This double mountain forms a conspicuous object in the romantic county
of Rockbridge. It stands seven miles west of Lexington, from whose
inhabitants it hides the setting sun, and not unfrequently turns the
summer showers. Being separated from the neighboring ridge of the
North mountain, and more lofty, it presents its huge body and sharp
angles full to the western winds. Clouds are often driven against it,
cloven asunder, and carried streaming on to the right and left with a
space of clear sky between, similar in form to the evening shadow of
the mountain.
Sometimes however, a division of the cloud after passing the town,
will come bounding back in a current of air, reflected from another
mountain. It is not uncommon to see a cloud move across the great
valley in Rockbridge, shedding its contents by the way--strike the
Blue Ridge on the south eastern side, wheel about and pursue a
different course until it is exhausted. The traveller, after the
shower is over, and the clear sunshine has induced him to put off his
cloak and umbrella, is surprised by the sudden return of the rain from
the same quarter towards which he had just seen it pass away.
What is called the House Mountain, consists in fact, of two oblong
parallel mountains, connected at the base, and rising about 1500 feet
above the common level of the valley. The summits which are about a
mile and a half long, resemble the roof of a house; the ends terminate
in abrupt precipices; and round the base, huge buttresses taper up
against the sides, as if designed to prop the mighty structure. The
students of Washington College make a party every summer to visit this
mountain for the sake of the prospect. They set out in clear weather
and spend the night on the mountain in order to enjoy the morning
beauties of the scene, which are by far the most interesting. Having
twice been of such a party, the writer gives the following
description, from a memory so deeply impressed by what he saw, that
years have scarcely abated the vividness of its ideas.
The first time, we were disappointed by the cloudiness of the
atmosphere, and should have made an unprofitable trip, had not an
unexpected scene afforded us a partial reward for the toils of the
ascent. We lodged like Indian hunters not far from the summit, where a
little spring trickles from the foot of the precipice. After we had
slept awhile, one of the company startled us with the cry of _fire!_
He saw with astonishment in the direction of the Blue Ridge, a
conflagration that cast a lurid glare through the hazy atmosphere. The
flame rose and spread, every moment tapering upwards to a point, and
bending before the night breeze. We first imagined that a large barn
was on fire, and then as the flame grew, that the beautiful village of
Lexington was a prey to the devouring element. While we gazed with
fearful anxiety, the fiery object in rising yet higher, seemed to grow
less at the lower extremity, until it stood forth to our joyful
surprise, the MOON half full, reddened and magnified by the misty air
beyond what we had ever seen. Its light afforded an obscure perception
of the most prominent objects of the landscape. Shadowy masses of
mountains darkened the sight in various directions, and spots less
dark in the country below, gave indications of fields and houses. We
perceived just enough to make us eager for a more distinct and general
view of the scene. In the morning, every thing was hidden by the
cloudy confusion of the atmosphere.
The next time, our party lodged on the aerial summit of the mountain,
by a fire of logs, which might have served the country for a beacon.
The weather proved favorable, and we rose before the dawn to enjoy the
opening scene. The sky was perfectly serene, but all the world below
was enveloped in darkness and fog. Our fire had sunk to embers. The
gloom, the desolation, the deathlike stillness of our situation,
filled every mind with silent awe, and prepared us for solemn
contemplation. We spoke little, and felt disposed to solitary musing.
I retired alone to a naked rock which raised its head over a
precipice, turned my face to the east, and waited for the rising sun,
if not with the idolatrous devotion, yet with the deep solemnity of
the Persian Magii. Presently the dawn began to show the dim outline of
the Blue Ridge along the eastern horizon, at the distance of twelve or
fifteen miles. When the morning light opened the prospect more
distinctly, the level surface of the mist which covered the valley
became apparent; and the mountain tops in almost every direction,
looked like islands in a white, placid, and silent ocean. I gazed with
delighted imagination over this novel and fairy scene; so full of
sublimity in itself, and from the sober twilight in which it appeared,
so much like the work of fancy in visions of a dream. The trees and
rocks of the nearest islands soon became visible; more distant islands
were disclosed to view, but all were wild and desolate. I felt as if
placed in a vast solitude, with lands and seas around me hitherto
undiscovered by man.
Whilst I gazed with increasing admiration over the twilight scene, and
endeavored to stretch my vision into the dusky regions far away, my
attention was suddenly arrested by sparks of dazzling brilliancy which
shot through the pines on the Blue Ridge. In the olden time, when
Jupiter's thunderbolts were manufactured in the caverns of Ætna, never
did such glittering scintillations fly from under the forge hammers of
Cyclops. It was the sun darting his topmost rays over the mountain,
and dispersing their sparkling threads in the bright and cloudless
atmosphere. Very soon the fancied islands around me caught the
splendid hue of the luminary, and shone like burnished gold on their
eastern sides. In the west, where they were most thickly strown over
the white sea of mist, and where their sides alone appeared, I could
imagine them to be the islands of the blessed (so famous in ancient
poetry,) where light and peace reigned perpetually. But the pleasing
illusion was soon dissipated. The surface of the mist hitherto lying
still, became agitated like a boiling caldron. Every where light
clouds arose from it and melted away. Presently the lower hills of the
country began to show their tops as if they were emerging from this
troubled sea. When the sun displayed his full orb of living fire, the
vapory commotion increased, the features of the low country began to
be unveiled, and the first audible sound of the morning, the barking
of a farmer's dog, rose from a deep vale beneath, and completely broke
the enchantment of the twilight scene. When the sun was an hour high,
the fog only marked the deep and curvilinear beds of the waters. Nor
was I less delighted with the realities of the prospect before me.
The country lay beneath and around me to the utmost extent of vision.
Along the uneven surface of the great valley, a thousand farms in
every variety of situation were distinctly visible, some in low vales,
some on the upland slopes, and here and there a few on the elevated
sides of the mountains.
On the northeast, the less hilly county of Augusta was seen in dim
perspective, like a large level of blueish green. Stretching along the
eastern horizon for many a league, the Blue Ridge shewed a hundred of
its lofty pinnacles among which the Peaks of Otter toward the south,
rose pre-eminently conspicuous. The valley in a southwestern direction
was partly concealed by the isolated line of the Short Hill: but
beyond that appeared at intervals the vales of James river, from the
gap where the stream has burst through the Blue Ridge, up to the place
where it has cloven the North mountain, and thence round by the west,
to the remarkable rent which it has made in the solid rock of the
Jackson mountain, a distance altogether of some forty miles.
On the western side, the view is of a different character. Here it
seemed as if all the mountains of Virginia had assembled to display
their magnificence and to exhibit with proud emulation, their
loftiness and their length. Line upon line, ridge behind ridge,
perched over one another, crossed the landscape in various directions,
here swelling into round knobs, and there stretching off in long
masses far and wide; until they faded away in the blue of the
atmosphere, and distinction of form and color was lost in the
distance.
When I was able to withdraw my eyes from the collective whole of this
sublime prospect, and to examine the particular objects that appeared
around me, I was struck with the long narrow vales on the western
side. The cultivated low grounds and streams of water, all converging
towards the wider stream and valley of the James river, presented a
beautiful contrast with the rude grandeur of the mountains among which
they lay. When I looked down upon the country in the immediate
vicinity of the House Mountain, I admired the beauties of the scene.
The woody hillocks and shady dells had lost every rough and
disagreeable feature: the surface of the woods was uniformly smooth
and green, like a meadow, and wound before the elevated eye with the
most graceful curves imaginable. The little homesteads about the foot
of the mountain, the large farms and country seats further away in the
valley, and the bright group of buildings in the village of Lexington,
formed a gentle scene of beauty, which relieved the mind from the
almost painful sublimity of the distant prospect, and prepared us,
after hours of delightful contemplation, to descend from our aerial
height, and to return with gratified feelings to our college and
studies again.
_Lexington, Virginia_.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.