138 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



in the latitude of Lisbon ! I reached Clifton Forge, where I 

 had to stay the night, at 8 p.m., and found the hotel full, and 

 was sent to another — small, dirty, and ruinous. Next morning 

 I was so unlucky as to lose my train by getting into the 

 wrong one, which was standing ready on the line with steam 

 up. The conductor, after seeing my ticket, stopped the train 

 and set me down, telling me that if I walked back quickly I 

 might be in time. But I had a heavy bag to carry, and a 

 mile to walk, and arrived dripping with perspiration to find 

 that the train had gone, and there was no other till the same 

 hour next day. I therefore wired to Mr. Edwards, and spent 

 the day exploring the country for several miles around. Two 

 or three miles up the valley I came to a fine gorge, where 

 there was a good specimen of arched stratification. I came 

 across a thicket of rhododendrons, the first I had seen wild. 

 There were also some tulip trees with dry capsules, and the 

 brilliant red maple in flower, as well as the yellow-flowered 

 spice bush, Benzoin odoriferum. There was an undergrowth 

 of kalmia, and some of the deciduous trees were in leaf, but 

 there were no herbaceous spring flowers and very few showing 

 leaf in the woods. 



The next day I left at 7 a.m., passing through a very 

 interesting country, first among iron works in a rather flat, 

 open valley, then along narrow winding valleys, then into a 

 dry valley always rising towards the ridge of the Alleghanies, 

 then through a tunnel into another valley, still going up among 

 woods of firs and oaks, rather small and scraggy, till at 8.30 a.m. 

 we passed the summit level by a tunnel, and soon got into a 

 rather wide, deep valley with a stream flowing west, and at 

 8.40 reached White Sulphur Springs, in a pleasant basin sur- 

 rounded by mountains, with a pretty church, neat houses, 

 good roads, and gardens with painted wood fences ! the 

 first bit of an attempt at neatness I had seen since leaving 

 Washington. Here were some fine pine trees, and the grand 

 ridges and mountains, wooded to the summits, reminded me 

 of Switzerland, without its great charms — the lowland and 

 upland pastures and snow-capped peaks. Soon the valley 

 widens, the rock becomes a highly inclined schist or slate. 



