and there the
daring of man has never penetrated. Grim old sentinels, clothed with
verdure to their very summits, frown down upon coeval valleys which
they protect, and through which they send their bower-born springs
with gurgling music to the smiling plains, and onward, broadening into
majestic rivers. The valleys, as if conscious of and grateful for the
protection, run up to meet and embrace their gigantic guardians, with
offerings of wild flowers and many-hued foliage. Afar off a human
habitation clings to the side of the steep mount, surrounded by fields
of emerald hue; a homestead, hewn from the primeval forest.

Leafless trees, blasted and riven by the angry elements, stretch their
scathed limbs for mercy, while their earthless roots writhe like
knotted reptiles and twist into hideous shapes. Roads, toiling lazily
over steeps, gray, rugged, and rutty, lead away to unknown regions. A
bald spot--rock--whose face has borne the violence of the storm for
ages, yet defiantly stands there, inviting the fury of its ancient
enemy. The clouds, broken into fantastic forms, cast gossamer shadows,
which go floating phantom-like, away, as unreal as spirits and as
tranquil as the promised land. Jutting crags, piled up in grotesque
confusion, capped by monstrous rocky platforms, overhang the leafy
depths. The rail track, like a glistening serpent, winds its way along
the narrow shore, and over bridges light and fanciful, mere webs, spun
by human spiders, spanning streams which foam their anger through
narrow passes. Beneath, in a distant valley, the river, like a shining
thread, flows on through tangled thickets, past populous towns and
lowly huts.

But these mountain solitudes were not always so lonely. Ages gone by,
when the world first began, they were peopled by a race of fairies.
These little creatures lived and reveled in these grand old forests,
and made them joyous with their merry shouts and sports. They knew no
care, and nightly gathered beneath the spreading branches, sporting
until the gray of morning drove them to their hiding places. They
wantoned in the cool streams and swung in the pendant flowering vines,
while the moon sent her silvery light down through the trembling
leaves to light them on their way. The daylight was hateful to them,
and all day long they passed the time in secret bowers and mossy
recesses, away from the light, and only left them when the starry
heavens bade them forth again to their night