful of the wonders of Italian 
antiquity. 

Many of the hot baths in Europe, that 
are now the most fashionable and most fre- 
quented, were known to the ancient Romans, 
were improved by them with costly edifices, 
and some of them occupied as military 
stations for several centuries. It is supposed 
that those conquerors took possession of Bath 
in England, about the middle of the first 
century, in the reign of the Emperor 
Claudius. They called it Aquae Solis, made 
it a military station, and a fortified city, 
and enjoyed the luxury and healing virtues 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 189 

of its baths and springs, for a period of nearly 
four hundred years. 

The faith of the ancients in the healing 
virtues of thermal springs has descended so 
undiminished to the nations of modern 
Europe, that crowds of annual visiters throng 
the hot springs of Germany, France, and 
England, and splendid cities have grown up 
around them, replete with all the elegances, 
comforts and amusements, of fashion, art and 
science. 

A similar destiny is no doubt in reserve 
for the Hot Springs in Bath county Virginia ; 
and before many years the romantic and 
forest-covered hills that bound the beautiful 
valley whence the thermal waters gush, will 
be traversed by streets, and crowned by 
rows of elegant houses. 

It would be worth the proprietor's while to 
employ a skilful engineer to lay out the plat 
of a town, in such a manner that the streets 
and houses should occupy convenient places 
and handsome sites, and not in any wise 



190 



LETTERS ON THE 



interfere with that part of the ground where 
the hot springs rise. The town should be 
called Thermopolis, from Begpos calidus, 
(whence thermte hot baths), and ttoXis a city 
or town. The celebrated pass, where the 
brave Leonidas and his band of Spartans 
paid their country's ransom with their lives, 
was called Thermopylae, («to h^m -n-vXm 
i. e. calidis portis, nempe angustiis,) from 
the hot springs which rise there. The 
authentic Pococke who visited Thermopylae 
one hundred years ago, says, " I observed 
" two sources of hot waters, which are salt 
" and impregnated with sulphur ,- they 
" incrust the ground with a salt sulphurous 
" substance :" Pococke' s Decs, of the East, 
Vol. 2. pt. 2. p. 156. The same hot stream, 
which twenty-three centuries ago, laved and 
strengthened the manly person of the Spartan 
hero for the most honourable battle of anti- 
quity, still flows to refresh the weary limbs of 
the marauding and independent Klepht. 
During the dark ages, which barbarized 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 191 

Europe, bathing as a splendid luxury went 
out of fashion, and the magnificent Thermae 
of the Romans, were suffered to crumble into 
ruins; but the Orientals, the Turks, and the 
trans-Helespontine nations, from Stamboul to 
the Ganges, whose customs change not, and 
who are free from the tyranny of fashion, 
(perhaps, because they incarcerate the ladies,) 
still preserve their extensive bathing houses, 
and use them both for health and pleasure. 

It is probable that some of the ancient 
founders of eastern Empires, chose the sites 
of their capitals from the proximity of ther- 
mal waters. The City of Prusa was built by 
Prusias, the contemporary of the great Cyrus 
and the rich Croesus, and was made the capital 
of the kingdom of Bithynia : its watery 
wealth one hundred years since, is thus 
described by the veritable Pococke ; " The 
" great number of springs that rise all over 
" the city make it a very pleasant place, 
" some flow in large streams, and one in 
" particular comes out of the mountain at the 



192 LETTERS ON THE 

castle, like a small rivulet, where the Turks 
sit in the shade, and where every thing is 
sold which they delight in. There are 
several baths to the west of the town which 
are very famous, and have always been 
much frequented ; in one called Cara- 
Mustapha there is a spring of cold water, 
and another of hot water within the same 
room. That called Jeneh-Coplujah (the 
New Spring) is the largest and most 
beautiful bath ; it is a fine building, a large 
spring rises in the middle of it, and two very 
hot streams run through the room ; near 
it there is a small bagnio, called the Jews' 
Bagnio : from this we went to a warm 
water, esteemed holy by the Greeks, and is 
called Aie Theodory. All the waters are 
taken inwardly as well as used for bathing." 
Descn, of the East, Vol. 2,pt. 2, p. 120. 

In 1328, this delightful city, then in the 
eighteenth century of its age, was made by 
Sultan Orchan the son of Othman, the 
capital of his empire ; and its modern name 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 193 

of Bursa, still forms a part of the glory of the 
grand Turk's title. 

The same industrious traveller, in describ- 
ing the western coast of the Lake of 
Gennesaret in Palestine, says : " There are 
" hot baths a quarter of a mile south of the 
" walls of old Tiberias ; I observed a red 
" settlement on the stones ; the waters are 
11 very hot, and are used for bathing, being 
" esteemed good for all sorts of pains and 
" tumours, and they say, even for gout." Po- 
cockers Dis. of the East, vol. 2, p. 69. 

The same waters were considered excellent 

by Pliny, who was the greatest authority of 

his age in matters of natural science. In 

speaking of the cities surrounding the Lake 

of Gennesaret, he says ; — " ab occidente 

" Tiberiade aqvis calidis salvbri :" on the 

west is Tiberias, healthy on account of its 

thermal springs. Plin. Nat. Hist. I. 5. c. 15. 

He also expresses a similar opinion of the 

thermal waters of Callirhoe a fountain on 

the eastern side of Lake Asphaltites or the 
18 



194 LETTERS ON THE 

Dead Sea : " Eodem latere est calidus fans 
" medicm salubritatis Callirhoe, aquarum 
" gloriam ipso nomine prof evens ;" On 
the same side is Callirhoe,* a hot spring of 
healing power, showing the excellence of its 
waters by its very name. Plin. Nat. Hist. I. 
5. c. 16. About thirty miles north of Angora, 
" We lay, (says Pocock,) at a village in. 
" which the houses are made of entire 
" fir trees.f We went four miles to some 
" waters which are stronger and hotter fhan 
" the others, insomuch that the first entrance 
" gives some pain ; they are called 
" Sha-Hamam ; among many other virtues, 
" they have performed wonderful cures in 
" dropsy." Descr. of the East, V. 2. pt. 2. 
p. 92. 

These waters must be of about the 
same temperature as those of our Ther- 

* Beautiful stream, from *axo? puJcher, gea> flue. 

tNo doubt, these were log cabins, like unto the 
pristine wigwams at the Virginia Springs, whose only 
room our ancestors were wont to share with the abori- 
ginal rattlesnakes. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 195 

mopolis ; for in them the first entrance 
gives some pain. The particular Pococke 
could not have described the effect of immer- 
sion better, if he had been here and dipped 
his travelled person. Let us infer therefore 
that our thermae are also antidropsical. 



YIKC1MA SPRINGS. 197 



LETTER XIX. 

Return to our sheep — Parlour pleasures of anticipation 
and reminiscence — Dining-Room — New brick cabins 
— Department of bathing — Gentleman's spout Bath 
— Do. Sweat Bath or Boiler — Lady's Boiler — Do. 
Spout Bath — Superb Epicene Pleasure Bath^- 
Effects of Hot Spouts — Ten Pins — Consumption of 
Time — Tranquil amusements — Getting well — 
Wonderful Labyrinthine Cave — Contents of Hot 
Spring Water — Fact and Fiction — Crutches — 
Dismals — Cheerfuls — Legs — Fat Faces — Pot-hooks 
— Vegitable Prospects. 

Many more descriptions of Hot Springs 
existing in the old triple continent, and 
authentic accounts of their sanative powers 
might be cited, but as the reader must be by 
this time fully convinced of their great im- 
18* 



198 LETTERS ON THE 

portance to valitudinarians, we will return to 
our sheep, and tell him all the news of our 
new town of Thermopolis. 

Since 1834 an additional parlour of conve- 
nient size has been provided in the Hotel, in 
which ladies and gentlemen may meet before 
and after meals, to enjoy the pleasures of 
anticipation and reminiscence, seasoned with 
agreeable chat ; and the dining-room itself 
has been considerably enlarged, is airy and 
comfortable, and thrice a day is supplied with 
a great variety of wholsome viands, well 
adapted to assist in promoting the cure of both 
hunger an d disease. 

A number of neat brick cabins, each con- 
taining several comfortable rooms have been 
erected, and great improvements have 
taken place in the bathing department. 

The Gentleman's Hot Spout Bath has been 
remodelled and four dressing rooms attached 
to it. This bath is about eighteen feet 
square and five feet deep, and is supplied by 
a spout which constantly pours into the bath 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 199 

a stream of water of 106 degrees of temper- 
ature, falling from a height of 4 or 5 feet 
above the surface of the pool, in which the 
heat of the water is 103 degrees. 

The Gentleman's Boiler or Sweat Bath 
always exhibits a temperature of 106 de- 
grees, and is large enough to allow four per- 
sons to bathe together. 

The Lady's Baths are contained in a new 
and convenient building, with dressing rooms, 
and are two in number, viz ; 

The Lady's Boiler, having a temperature 

of 103° 

" " Hot Spout, " 106° 

In addition to the four baths above-men- 
tioned, there is another of great size, supplied 
by very copious hot springs lately discovered ; 
this is called the Pleasure Bath, and is con- 
tained in an octagonal pool, whose periphery 
is ninety feet, depth five feet, and diameter 
thirty feet : there are two spouts of two 
inches diameter constantly pouring streams of 
hot water into the pool : the temperature of 



200 LETTERS ON THE 

the water in the pool is between 98° and 99°, 
and the whole is covered by an octagonal 
building, furnished with a dressing room : 
this bath is to be used alternately by ladies 
and gentlemen, for periods of two hours. 

The beneficial effects of hot spouts topically 
applied, are so miraculous, in many painful 
and obstinate complaints, that words cannot 
adequately describe them ; therefore the 
prisoners of pain are strongly recommended 
to expose their rheumatic joints, gouty toes, 
and enlarged livers, to the comfortable out- 
pourings of these healing streams. 

There is near the hotel a ten-pin alley, 
in which convalescents can exercise and 
strengthen the long unused limbs that the 
hot water has freed from the shackles of 
rheumatism. A moderate dose of this exer- 
cise, taken an hour after breakfast is a 
good preparative for either of the baths. 

Time is consumed here as it should be 
where invalids do congregate, in tranquil 
amusements; of which the most interesting 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 201 

is getting well ; then comes talking, walking, 
and chess, eating riding and sleeping ; and 
all these comforts can be enjoyed in peace 
and quiet, on account of the good regulations 
and cleanliness of the establishment. 

A great source of amusement to the young 
and adventurous has lately been discovered 
in a magnificent cave, the entrance to which 
is above the cold spring ; and as it has not 
yet been fully explored, there is yet room for 
daring adventure to make new and brilliant 
discoveries. In entering the cave you first 
descend perpendicularly twenty-four feet to 
the bottom of the first chamber ; then you 
proceed horizontally twenty-nine feet along a 
gallery, ten feet wide and six feet high ; then 
through the second, to the bottom of the 
third chamber, descending thirty feet at an 
angle of about 45° ; you then descend twenty 
feet nearly perpendicularly into a perfect 
labyrinth, having five different openings, one 
of which leads by a gentle rise twenty-five 
feet in length, to a large chamber one 



202 LETTERS ON THE 

hundred feet long, sixty feet high and thirty- 
five feet wide. From the labyrinth to this 
chamber there is another communication by 
a circuitous route. In the floor of the large 
chamber are numerous openings, leading to 
lower deeps below ; one of which is nearly cir- 
cular, is five feet in diameter, and perpendicular 
for thirty feet, and then gradually slopes offto 
an unknown distance ; but a stone thrown in, 
shows that the bottom of the chamber below 
cannot be at a less distance than one hundred 
feet. The further exploration of this won- 
derful cavern will be a source of much 
amusement to those who possess curiosity 
and nerve enough to undertake the adven- 
ture. 

The water of the Hot Springs contains 
nitrogen and carbonic acid ; carbonate of 
lime, sulphate of lime, sulphate of soda, 
sulphate of magnesia, muriate of soda, 
silica, and a trace of oxide of iron. Tt 
may be taken internally with much advan- 



VIRGINIA SPRfNGS. 203 

tage, particularly as a sure and gentle diure- 
tic. 

The gay folks collected at the White 
Sulphur and elsewhere, will tell you that 
Thermopolis is a gloomy looking place, 
peopled with ghastly figures hobbling about 
on crutches, making just such a noise in 
going up stairs as the statue did, when he 
came to sup with Don Juan. You must not 
be alarmed at this picture, which is a 
mixture of truth and fiction : it is true that 
people do come on crutches looking dismal, 
but then they go away on legs, with their 
fattened faces wreathed in smiles : they 
come with limbs stiffened into pot-hooks 
and hangers, and depart endowed with a 
good jointure : they come like shadows, but 
do not so depart. 

A day at Thermopolis commences at 6 a. 
m., when a servant taps at your door with a 
pitcher of Hot Spring water, and makes 
your fire if you wish ; you drink three 
glasses, then turn on your other side and 



204 LETTERS ON THE 

sleep again ; at 7 you arise and dress for 
breakfast, which happens about eight ; after 
that, those who can walk, saunter about 
and play ten-pins, and those who cannot 
walk, play chess, or read or chat ; at ten 
you begin to think of the spout or boiler, 
and to make preparations for the serious 
business of bathing, which most effectually 
and agreeably kills the rest of the morning. 
After bathing you should lie down for half 
an hour, then put on dry clothes, and in a 
few minutes the dinner bell's merry note 
will tickle your expecting ear; you should 
eat a little mutton or chicken with rice and 
stale bread, and for dessert stewed apples 
or peaches. By-the-bye, it is reported and 
believed, that in the ensuing season there will 
be a pretty smart chance of tomatos and 
ochra, the best things in the world for both 
sick and sane. After dinner the wise take a 
little nap and then a little ride or walk ; and 
then every body expects the mail ; all ears are 
opened for news, and the deputy post master 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 205 

is the most popular of people ; perhaps the 
mail coach sets down some friend you wished 
to see, or takes some away you are loth to 
part withal ; or perhaps it has been overset, 
and nobody hurt, all which are stirring inci- 
dents in a Thermopolitan day : supper happens 
at seven, and two hours are passed ab libitum, 
and then every body being well tired, they 
begin to retire, and by ten the day is over 
and the household wrapped in sleep. 



10 



VIRGINIA 3PRING3. 207 



LETTER XX. 

Road from White to Salt — Salt Sulphur Springs — 
Improvements — Dining Room — Lodging Rooms — 
Cabins — Large Stone Buildings — Great Portico — 
Episcopal Church — Road from Salt to Red — Red 
Sulphur Springs — Water — Its use — Valley and Plain 

— Buildings — Hotel — Carolina Building — Society 
Hall — Cabins — Extensive Accommodations— Gray 
Sulphur Springs — Departure — Road — Morning 
View — Mon. L'Ange — The Washington — The Swan 

— Woodstock — Winchester — Taylor's Hotel — Rail 
Road — An Arkansawyer — Soliliquy — Good Advice. 

The distance from the White to the Salt 
Sulphur, by the direct route is twenty-four 
miles, and within the last two years nearly 
the whole of the road has been put into a 
good condition, so as to bring that comforta- 
ble place, so famous for its good supplies, 
within a morning's ride of the White Sulphur. 

Within the same period the buildings and 
other accommodations have increased in an 



208 LETTERS ON THE 

extraordinary manner. The dining room is 
now one hundred and sixty feet long by 
thirty-four wide, with a second story laid off 
in lodging rooms. The row of ancient cabins 
that stood on the plain in front of the old 
hotel, have been removed to the rising ground 
beyond the creek, and the road has been 
placed higher up the hill so as to include 
the row of removed cabins. On the hill 
near the hither end of Nullification Row, 
a stone building has been erected 206 feet 
long, 33 feet wide, and three stories high, 
besides a basement, with a piazza in front 12 
feet wide. 

The two lower stories contain 44 rooms 
for families, and a large drawing room ; and 
the third story contains 24 rooms for batche- 
lors, all of which are furnished with fire 
places. The basement contains rooms for 
servants. The portico three stories high and 
running the whole length of the buildings 
affords a convenient promenade both for 
good and bad weather. The plain in- 
tervening between the buildings has 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 209 

been handsomely laid out in walks and 
planted with trees for ornament and shade. 
The building of an Episcopal Church is to be 
commenced early this Spring, and it is hoped 
that it will be ready for the performance of 
Divine Service during the ensuing season. 

The worthy proprietors of the Salt Sulphur 
Springs now possess the means of accommo- 
dating comfortably and conveniently, at least 
three hundred visiters. 

At the distance of eighteen miles from 
the Salt Sulphur, in a direction a little north 
of west, is situate the Red Sulphur Spring, 
one of the most interesting spots in the 
mountains of Virginia. The road is a good 
turnpike, and traverses a wild and beautifully 
romantic country. The intelligent proprietor, 
during the last two years, has spared no 
expense in improving the natural beauties 
and increasing the artificial accommodations 
of his valuable establishment. 

This beautiful spring rises very near the 

bank of a little mountain stream called 
19* 



210 LETTERS ON THE 

Filzpatrick's Run, which after traversing 
the valley of the Red Sulphur from south to 
north, turns to the west and falls into Indian 
Creek, one of the minor tributaries of New 
River, as the great Kanawha is called above 
the point at which it receives Gauley River. 
The internal use of this water has long been 
considered as beneficial in cases having a 
tendency to consumption in consequence of 
the retarding power it exercises upon a rapid 
pulse. It is very strongly impregnated with 
sulphuretted hydrogen, and being quite cool, 
is very agreeable to those palates that are 
accustomed to the flavour of the sulphur waters; 
and being mildly cathartic and diuretic is 
very soothing and beneficial to systems that 
are in a feverish condition. 

The valley runs from north to south, being 
surrounded by high and steep mountain tops, 
which enclose a plain about six hundred feet 
long, and varying in breadth fron one hundred 
and fifty, to two hundred feet. The mountains 
are shaded by trees, and one of them is laid 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 211 

out in winding walks leading to a pavilion on 
the summit. The features of this beautiful 
spot strongly recall to mind the description 
given by Horace of his delightful retreat, 
particularly the 

" Fons rivo dare nomenidoneus, 

Infirmo capiti jiuit utilis, utilis alvo." 

Epist- 16, Lib. 1. 

The little valley has been laid out, and the 
buildings planned and arranged with taste and 
judgment. The large Hotel, in which is the 
dining room, is on the western side of the 
valley, and it is 115 feet long and 54 feet 
wide, with basement and piazza. North of 
the hotel ranging along the run are ten build- 
ings of various dimensions, one of which 
contains hot and cold sulphur baths, and 
shower baths. On the eastern side of the 
valley, is Carolina building, two stories high, 
112 feet long, and 29 feet wide, and having a 
colonnade in front, which is continued along 
Batchelors' Row and Philadelphia Row, 



212 LETTERS ON THE 

adjoining on the south, making the whole 
length of the colonnade 416 feet. 

Behind Batchelors' Row and sufficiently 
elevated on the hill to appear over the roof 
of the same, is Society Hall, a handsome 
building, 80 feet long, and 30 feet wide 
having two stories and a basement, a portico 
12% feet wide, and a terrace in front 19 feet 
wide. 

A bout 110 feet south of the hotel is the spring, 
covered by an octagon building, the second 
story of which is used as a Chapel. At the 
distance of 100 feet further south, commen- 
ces a row of cabins extending 264 feet, 
having a continuous porch along the whole 
front, called Alabama Row. Still further 
south are several other buildings, one of 
which is a ten-pin alley 77 feet long ,* one a 
saw-mill, and one a carpenter's shop. 

About 100 yards north of the hotel are two 
stables, one of which is 80 by 46 feet, and 
the other 59 by 44 ,• and near these are a 
granary and a large store. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 213 

The sleeping accommodations are excel- 
lent ; and the table is supplied in the best 
manner, both with solid viands and the 
various products of the garden. 

rsine miles from this interesting spot, in a 
direction nearly south, is the Gray Sulphur 
Spring now in the third year of its age. This 
establishment is entirely southern in its cha- 
racter, and is therefore the more interesting 
to travellers from the north. It has made 
rapid progress in improvement and has now 
accommodations for a large company, and no 
traveller from the north of Maryland will 
regret having made his journey nine mile9 
longer, for. the purpose of enjoying the com- 
forts and good society he will find at the Gray 
Sulphur Springs. 

Having spent nineteen days very pleasantly 
and beneficially to my health at Thermopolis, 
and taken eight Boilers and eleven Spouts, 
I chartered a hack and pair to carry us to 
Harrisonburgh. At 6 a. m. on Saturday the 
the third of September, we left the Hot 



214 LETTERS ON THE 

Springs, having first taken a rapid breakfast. 
The road to the Warm Springs was very- 
good, and at 7^ a. m. we began to ascend 
the western side of the Warm Spring 
Mountain ; and as we ascended ■, the verdant 
valley we were leaving opened beautifully 
and extensively on our view, spotted here 
and there with fleecy mounds of snowy mist. 

We soon reached the mountain top, when 
the splendid eastern view broke upon our 
delighted vision, bathed in all the sun-lit 
glories of an American autumnal morn ; the 
mountain ridges clad in their dark green 
forests, projected their enormous masses into 
the clear expanse in bold relief, rising like a 
multitude of islands from an ocean of snowy 
foamy mist, which still filled and hid the val- 
leys far below. 

As the sun increased in height and power, 
the mists began to rise and soon floated off* in 
fleecy clouds. The ride down the eastern 
declivity of the mountain is delightful, from 
the gentleness of the descent, the goodness of 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 215 

the road, and the beauty, variety, and 
grandeur of the views. The road was good 
as far as Cloverdale, where we obtained a 
good dinner. Having now come to a plain 
country, we met with some patches of very 
bad road, and it required three hours to 
overcome the six miles that brought us to 
the excellent hotellerie of Monsieur le Capi- 
taine Lange. Besides his excellent Frenoh 
coffee and omelets, the captain has a nice, 
clean, comfortable house, part of which is 
new : and the chamber we slept in with 
wooden walls and ceiling was as sweet as the 
cedars of Libanus. 

I wished to restore what I guess was the an- 
cient mode of writing his name, and proposed 
to apostrophise the old gentleman thus, 
(L'Ange) and suggested that he should 
convert the pagan Pocahontas, that swings 
upon his sign, into an Angel, which would 
then be indicative both of the man and his 
inn ; but modesty induced the venerable 
captain to decline the double metamorphosis* 



216 LETTERS ON THE 

During the last war Monsieur Lange led a 
company of patriotic volunteers to the sea- 
board to repel the invading Briton, and ever 
since he has retained the title of captain, not 
having been fortunate enough to kill a 
rattlesnake and thereby to reach the rank of 
major. 

After acomfortable night's rest at the Angel, 
we took an early start, and after three and 
a half hours of hard labour through ten 
miles of horrid road, we reached Garber's, 
which is a good house both for eating and 
sleeping. We left Garber's at 10 a. m., and 
passing 4^ miles over a good road, we came to 
a fork, the right hand prong leading to Staun- 
ton, and the left to Harrisonburgh, as we 
were bound to the latter place, the left was 
right for us, and so we left the right. Here 
begins a new turnpike, which is finished for 
five miles, and is very good ; then follow six 
miles of indifferent natural road ; and then 
eleven miles of good turnpike which ends 
at Harrisonburgh. We reached that village 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 217 

at 7 r. m., and stopped at the Washington. 
This is an excellent house ; good supper, 
good beds, good breakfast and good major- 
domo. 

It rained potently all night, and therefore 
1 discharged my hack, opining it were better 
to confide in the greater strength of the 
stage-coach, and in the superior skill of the 
driver thereof. The Staunton coach did not 
arrive until 11a. m., having suffered a run- 
away, from the driver having been jolted off 
the box ; and there being but three passen- 
gers, we took possession of the back-seat, 
which was politely yielded to us, on account 
of my elderly and convalescent aspect. The 
copious rain had converted the naturally bad 
road into one great quaggy mass of mud and 
stones, which made our rate of motion less 
than four miles an hour. 

Our fellow-passengers were an army-offi- 
cer, a Harrisonburger and an Arkansawyer. 
The last was a rough, unkempt, good-looking 

manly fellow, six feet two inches high, a Vir- 
20 



218 LETTERS ON THE 

ginian by birth, who had left his native state 
six and twenty years ago, to seek his fortune 
in the boundless west. His parents were 
sfill living in Virginia, and he was on his 
way to make them his first visit. This was 
the first journey he had ever taken in a stage- 
coach, and the confinement and risque of 
bones were very irksome to him. 

We got a dinner at New Market, not worth 
the time we lost in waiting for it, and arrived 
at Mount Jackson at half past five, p. m. We 
changed horses at the Swan,* kept by Mrs. 
Stewart, who has enlarged her house, which 
exhibits every indication of comfort and 
plenty. About sunset it began to rain, and 
soon became pitchy dark, and before the 
lamps were lighted, our Arkansawyer ex- 
pressed his unhappiness in the following out- 
pouring or quasi soliloquy : " It was the first 
" time, and it should be the last he would 
" ever get into such a. fix ; shut up in a dark 

* See Letter X. pages 90 and 91. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 219 

" box, tumbling about every which way, and 
" every minute liable to break one's neck, 
" without being able to see how to help it ,' 
" give him a Bowie knife and he had rather 
" fight a bear. His mother used to say ; my 
" son, never go into any place blindfold ; 
" always have your eyes about you. That 
" was good advice, and he had always kept it 
" until that night, and he always will keep it 
" hereafter. Nobody shall ever catch him in 
" such another fix." This gentleman was 
full of sense, mother-wit, kind-heartedness and 
good-humour ; well versed in the politics of 
his locality ; and his wild appearance, the 
quaintness of his western idiom, and the raci- 
ness of his observations, made him quite an 
interesting character ; and his leaving the 
coach was matter of regret with his fellow- 
travellers. 

By dint of lamps and careful driving, we 
reached Woodstock in safety at nine, p. m., 
and supped and lodged at Reamer's, a first- 
rate house. At 5£ a. m. the next morning we 



220 LETTEKS ON THE 

left Woodstock, had fine weather, rough 
roads, and reached Strasburg in twelve miles 
and three hours, where we got a tolerable 
breakfast in an uncomfortable house. The 
house was comfortless because there was no 
fire in the parlour, and for want of that, the 
whole establishment had the air of Boothia 
Felix, and half the livers in Strasburgh 
seemed dying of ague, no doubt because they 
do not light fires on a raw morning; and if 
the morning be raw, no matter how well the 
breakfast may be cooked, nothing will go 
down well without a cheerful fire. 

Six miles from Strasburg is Newtown, 
where there is a good inn ; and twelve miles 
further is Winchester, where we arrived at 
noon. We stopped at Taylor's Hotel, which 
is certainly one of the best in the United 
States, and may fairly be ranked with the 
Tremont House in Boston, and the Worces- 
ter House in Worcester, Massachusetts ; ex- 
celling them both in the material point of 
cheapness. The Hotel consists of a large 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 221 

three-story brick building with a treble por- 
tico fronting on the street ; to which is 
attached an extensive back-building, two 
stories high, enclosing a hollow square, hav- 
ing on its interior sides a portico of two sto- 
ries. The portico is surrounded by private 
parlours and lodging-rooms, airy, light, and 
of convenient size. There are sixty-two 
lodging-rooms, three private parlours, one 
public parlour for gentlemen, one large draw- 
ing-room for ladies, and a very large dining 
room. The fare and cooking are of the best 
quality. 

Rate of board at the ordinary, $1 per day, 
or $5 per week. 

Rate of board, with private parlour and 
table, $2 per day, or $10 per week. 

Annual board at the ordinary with single 
chamber, $175. 

Winchester is a well-built, thrifty looking 
town, and its population is supposed to exceed 
four thousand. 

We left Winchester at 8 a. m. on the Rail 
20* 



222 LETTERS ON THE 

Road for Harper's Ferry, a distance of thirty 
miles, through a pleasant country. The 
cars are good and well regulated, and are 
drawn by a locomotive at the rate of fifteen 
miles an hour. The road appears to be well 
made, and suffers the cars to glide smoothly 
along. We stopped an hour at Harper's 
Ferry* at Mr. Fitzsimmons', who has moved 
into a house on the west side of the street, the 
inside of which performs much more than the 
outside promises. 

The delay of an hour here is worse than 
useless, as it affords no opportunity of con- 
templating the beauties of the scenery, (which 
would consume a day,) and it makes the ar- 
rival at Baltimore inconveniently late. We 
walked across the Potomac on the bridge, and 
took our seats in the car on the Baltimore 
and Ohio Rail Road at 11 a. m., and were 
soon on our way to the Point of Rocks, drawn 
by horses. 

* Sec Letter XL page 93. 



VIRGINIA SPRINGS. 223 



Just below the bridge the river Shenan- 
doah flows into the Potomac at right angles, 
after a course of about one hundred and forty 
miles, in a direction N. E. by N. parallel to, 
and near the western foot of the Blue Ridge. 
Directly after the junction, the Potomac en- 
ters the gap in the Blue Ridge, which may 
be considered as extending to the Point of 
Rocks, a distance of twelve miles. From 
Harper's Ferry to the Point of Rocks, the 
Rail Road runs close alongside of the canal, 
being separated by that from the river ; and 
the scenery for the whole distance is various 
and beautiful, being composed of river, moun- 
tains, valleys, woods, islands, rocks and 
rapids, mingled in rich confusion. 

In some places the pass is so narrow, that 
the space for the track has been cut from the 
mountain's adamantine base, and the train 
passes within a foot of a wall of perpendicular 
rock. The road from the Point of Rocks to 
Baltimore is not so smooth as it should be, 



224 



LETTERS. 



and so many little delays took place, that we 
did not reach that city until 8 p. m. 




Capitol at Richmond. 



APPENDIX. 225 



APPENDIX. 



In Letter XVIII is mentioned a hot spring 
near the ancient Tiberias, on the western 
bank of the Lake of Genneserat, in Palestine. 
Ibrahim Pasha, who is an improver and civi- 
lizer, as well as a conquerer, has lately built 
a beautiful Saracenic building over that re- 
markable spring, of which the exterior is 
stone, and the interior is marble. In the 
central hall is a magnificent marble basin of 
great diameter, and five feet deep, which is 
filled by streams of hot water, poured from 
two marble lions seated on the brink. 

This copious spring issues from the earth 
at the boiling point, and requires twenty-four 
hours cooling in the large marble basin before 
the Mahometan ladies can immerse their 
delicate persons in its chrystal wave. In the 
pleasant season, many families encamp in the 
neighbourhood of this delightful bath, and the 
ladies use it daily, surrounded by all the aids 
of eastern luxury and pomp. There are small 
baths in the building, for single bathers of 
the male sex. 

The above information is derived from an 



226 APPENDIX. 

intelligent Englishman, who has passed some 
years in Egypt and Syria, and has lately 
delivered a course of highly interesting lec- 
tures on those countries, in Philadelphia. 



CASES 

Shewing the benefits arising from the use of 
the baths at the Hot Springs, in Bath 
County, Virginia. 

A gentleman of Nashville, fifty years of 
age, who had been in bad health for ten years, 
having suffered from disordered stomach and 
bowels, paralysis of the bladder and want of 
circulation in the extremities, came to the 
Hot Springs in 1836, and spent five weeks 
there, bathing every day but three ; two- 
thirds of his baths being boilers, and one-third 
being spouts. He spent two weeks at the 
White Sulphur Spring, drinking that excel- 
lent preparative for the Hot Baths. 

After bathing for a week, he began to be 
sensibly benefitted, and felt better and better 
every day. The circulation was gradually 
restored to the extremities ; the condition of 
the stomach and bowels was much improved ; 
his appetite became good ; he slept well, and 
after five weeks he left the Springs, restored 



APPENDIX. 227 

to almost perfect health. He drank three 
glasses of the water before breakfast, one in 
the bath, one in the blankets, and one after 
dressing. 

A letter was received from him in the win- 
ter, stating that his health had greatly im- 
proved, and expressing great faith in the Hot 
Springs. 



Hot Springs, 19th Sept. 1836, 

Doctor Thomas Goode. Dear Sir : — At 
your request, I give you a history of my dis- 
ease. In the year 1826, 1 was taken with a 
violent cold, which deprived me of the power 
of uttering a word above a whisper. The ton- 
sils, epiglottis and end of the windpipe were 
considerably inflamed and swollen, especially 
in cold, damp weather. 

In the year 1827, I visited the Red, Salt 
and White Sulphur Springs, which improved 
my general health. In 1828 I came to the 
Hot Springs, and took forty-two sweat baths 
in succession, and occasionally the Spout 
Bath, using at the same time Swaim's Pana- 
cea, as directed by him. My general health 
was greatly improved, and my voice so much 
strengthened as to enable me to converse in 
the ordinary tone of common conversation. I 
remained at the Hot Springs fifty-seven days 



228 APPENDIX. 

and gained twenty-two pounds in weight. 
Whilst bathing, I used no animal food at all. 
Very respectfully yours, 

W. F. of Fluvanna Co. Va. 



April 1833, I was seized with Cholera in a 
southern climate, from which I had scarcely 
recovered, when intermittent fever attacked 
me. This continued at intervals until Sep- 
tember, when congestive fever supervened, 
and continued with much violence for the 
space of nine days, and only subsided to give 
place to the intermittent again. From this 
time a morbid appetite began to prey upon 
me. The ague alternated with a severe dys- 
entery until March, 1834. Oedematous swel- 
lings of the lower extremities made their 
appearance, but gave way to the use of alter- 
atives and muriated tincture of iron. I became 
much emaciated and debilitated ; my spleen 
became much enlarged ; an excessively mor- 
bid condition of the stomach continued ; an 
ungovernable craving for food of the grossest 
description, and other indigestible substances. 
In the meantime an uncontrollable diarrhoea, 
which has given me more uneasiness than eve- 
ry other sy mpton came on. During nearly three 
years, every article of diet swallowed, would 
ferment, produce the most distressing cardi- 
algia, and run off from the bowels by profuse 
watery evacuations. The spleen in the left 



APPENDIX. 229 

side, and swelling of the stomach and intes- 
tines, was great and painful. The irritability 
of the alimentary canal was so great, that the 
smallest portions of calomel or blue-pill, com- 
bined with opiates, would produce an hyper- 
catharsis, sometimes almost fatal ; neither 
food nor medicine agreed with me. In this 
state of almost despair I visited the White 
Sulphur Springs, and finding that the water 
disagreed with me, inasmuch as it proved too 
drastic, I determined to visit the Hot Springs. 
For the first two weeks of using the bath, I 
was elated with the hope of speedy recovery. 
In a few hours after using the bath I had a 
bilious dejection, which had not occurred for 
eight months. In four days time my diar- 
rhoea ceased, and my evacuations became 
almost healthy in complexion. I had been 
very much annoyed with haemorrhoids for fif- 
teen months, which was relieved by the Spout 
Bath in three days. The improvement in my 
complexion was so great, that the visiters 
would remark, " Why, Doctor, you will soon 
be well ;" my spleen was reduced about one 
half, the abdominal muscles became relaxed 
and soft, my strength and activity were much 
improved, and every symptom seemed to give 
way to the use of the bath. 

A. Y. W. m. d. 
21 



230 APPENDIX. 

Tarboro', N. C. Sept. 10, 1833. 

The following communication is made to 
Dr. Goode, the present proprietor of the Hot 
Springs in Virginia, to be published, if he 
thinks proper, for the benefit of the afflicted. 
For six or eight years prior to the winter of 
1828, I was more or less afflicted with severe 
pains in my joints, elbows, shoulders and 
back ; and about the 25th of December, 1828, 
I was completely prostrated with a severe 
attack of chronic rheumatism in almost every 
joint in my system, which rendered me entire- 
ly helpless. I could neither dress nor undress, 
turn myself in bed, nor assist myself in any 
way, for the space of six months. On the 4th 
of July following, for the first time, I ventured 
out of the house, and with the aid of a stick 
in each hand, I walked about two hundred 
yards. I continued very weak until the 
spring of 1830, when, as the warm weather 
set in, my pains abated a little. Shortly after, 
by the advice of my friends, I set out for the 
Hot Springs in Virginia, where I arrived 
early in July, and remained until some time 
in September, during which time I was in the 
Hot Bath forty-five times, and while under 
the operation of sweating, my pains returned 
to such a degree that I could not raise my 
head. Some of the visiters who had been 
there before, told me it was a sure sign 1 
should get well, and so it turned out ; for 



APPENDIX. 231 

after having left the Springs a few weeks, my 
pains gradually left me ; and, with the excep- 
tion of a very slight attack in my left ancle 
last winter, I have been entirely free from pain 
since my return from the Springs in 1830 ; 
and am now at home in good health, follow- 
ing my usual business. 

W. C. 



Hot Springs, 29th August, 1833. 

In the month of January, 1806, during my 
attendance on the Virginia Legislature, of 
which I was then a member, I was very 
sorely afflicted with an attack of inflammatory 
rheumatism ; and about the first of July, in 
the same year, after the disease had assumed 
a chronic state, I arrived at the Hot Springs 
in Virginia, much debilitated, requiring two 
persons to put me in and take me out of a 
carriage. I remained at the Springs sixty- 
three days, using the bath once every day 
except three. I was weighed the day I got 
to the Springs, and also on the day I left 
them ; and if I was correctly weighed, I 
gained sixty pounds in weight in sixty-three 
days, and remained free from that complaint 
for upwards of twenty years. 

H. C. of Franklin county. 



232 APPENDIX. 

Hot Springs, 28th August, 1833. 

In the month of December, 1827, 1 was 
attacked, as I supposed, with a severe tooth- 
ache, and in a few days had the tooth extrac- 
ted, but it afforded me no relief.- In a day or 
two afterwards it was discovered that I had a 
bilious fever ; my jaws swelled so as to threats 
en suffocation ; one entire side of my jaw- 
bone burst as low down as the teeth went 
in, and the bone was extracted. The outer 
side of my jaw formed an abscess on the out- 
side, from which several pieces of bone were 
extracted; this abscess connected itself with 
the other diseased side, so that when any 
liquid was injected in on the outside abscess, 
it came out on the opposite side in my mouth. 
I was then taken with severe pains in my 
back, which continued for several weeks ; 
they then fell into my extremities and de- 
prived me entirely of the use of them. The 
pain was so severe, that at one time it seemed 
like my feet were on red-hot iron, and at 
another, they felt as if they were pierced 
through with icicles. My shoulders, arms 
and hands were but little better ; they swelled 
largely with but little mitigation of pain; my 
legs, ankles and feet had strong indications of 
dropsy; when pressed, would pet, and remain 
so for a length of time. 

In this situation I was carried in July, 
1828, to the Hot Springs, in Bath county, in 



APPENDIX. 233 

Virginia, as helpless as an infant, and com- 
menced using the waters by being held under 
what is called the Spout Bath, which pro- 
duced no change for the better. I was then 
put into what is called the boiler, and after 
using it about one week, my hands, though 
much contracted, began to have their natural 
feeling, and, in five weeks, my arms and 
shoulders were entirely well ; my back, legs 
and feet did not mend so fast, but were much 
relieved. When I left the Spring, about Sep- 
tember, I could set up and move my feet and 
legs about, but could neither stand nor walk ; 
nor could I do so until the 1st of November, 
when I could move about on crutches. I con- 
tinued to mend slowly until the next August, 
when I again visited the same Springs, and 
used the boiler for about a month, which re- 
stored me to almost perfect health. In the 
spring of 1831, I visited the states of Ohio, 
Kentucky and Tennessee, and was on horse- 
back for near ten weeks, and frequently wet, 
without injury. In July, 1832, I was, when 
very hot, overtaken by a heavy fall of rain, 
and got very wet, which caused my former 
disease, with all its symptoms, to return par- 
tially upon me. I have now been at the Hot 
Springs using the boiler for about a month, 
and whicb has again almost entirely relieved 
me. I am a native of Bedford county, Vir- 
21* 



/ 

234 APPENDIX. 

ginia, where 1 now reside, and am forty-seven 
years of age. 

B.P. 



Hot Springs, 7th August, 1833. 

Dr. Goode : Sir — The case of rheumatism 
which you desired the particulars of, was 

that of Mr. J C , of Charleston, S. 

C. aged eighteen years. He had been se- 
verely afflicted for some time before he was 
put under my protection, which was on the 
17th day of June, when we left Charleston for 
the Virginia Springs. We arrived at the 
White Sulphur on the 28th of June, and re? 
mained there until the 9th of July, taking from 
eight to ten tumblers of the water daily. On 
the 9th of July we reached the Hot Springs, 
and on the 10th he commenced with the 
baths, taking the Spout Bath one day and the 
Sweat Bath the next day, alternately, until 
the 22d of September. From the time Mr. 
C. left Charleston, until he arrived at the 
White Sulphur, he was as helpless as a child, 
unable to dress or undress himself, and was 
carried in arms or a chair, whenever it was 
necessary to remove him. Three or four 
days before he left the White Sulphur, he 
was able to hobble a short distance with the 
aid of a pair of crutches, and in two weeks 
after taking the baths at the Hot Springs, he 
could walk about without them. He arrived 



APPENDIX. 235 

in Charleston about the latter end of Septem- 
ber ; during a heavy blow, assisted in furling 
the topsail of the schooner, in which he was 
a cabin passenger. I left Mr. C. in good 
health on the 6th of July last, on the wharf in 
Charleston, when I embarked on my present 
excursion. 

I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, 

J. L. 



Philadelphia, 23d Feb. 1834. 

In the year 1S26 I contracted a very bad 
cold, by sitting for several months in a room, 
which had been recently plastered upon very 
thick walls. The cold at first fell upon my 
breast, and was attended with a cough. After 
some time, the cough subsided, and I was 
seized suddenly with a pain in the right arm. 
In a few days the pain became very violent ; 
it was seated principally in the shoulder blade, 
but extended likewise from the shoulder down 
to the points of the fingers. The best medi- 
cal aid was resorted to, but there was no alle- 
viation of the pain, not even for a minute. In 
this situation I got little or no sleep; the 
agony was so much increased by lying in 
bed, that the only rest obtained was by lying 
with my clothes on, across the foot of the 
bed, with the affected arm hanging down. In 
this situation, exhausted nature would sink 
into a doze, out of which I was soon again 



236 APPENDIX. 

awakened by the pain. The arm dwindled 
away, my appetite faded, and my general 
health was fast declining. Reduced to this 
state, 1 determined to try the Hot Springs in 
Virginia. With difficulty I was taken there, 
and had no reason to repent of my determi- 
nation. I took forty hot baths, using the 
blankets each time. At the end of two 
months I returned home, so much altered in 
appearance, that I was the object of astonish- 
ment to those who had seen me previous to 
my departure ; and in another month I was 
perfectly restored to health. P. A. B. 

To Dr. Goode, Hot Springs, Bath co. Va. 



During the summer of 1827, 1 was attacked 
with violent pains in the region of the sto- 
mach and liver, proceeding, as was afterwards 
ascertained, from calculi in the biliary duct. 
At a succeeding period I discharged several 
of these calculi, which, together with other 
facts, clearly indicated the seat and nature of 
my disease. It was said by my physicians, 
that mine was a case in which there was 
great doubt of a final recovery, owing to the 
frequency and violence of the attack. Each 
attack was attended with the usual symptoms, 
and jaundice invariably supervened. I visited 
the White Sulphur Spring in August, 1828, 
and was much improved ; so much so, as to 
suppose, at the time, that I was entirely re- 
lieved. 



APPENDIX. 237 

On my return home, however, the attacks 
returned with the same violence, but not so 
frequently. I revisited the White Sulphur 
Spring in 18 29, with the same good effect as 
to my general health as in 1828. The dis- 
ease still continuing, I visited the White Sul- 
phur again in 1830, with the same result as 
to my general health ; and after remaining 
there about three weeks, I went to the Hot 
Springs, and used for eight or ten days the 
Spout Bath, and have never had a similar 
attack since. I believe myself entirely free 
from the disease under which I then laboured, 
by close attention to my general health, the 
use of the water at the White Sulphur, and 
the Spout Bath at the Hot Springs. 

J. L. W. Jr. of Brunswick county. 



In December, 1835, Mr. T. of Philadelphia 
slightly fractured a muscle of his right-arm, 
just below the elbow. He continued to use 
the arm until February, 1836, when he con- 
tracted a rheumatism, which seized upon the 
injured part of the right-arm, which swelled 
to double its natural size, and became black, 
and almost as hard as bone. He took the 
best medical advice, and the usual remedies 
for rheumatism for the space of two months, 
and grew worse. 

He suffered acute pain, and lost his rest at 
night, and almost despaired of ever recover- 
ing the use of his arm. 



238 APPENDIX. 

His general health was much injured by 
unremitting pain and loss of rest. 

In May, 1836, he travelled through the 
Western States, and stopped at the Hot 
Springs on his return. His right arm was 
entirely useless. He took the Spout Bath 
daily for a week, and was enabled to resume 
the use of his arm, so as to dress without 
assistance, and became free from pain. He 
afterwards took the Spout and Sweat Baths 
alternately, one a day, for six weeks, and re- 
covered with the most astonishing rapidity, 
gaining daily accessions of health and 
strength ; and now, (March, 1837,) the use of 
his arm is entirely restored, and the swelling 
has almost disappeared. He drank five or 
six glasses of the water daily. 

Col. W. C. of Franklin county, was affected 
with a functional derangement of the liver ; 
loss of tone in the stomach and bowels ; and 
had been obliged to resort to a daily injection 
for more than a year. His weight was reduc- 
ed from 280 to 130 lbs. In August, 1834, he 
came to the Hot Springs and used the baths 
for six weeks, when he went away much im- 
proved in health. He returned again in Oc- 
tober 1835, weighing 230 lbs. ; his stomach 
and bowels having resumed their natural 
functions, and his usual health being restored. 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER I. 

Route from Philadelphia to Charlottesville — Steam 

boat Extract of Tobacco Baltimore 

Washington — Freder icksburgh — Orange Court 

House — ^Charlottesville University Stage 

Coach difficulties. 11 

LETTER II. 

Stage Coach Civility — Mountain Roads — Blue 
Ridge — Rock Fish Gap — Tuckahoes and — 

Quo'hees Fried Chickens Staunton 

Weyer's Cave — Frazier's Clover Dale 

Warm Spring Mountain — Pass — Hotel — Table 
Etiquette— Cabins— Bath— Mode of Bathing. 19 



240 CONTENTS. 

LETTER III. 

Amusements — Route to the White Sulphur — 
Shumate's — Callaghan's — White Sulphur — 
Qualities of the Water — Dining-room, Stables, 
Cabins, &c. — Accommodations, Table, Com- 
pany — Customs and manner of Living. 29 

LETTER IV. 

Excursions — Lewisburg — Sweet Springs — Dinner 
Party at Confectioner's — Rifling Sheep, not 
stealing Mutton — Hounds — Sunday — Diffi- 
culty of getting away — Departure in a Shower 
— Route to the Salt Sulphur. 41 

LETTER V. 

Organ Cave — Pine Torch — Brownface — Journey 
in Cave — Organ Room — Smashpipe Quo'hees 

— Greatcoat — Robbers Gil Elas — -Sa ltpetre 

—Daylight. 47 

LETTE R VI. 

Brownface, a nascent schoolmaster — Salt Sulphur 
— Contents and Non-contents of the Water -^ 



CONTENTS. 241 

Contents of the Table — Comforts — Dairy — 
Butter — Cream — Sweet Sulphur Spring — Nulli- 
fication Row — Road to Red Sulphur. 53 

LETTER VII. 

Red Sulphur — Mysterious Red Substance — Water 
Cool and strongly Sulphurous — Gray Sulphur — 
It's First Summer — Redolent of the Palmetto 
— Two Springs, one Anti-dyspeptic, the other 
slightly Aperient — Salt Pond heard of. 61 

LETTER VIII. 

An accident, almost — Driver's ingenuity — Hum- 
phrey Clinker — English Watering Places — 
Route to Sweet Springs — their aspect — tempe- 
rature — Jean Delorme, the Genius Loci — Road 
to Hot Springs. 69 

LETTER IX. 

Hot Springs — Buildings — Scenery — The Spout 

Bath— The Boiler — Mode of Bathing — Effect 

— Diet — Taking Seventy Baths Hot and 

Cold Springs— Physa. 79 

22 



242 CONTENTS. 

LETTER X. 

Departure — Warm Springs — Monsieur Lange — 
Route from Frazier's to Harrisonburg— New 
Market — Mount Jackson — Landlady of the 
Swan — Bad Road to Woodstock — Winchester 
— Taylor's capital Hotel — Rate of Living. 87 

LETTER XI. 

Road to Harper's Ferry — Mr. Jefferson's descrip- 
tion — Kirauea — Tomboro — Potomac — Shenan T 
doah — Town — Fitzsimmons's — Factory of Arms 
— Chapel — Straight Gun Stocks — Turning Ma- 
chine — Mr. Jefferson's Rock, a rocking 
Stone. 93 

LETTER XII. 

The Ancients — Idleness — Pliny — Dogberry — 
Spa-hunters — Canal boat veracity and comforts 
— -Point of Rocks — Rail Road — -Scenery — 
Ellicott's Mills — Route to Richmond — Powhatan 
House — From Richmond by Lynchburgh to 
Sweet, and by Charlottesville to Warm Springs 
— Mr. Jefferson's notice of the Sweet and 
White Sulphur Springs— Concluding Hint. 101 



CONTENTS. 243 

ADDENDUM. 

BY THE EDITOR. 

Northern Neck — Route to Bath — Magnesia — 
Water — Maryland — Hancock — Hagerstown — 
Frederick — Emmetsburg Catholic Seminary 

— Nunnery — Pennsylvania — Gettysburg — 
York — Susquehanna — Columbia — Lancaster. Ill 

LETTER XIII. 

Departure — Tr ans-shipm ent — Chesapeake Bay — 
North Point and Bodkin — Mouth of Patapsco 
— General Ross — Dutch Galleot — Annapolis — 
Washington's Surrender of his Sword — Light 
Houses — Mild Night — Smooth Water — 
Spondees — Old Point Comfort — Rip Raps — 
Hampton Roads — Norfolk — Marine Hospital — 
Steamer Patrick Henry — Mouth of James 
River — Banks of Do. — Country Seats — James- 
town — Brandon — Cypress Trees — Westover — 
City Point — Appomattox — View of Richmond 

— Powhatan House — Expense of Journey — 
Monumental Church — Obsequies of Madison — 



244 CONTENTS. 

Soldiery — Oration — The Capitol — Statue of 
Washington by Houdon — Decent Christian 
Costume — Beautiful Inscription on Pedestal — 
Ample, yet terse and true. 119 

LETTER XIV. 

State Library — Vicinity of Capitol — Destiny of 
Richmond — Falls of James River — Tariff — 
Canal — Departure — Mayo Bridge — Manchester 
— Road — Hopkinsville — Harris's — Butter and 
Cream — Coal Region — Forest — Land — Tobacco 
— Profitable Killing— Lynchburg Coach — Cum- 
berland C. H. — Raine's, table better than beds 
— Shocking early Start — Moon — Road — New 
Store — Patterson's — Thirty mile Breakfast 
— Hilly — Chilton's — Mountainous — Lynchburg- 
— Franklin Hotel — Singular projection — Pluto 
— Lex Talionis — Spitting before Roasting — New 
Turnpike — Exterior and Interior Driver — The 
Eagle's Eyry — Scow and Shower — Blue Ridge 
— Ascent, Descent — Darst's — Bad Road — 
Pioneer and Prop — Lexington. 135 

LETTER XV. 

Doubtful Distance — A melanthrope — Road incon- 



CONTENTS. 245 

ceivably bad — Purgatory — Arrived in five 
hours — Path into the Chasm — Natural Bridge 
— The Ruin of a Cave — Double Astonishment 
— Arch, Thickness, Width, Span, Height 
— Road across it — Creek under it — Points of 
View — Buttresses and Pinnacles — Strong Head 
thick Scull — Symmetrical ellipsoidal Concave 
— Mush and Milk — Return to Lexington — 
North Mountain — Mr. and Mrs. Armentrout — 
Jackson's River — Tackett's. 147 



LETTER XVI. 

Ford Jackson's River — Covington — Callahan's — 
White Sulphur — Borrow a Cabin — Prince 
Metternich — Late Improvements — Statue of 
Hygeia — Poisoning a Serpent — Enlargement 
of Dining Room — Improvement in board — 
Infallible sign — Improvements in contemplation 
— Crowds to come — Excellence of the White 
Sulphur Water — Patients should be patient 
and prudent — Pleasant Perceptions — Daily 
Dose — Misty Mornings — George and Duncan 
— Hounds — Hunting at Home — Ancient Cus- 
tom — Nimrod — Horace — Paraphrase. 159 



246 CONTENTS. 

LETTER XVII. 

Trip to Lewisburg — Army, Navy and Bar m 
Lewis Hardon's coach — Star Hotel — Court of 
Appeals — An hour of a Speech — Matter and 
Manner — Law Books — Good Dinner — Good 
things shaken from the Army, Navy and Bar 
— Flying visit to Blue Sulphur Spring' — Route 
— Distance twenty -five miles — Face of the 
Country — Great Fertility — Sinks — Fine 
Hotel — Cabins — Hot Water and Vapour Baths 
— Beautiful plain — Grove of Maples — Good 
Manager — Good Dinner — Blue Sulphur Water 
— Taste — Colour — Mysterious Deposite — White 
Do. — Analysis — Good Sleeping — Good Stopping 
Place on the way to and from Guyandotte. 169 

LETTER XVIII. 

Black Sulphur Spring — Lymnsea — Bad Weather 
— Departure — Callah an's — Good House — Son 
of Dennis — Fine Farm — Its Products — Alleghe- 
ny — Dickson's New White Sulphur — Route to 
Hot Springs — Potent Waters — Immense 
Crowds coming next Summer — Water just hot 
enough — Hot Spring of Carlsbad in Bohemia 



CONTENTS. 247 

—Great Geiser — Bath in England — Aix La 
Chapelle — Barege — Wiesbaden — Ancient Faith 
in Thermal Springs — Roman Baths — The place 
should be called Thermopolis — Hot Springs 
at Thermopylae — Orientals, not subject to 
the caprice of fashion ; why — Pococke — Frusa 
— Turks — Hot Springs of Palestine — Pliny's 
opinion — Callirhoe — Log Cabins in Asia 
Minor. 179 

LETTER XIX. 

Return to our sheep — Parlour pleasures of anti- 
cipation and reminiscence — Dining-Room — New 
brick cabins — Department of bathing — Gentle- 
man's spout Bath — Do. Sweat Bath or Boiler 
— Lady's Boiler — Do. Spout Bath — Superb 
Epicene Pleasure Bath — Effects of Hot 
Spouts — Ten Pins — Consumption of Time — 
Tranquil amusements — Getting well — Won- 
derful Labyrinthine Cave — Contents of Hot 
Spring Water — Fact and Fiction — Crutches 
— Dismals — Cheerfuls — Legs — Fat Faces — 
Pot-hooks — Vegitable Prospects. 197 

LETTER XX. 

Road from White to Salt — Salt Sulphur Springs 



a. <? ih 3» 



248 



CONTENTS. 




— Improvements — Dining Room — Lodging 
Rooms — Cabins — Large Stone Building — 
Great Portico — Episcopal Church — Road from 
Salt to Red — Red Sulphur Springs — Water 
— Its use — Valley and Plain — Buildings — 
Hotel — Carolina Building — Society Hall — 
Cabins — Extensive Accommodations — Gray 
Sulphur Springs — Departure — Road — Morning 
View— Mon. L'Ange— The Washington— The 
Swan — Woodstock — Winchester — Taylor's 
Hotel — Rail Road — An Arkansawyer — Soliliquy 
— Good Advice. 207 



APPENDIX. 

Boiling Spring — Ibrahim Pacha — His new Baths 
in Palestine — Cases of Cure at the Hot Springs 
in Virginia. 225 



FINIS. 




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