looks reverent,
he seems in holy communion with his Maker, to whom, in the tender,
guileless years of childhood, a pious mother taught him to kneel,
morning and evening, in prayer, thanksgiving, and adoration.

Anon, his morning devotions ended, he turns to take, ere following his
companions down the mountain, another view of the varied panorama
spread out far beneath him, the chief feature of which is a valley,
surpassing in beauty and fertility any that that summer's sun will
shine on ere reaching his golden gateway in the west. Through this
valley, glimmering, half seen, half hid among the waving woods, runs a
river, with many a graceful bend, so beautiful, that, in the far-away
years of the past, some long-forgotten tribe of Indians called it
Shenandoah, or Shining Daughter of the Stars; a name that still
lingers like a sweet echo among the mountains. And as the eyes of the
young surveyor slowly range the wide prospect from point to point, and
take in miles and miles of beauty at a single stretch of view, there
is a look in them as if he would recall some pleasing dream of the
night, which he would now fain bring forth, though but a dream, to
refine and elevate the thoughts wherewith his mind must needs be
occupied throughout the day. He is familiar with every feature of the
landscape before him: he knows each shady dell and sunny hill, and
every grassy slope and winding stream; for there he has made his home
this many a day. He has seen it all a thousand times, and each time
with renewed delight. But now it has a glory not all its own, nor
borrowed from the morning sun, but from the first warm light of
youthful love that burns in his heart for his Lowland Beauty.

VII.

FIRST MILITARY APPOINTMENT.

About this time, the Indians inhabiting that vast region extending
from the Ohio River to the great lakes of the north, secretly
encouraged and aided by the French, began to show signs of hostility,
and threatened the western borders of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New
York, with all the dismal horrors of their bloody and wasting warfare.
The alarm spread rapidly from the frontier even to the Atlantic coast,
till the whole country was awakened to the sense of the impending
danger.

To put the Province of Virginia in a better posture of defence, the
governor thereof, Robert Dinwiddie, besides other measures, divided it
into four grand military districts. Over each of these he placed what
is called an adjuta