30. It will be impossible to describe at length
all the pretty places we passed, respecting each of which Mr. Tyson had
always something to say. Soon after leaving the Washington junction, we
came to a sweet spot called Ellicott's Mills, where he had spent his
boyhood, and where every rock was familiar to him. The family of
Ellicotts, who had resided there from the settlement of the country,
were his mother's relations, and by his father's side he was descended
from Lord Brooke, who was likewise one of the original settlers, the
Warwick branch of the family having remained in England.
We first came in sight of the Blue Ridge at about forty miles from
Baltimore. During the greater part of this distance we had been
following up the Patapaco river; but soon after this, at the Point of
Rocks, we came upon the Potomac. Here the Baltimore and Ohio canal, a
work of prodigious magnitude, and the railway run side by side between
the river and very high cliffs, though the space apparently could afford
room only for one of them. We reached Harper's Ferry a little after
twelve, and the view is certainly splendid. Mr. Tyson had made
arrangements to give the passengers a little extra time for dinner, that
he might take us to see the view from the heights above without
materially detaining the train; but the sun was so powerful that we were
glad to limit our walk in order to see a little in detail the bridge
over which we had just passed in the railway cars.
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