town of Frederick, to attain which a twig of the road wanders off for
the few necessary miles. Soon the piquant charms of Potomac scenery
are at hand, the mountains are marching upon us, and the road becomes
stimulating.

A jagged spur of the Blue Ridge, the Catoctin Mountain, strides out
to the river, and the railroad, striking it, wraps itself around the
promontory in a sharp curve, like a blow with the flat of an elastic
Damascus sword. The broad Potomac sweeps rushing around its base: it
is the celebrated Point of Rocks. The nodding precipice, cut into a
rough and tortured profile by the engineers, lays its shadow to sleep
on the whizzing roofs of the cars as they glitter by, (Shadows always
seem to print themselves with additional distinctness upon any moving
object, like a waterfall or a foaming stream.) There are a village and
a bridge at the Point, and the mountain-range, broken in two by the
river, recovers itself gracefully and loftily on the other side.

[Illustration: POTOMAC TUNNEL, NEAR HARPER'S FERRY.]

For half an hour more, as we rush to meet the course of the Potomac,
the broad ledges that heave the bed of the river into mounds, and
the ascending configuration of the shore, seem to speak of something
grand, and directly we are in the cradle of romance, at Harper's
Ferry.

To reach this village, perhaps the most picturesque in the country,
we must cross the Potomac from Maryland into Virginia. The bridge is
peculiar and artistic. It is about nine hundred feet long; its two
ends are curved in opposite directions, and at its farther extremity
it splits curiously into two bridge-branches, one of which supports