the mountains of Virginia
notorious and popular amongst that daintily observant crowd of
well-conditioned people who yearly migrate in quest of health, or of a
refuge from the heats of summer, or who, perchance, wander in pursuit of
those associations of hill and dale which are supposed to repair a jaded
imagination, and to render it romantic and fruitful.

The traveller of either of these descriptions, who holds his journey
westward, will find himself impelled to halt at Charlottesville, as a
pleasant resting-place in the lap of the first mountains, where he may
stop to reinforce his strength for the prosecution of the rugged task
that awaits him. His delay here will not be unprofitable. This neat
little village is not less recommended to notice by its position in the
midst of a cultivated and plentiful country, than by its contiguity to
the seats of three Presidents of the Union; and, especially, by its
immediate proximity to Monticello, whose burnished dome twinkles through
the crown of forest that adorns the very apex of its mountain pyramid,
and which, as it has now grown to be the Mecca of many a pilgrim, will
of itself furnish a sufficient inducement for our traveller's tarrying.
An equal attraction will be found in the University of Virginia, which,
at the distance of one mile, in the opposite direction from that leading
to Monticello, rears its gorgeous and fantastic piles of massive and
motley architecture--a lively and faithful symbol (I speak it
reverently) of the ambitious, parti-colored and gallican taste of its
illustrious founder.

From Charlottesville, proceeding southwardly, in the direction of Nelson
and Amherst, the road lies generally over an undulating country, formed
by the succession of hills constituting the subordinate chain of
mountains which I have described as first in the belt. These hills
derive a beautiful feature from the manner in which they are
commanded,--to use a military phrase,--by the Blue Ridge, which, for the
whole distance, rests against the western horizon, and heaves up its
frequent pinnacles amongst the clouds, clothed in all the variegated
tints that belong to the scale of vision, from the sombre green and
purple of the nearer masses, to the light and almost indistinguishable
azure of its remotest summits.

The constant interruption of some gushing rivulet, which hurries from
the neighboring mountain into the close vales that intercept the road,
communicates a trait of p