A MIXED TRAIN FROM THE WILDERNESS.
The instructions given upon the separation of our three photographers, after leaving St. Louis, were necessarily indefinite, and discrimination in the selection of routes and views had to be left to individual judgment, since weather and conditions play an important part in the artists’ profession. Our third photographer departed somewhat from the route which he had selected to cover, for after the separation, instead of proceeding directly east through Pennsylvania, as was his first intention, he went south to Cincinnati and east by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, through the lovely Blue Grass region of Kentucky, making his first stop at Charleston, the capital of West Virginia. The capital is a small place of something less than 7,000 inhabitants, and with nothing of particular importance to visitors except the mountain scenery which invests it. The Kanawha River, upon which the town is situated, is navigable for small crafts from this point to its junction with the Ohio, but above Charleston the stream is treacherous and its channel so rock-infested that a skiff can hardly follow the stream without danger. Thirty miles from the capital are the Kanawha Falls, or cataracts, where the river goes tearing over several benches of thinly stratified rocks, and has scooped out a pool of very great depth, where fishing is said to be excellent. On the north side of the river at this point are the Gauley Mountains, rising to a considerable altitude, but so gently that the slopes have been reclaimed from thick timber growths and converted into beautiful farms.
The scenery all through the valley of the Kanawha is tumultuously grand, but nine miles beyond the falls it attains its greatest glory. Here the tremendous cliffs rise vertically to a height of 1,200 feet, and at a point called “The Hawk’s Nest” a breast of the bluffs extends out over the river in a perilous shelf 1,000 feet high, from which lofty elevation the river becomes a ribbon of white, and a train of cars running along the mountain skirts on the opposite side looks like a string of army-ants hurrying to an attack. The view down the valley is one of ineffable magnificence, presenting as it does a double file of noble mountains dressed in uniforms of lovely green, which, as they recede, assume a sky-blue hue, and then gradually fade away in the opalescent mist of distance.
FALLING SPRING, NEAR WARM SPRINGS, VIRGINIA.
Thirty miles above Kanawha Falls, at a town called Hinton, the New and Green-Brier Rivers unite to form the Kanawha, and here the scenery is likewise charmingly picturesque. The line of lofty bluffs continues along the south shore of New River, under which the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad runs upon a bare passageway, while the north line is marked by graceful mountains that in the distance look like lines of beauty tracing the horizon. In some places the ledges are 1,200 feet high, and the river so contracted that the cañon is almost dark at midday. The view is further diversified by successive rapids and cataracts, while at frequent intervals the bluffs recede, leaving stretches of fertile valley that are in a high state of cultivation, with pretty farm houses dotting the landscape and imparting an appearance of prosperous animation to these pleasing interludes. The road follows the valley of Green-Brier River twenty miles further, to Caldwell, then passes through White Sulphur Springs, and a few minutes later crosses the James River at Clifton Forge, where that romantic stream, drawing its inspiration from the Alleghenies, cuts its way through the Blue Ridge Mountains.
KANAWHA FALLS, WEST VIRGINIA.—Thirty miles from Charleston, the capital of West Virginia, are the Kanawha Falls or Cataracts, where the river is broken into numerous channels and fragments and plunges over an irregular ledge of thinly stratified rocks, presenting a scene that is both grand and picturesque. The Gauley Mountains rise with sloping terraces to the north of the falls, along the sides of which are many attractive farm-houses, adding a charm of rural beauty and contentment to the scene. At the foot of the falls an immense pool has been scooped out of the bed of the river, which teems with fish and is a favorite resort for lovers of that sport.