168 VIRGINIA 



and some ill-considered attempts I made to 

 correct the same by striking across lots, 

 took me so far out of the way, and so much 

 increased the labor of the ascent, that the 

 afternoon was already growing short when 

 I reached the crest of the ridge below the 

 actual peak, or knob ; and as my mood was 

 not of the most ambitious, and the clouds 

 had begun threatening rain, I gave over the 

 climb at that point, and sat down on the 

 edge of the ridge, having the wood behind 

 me, to regain my breath and enjoy the land- 

 scape. 



A little below, on the knolls halfway up 

 the mountain, was a settlement of colored 

 mountaineers, a dozen or so of scattered 

 houses, each surrounded by a garden and 

 orchard patch, — apple-trees, cherry-trees, 

 and a few peach-trees, with currant and 

 gooseberry bushes ; a really thrifty-seeming 

 alpine hamlet, with a maze of winding by- 

 paths and half -worn carriage-roads making 

 down from it to the highway below. With 

 or without reason, it struck me as a thing to 

 be surprised at, this colony of black high- 

 landers. 



The distance was all a grand confusion of 



