Beyond Johnstown a magnificent panorama of the Alleghenies breaks into view with their myriad phases of beauty and grandeur. As we follow down the Conemaugh, along the breast of the mountains are the remains of inclined planes of the Portage Railroad, by which loaded canal-boats were transported over the mountains at points where the canal was not yet constructed. This was before the days of steam railroads, when canals were the most expeditious mode of freight transportation. Beyond Cressons the road begins the ascent of the Alleghenies, and in doing so makes many turns, and from the right hand of the road a gorgeous spectacle is presented looking down into the valleys, where the houses are dwarfed by distance until they look like mole-hills, and men are not distinguishable. There are horseshoe curves as sharp and graceful as any on the roads that climb over western mountains, while the scene is often more picturesque because of the high state of cultivation of the mountain slopes. A tunnel three-quarters of a mile in length pierces the brow of one of the highest peaks, after which the road descends rapidly to Cressons, a place noted for its seven mineral springs. Altoona is next passed, and a few minutes later the train rushes around the beautiful horseshoe curve at Kittanning, affording a charming prospect of lofty mountains, surrounding a lake of exquisite beauty, made by damming a pretty stream that comes gamboling down from cool retreats in the high altitudes.
Out of the Tuckahoe Valley and on to Tyrone, where the Little Juniata is reached, along whose sweet-smelling banks the road hastens by Broad Top Mountain, Sliding Hill, through the gap of Jack’s Mountain, and thence into the Long Narrows, which is traversed by highway, river and canal, running in competition with the railroad. For several miles the scenery is wondrously beautiful, with kaleidoscopic glimpses of swift-passing mountain, foaming water-ways, laughing cascades, and bounty-bestowing valleys bedewed with the delicious waters of the blue Juniata. Thence on to Harrisburg the road speeds, with many a twist through smiling vales that swathe the mountain’s feet with ribbons of verdure; across the Susquehanna, where the river is more than a mile wide and freckled with impeding stones. Lancaster is soon reached, and thence eastward the scenery grows in grandeur until Chester Valley is passed and Paoli comes into view. This place is famous in history from the fact that here took place a massacre which will be remembered for ages as a reproach to the British. On September 20, 1777, the American forces under General Anthony Wayne were surprised by a large army of British regulars, commanded by General Gray. Notwithstanding the superior numbers of the enemy and his unpreparedness, General Wayne offered a stubborn resistance, and not until nearly one-half his men had fallen in the desperate conflict did he capitulate, upon terms of honorable surrender. Instead of observing the rules which obtain among civilized nations, after the Americans had laid down their arms the British mercilessly slaughtered many of their helpless prisoners. A monument, erected in 1817, marks the site of this shameful tragedy. Eastward from Paoli the road traverses one of the fairest sections in the world, resembling the richest agricultural regions of England, where the soil is in the highest possible state of cultivation and the farm houses are models of architectural elegance, with a gradual increase in the beauties of the prosperous landscape until the train pursues its way through Fairmount Park and into the great metropolis of Philadelphia.
Northward from Philadelphia our artist traveled, through Bethlehem to the Delaware Water Gap, where the Delaware River forges its way through the Blue Mountains, the point of passage being narrowed by walls from 1,200 to 1,600 feet high, which seem to clasp the sturdy stream in colossal arms, of half affection and half restraint. This tremendous gorge formerly bore the Indian name of Minnisink, signifying “Whence the waters are gone,” which is thus explained by a local geologist: “Here a vast lake once probably extended; and whether the great body of water wore its way through the mountain by a fall like Niagara, or burst through a gorge, it is certain that the Minnisink country bears the mark of aqueous action in its diluvial soil, and in its rounded hills, built of pebbles and bowlders.” The gap proper is about two miles long, when the mountains recede on both sides, as if at one time some terrific disturbance had thrown up a giant ridge in the path of the river. It is apparent also that centuries ago the passage, though hardly more than one hundred yards wide now, was very much narrower, and the name given to it by the Indians was no doubt suggested by this cleft through which the pent-up waters must have dashed with terrific force and roar.
NATURAL BRIDGE OF VIRGINIA.
LITTLE NECK OF THE SUSQUEHANNA RIVER, PENNSYLVANIA.—The Susquehanna River takes its rise in the northern part of Pennsylvania and flows southward into Chesapeake Bay. Its entire course passes through a richly diversified and splendid scenic region, equaling in many respects the scenery along the Rhine River in Germany, and lacking only the castles and the ancient historic associations to make it as popular with tourists as its less poetically named sister of the Fatherland.