given us the appetites of
ogres. We carry our pilgrim scrip into the town of Cumberland without
much hope of having it generously filled, for this coaly capital,
lost among its mountains, had formerly the saddest of reputations for
hospitality. The three or four little taverns were rivals in the
art of how not to diet. Accordingly, our surprise is equal to our
satisfaction when we find every secret of a grand hotel perfectly
understood and put in practice at the "Queen City," the large house
built and conducted by the railway company. A competent Chicago
purveyor, Mr. H.M. Kinsley, who has the office of general manager
of the hotels belonging to the corporation, resides here as at the
head-quarters of his department, and is blessed every day by the
flying guests from the railway-trains, as well as the permanent
boarders who use Cumberland as a mountain-resort. The choicest
dainties from the markets of Baltimore, laid tenderly on ice in that
city and brought as freight in the lightning trains of the road, are
cooked for the tables, and the traveler "exercised in woes," who used
to groan over salt pork and dreadful dodgers, now finds the "groaning"
transferred to the overloaded board. The house is now in all the charm
of freshness and cleanliness, hospitably furnished, with deep piazza,
a pretty croquet-lawn with fountain, and other modern attractions,
the whole surrounded with what is no small gain in a muddy Maryland
town--a broad Schillinger cement pavement, which, like Mr. Wopsle's
acting, may be praised as "massive and concrete."

By day, Cumberland is quite given over to carbon: drawing her supplies
from the neighboring mining-town of Frostburg, she dedicates herself
devoutly to coals. All day long she may be seen winding around her
sooty neck, like an African queen, endless chains and trains and
rosaries of black diamonds, which never tire of passing through
the enumeration of her jeweled fingers. At night the scene is more
beautiful. We clambered up the nearest hill at sunset, while the
colored light was draining into the pass of Wills' Mountain as into
a vase, and the lamps of the town sprang gradually into sight beneath
us. The surrounding theatre of mountains had a singularly calm and
noble air, recalling the most enchanted days of Rome and the Campagna.
The curves of the hills are marvels of swaying grace, depending from
point to point with the elegance of draperies, and seating the village
like a gem in the