from its margin, like those at Chepstow; at
others, a mill, with its owner's cottage, its corn-plat, and its
poultry, present a delightful image of industry and comfort.

Brownsville is a busy looking little town built upon the banks of
this river; it would be pretty, were it not stained by the hue of
coal. I do not remember in England to have seen any spot,
however near a coal mine, so dyed in black as Wheeling and
Brownsville. At this place we crossed the Monongehala, in a flat
ferry-boat, which very commodiously received our huge coach and
four horses.

On leaving the black little town, we were again cheered by
abundance of evergreens, reflected in the stream, with fantastic
piles of rock, half visible through the pines and cedars above,
giving often the idea of a vast gothic castle. It was a folly, I
confess, but I often lamented they were not such; the travelling
for thousands of miles, without meeting any nobler trace of the
ages that are passed, than a mass of rotten leaves, or a fragment
of fallen rock, produces a heavy, earthly matter-of-fact effect
upon the imagination, which can hardly be described, and for
which the greatest beauty of scenery can furnish only an
occasional and transitory remedy.

Our second night in the mountains was past at a solitary house of
rather forlorn appearance; but we fared much better than the
night before, for they gave us clean sheets, a good fire, and no
scolding. We again started at four o'clock in the morning, and
eagerly watched for the first gleam of light that should show the
same lovely spectacle we had seen the day before; nor were we
disappointed, though the show was somewhat different. The
vapours caught the morning ray, as it first darted over the
mountain top, and passing it to the scene below, we seemed
enveloped in a rainbow.

We had now but one ridge left to pass over, and as we reached the
top, and looked down on the new world before us, I hardly knew
whether most to rejoice that

"All the toil of the long-pass'd way"

was over, or to regret that our mountain journey was drawing to
a close.

The novelty of my enjoyment had doubtless added much to its
keenness. I have never been familiar with mountain scenery.
Wales has shewn me all I ever saw, and the region of the
Alleghany Alps in no way resembles it. It is a world of
mountains rising around you in every direction, and in every
form; savage, vast, and wild; yet almost at every step, so