-lapped,
hemlock-tinted river had long been our fancied cynosure. "Each mortal
has his Carcassonne," said, after a French poet, the late lamented
John R. Thompson, using the term for what is long desired and never
attained; and Mr. Matthew Arnold, in writing of a "French Eton," says,
"Whatever you miss, do not miss seeing Carcassonne." As Carcassonne
exists in French landscape, exists in the tourist's mind and desire, a
standard of beauty and historic suggestion, such to us had become
this swart and noble river. Now it happens that Thompson has left a
description, in his most polished prose, of glorious Cheat River. As
our own powers of description are very inferior, we make no scruple
of borrowing, or, as Reade calls it, "jewel-setting:" "The grandest
achievement of the engineer (whose name, Benjamin H. Latrobe, should
always be stated in connection with the road) is to be found, however,
in the region of Cheat River, where to the unscientific eye it would
appear almost impossible that a road-bed could ever have been built.
For two miles beyond Rowlesburg, where the Cheat River is crossed on a
massive bridge of iron, there is a continuous succession of marvels
in railway-work, of which the Tray Run viaduct is a dream of lightness
and grace, yet so firm in its welded strength that thousands of tons
of merchandise pass over it daily without causing, the slightest
oscillation of its airy arches. Here, too, the wonders of mechanical
skill are placed in striking juxtaposition with the wonders of Nature,
whose obduracy has been so signally overcome. The sense of security
was heightened in our case by a furious storm which burst upon us.
We were seated on the fender or' cow-catcher,' watching the majestic
marshaling of the thunder-clouds over the mountain-tops, and enjoying
to the full the excitement of the moment, when suddenly the wind
blew a terrific gust, filling the air with dust and dry leaves, and
threatening to carry us individually over the precipice. The train
was stopped, and we sought shelter in the comfortable car, which then
moved on through the driving floods that continued to descend for half
an hour, forming cataracts on every side of us. But the water ran off
harmlessly from the solid track, and our engine bade defiance to the
tempest, which hurled huge branches of the trees into the angry abyss
beneath. The triumph of Science over Nature was complete; and as the
sinking sun threw a glow over the Glades where