THE WAY THAT AMERICANS GO DOWN HILL. 307 
path, obscured by the ravines and forest-trees through 
which it ran; on each side were deep, yawning chasms, 
at the bottom of which the hardy pines sprung upward 
a hundred and fifty feet, and yet they looked from where 
I stood like creeping plants. The very mountain-tops 
spread out before me like pyramids. The moon, coming 
up from behind the distant horizon, shone upon this vast 
prospect, bathing one elevation of light and another in 
darkness, or reflecting her silvery rays across the frozen 
ground in sparkling gems, as if some eastern princess 
scattered diamonds upon a marble floor; then starting 
in bold relief the shaggy rock-born hemlock and poison 
laurel, it penetrated the deep solitudes, and made “ dark- 
ness visible,” where all before had been most deep ob- 
scurity. 
There too might be seen the heat, driven from the 
earth in light fogs by the intense cold, floating upwards 
in fantastic forms, and spreading out in thin ether as 
it sought more elevated regions. 
As far in the distance in every direction as the eye 
could reach, were the valleys of Penn, all silent in the 
embrace of winter and night, calling up most vividly the 
emotions of the beautiful and the sublime. 
‘How are we to get down this outrageous hill, 
driver?” bawled out a speculator in the western lands, 
who had amused us, through the day, with nice caleu- 
lations of how much he could have saved the govern- 
ment and himself, had he had the contract of making 
the “ National Road” over which we were travelling. 
