EDITOR S TAHLK. 



spring does no injury to tho tree, shows emphatically, that it was placed there for a wise 

 purpose — an extra to be employed for man's benefit. 



Our inspection of the " Sweet Springs," tho " Rod Sweet," and " Hot," was brief, but 

 sufficient to satisfy us that the first two possessed great attractions for visitors ; tho Ifatiis 

 nauied arc very groat curiosities, and doliglitful for use. Tlio " Hot" is loss attractive, 

 and being occupied nearly exclusively by invalids, fixshion frequents it not, and they do 

 say tliere are extra modes of squeezing j'our pockets ; but unquestionably great cures 

 have been effected. On this subject, as we progress, all learn a curious feature of tho 

 " Virginia Springs ;" at each one they have a celebrated case ready to inflict upon every 

 uilling hearer. At each, a man arrived once upon a time, who was so ill that he was 

 carried on a bed from tho stage and deposited in the hotel ; this remarkable man (some- 

 times he is a woman), weighed, on arrival, exactly eiglity-four pounds, most probahdy 

 bed clothes and all, as he was too ill to be separated from them. For a time he was 

 worse (which is a universal symptom), but in two weeks walked ; in three ate everything 

 ho came across, and in four weeks exactly, had a bloom on one cheek ; in five this symp- 

 tom extended to the other, and in six he sold his crutches and started on a pedestrian 

 excursion after the deer, that are abundant all through the mountains. This case is 

 patent to the landlord, his bookkeeper, and the " resident physician," at all the Springs, 

 and before we got to the "Rockbridge Alum" we felt quite interested in him, hoping 

 sometime to catch up with the individual. Probably we did so, for we saw numbers of 

 lazy-looking fellows, whose sole occupation was hunting. The sick man must greatly 

 prefer deer-stalking to being par-boiled and starved by Dr. Goode, at the " Hot," or 

 drenched with sulphur and alum every where he went. He weighed, when he started 

 for the mountains, one hundred and thirty-nine pounds, a great increase for six weeks ; 

 beyond doubt he is destined for immortality, and his story will be repeated at every 

 Spring to every open-mouthed visitor; he richly deserves the epithet of " the old man of 

 the mountain." The Doctor here began to tell me of this remarkable cure, but I re- 

 quested him to desist, as I had seen the scales in which he was weighed on every piazza 

 where we stopped, forming one of the daily amusements of young and old, thick and 

 thin. 



One of the great charms of a mountain summer residence is the absence of insects ; 

 we have not seen a single caterpillar's nest or spider's web in this part of Virginia; flies 

 and mosquitoes, &c., are of the rarest; probably the nights are too cold, for very often 

 in August we have had fires. 



Venison is an abundant article on the tables ; but so thoroughly are the deer now 

 harried by dogs everywhere, that it is by no means what it used to be ; an old resident 

 declares, that the deer are kept so constantly on the alarm that they have not time to got 

 fat. Much more attention to the vegetable garden would be useful and profitable to the 

 proprietors of most of tho Springs. 



Various as are the virtues of the different Springs, their properties are well established, 

 and a knowledge of their peculiarities is widely spread throughout the Southern States, 

 while Northern people know comparatively little of them. Even our physicians give 

 them too often the cold shoulder, probably because they know not their value ; Northern 

 visitors are among the rarest exhibitions at all these important places. This should not 

 be ; we may hope that when the rail roads have brought Boston and New Orleans into 

 closer contact, the inhabitants of our wide republic will here meet and cast off their 

 sectional prejudices. We have had a romantic history, suflBciently so to unite us ; we 

 8".cak (wonderfully alike under the circumstances), the same language ; we have the 

 same good intentions to benefit the condition of man ; a separation for a crotchet would 



