One curve was quite appalling, and it was rendered more
so by the slow rate at which the train moved--not more, I should think,
than at the rate of two miles an hour--certainly not nearly so fast as
we could have walked, so that we had full leisure to contemplate the
chasm into which we should have been plunged headlong had the slightest
slip of the wheels occurred. How they can ever venture to pass it at
night is quite surprising. The curve is like a horse shoe, and goes
round the face of a rock which has been cut away to make room for the
road. Another superiority in the road we travelled to-day is the much
greater height of the surrounding mountains, and the extent of the
distant views;--but the greater height of the mountains had the
attendant disadvantage of the trees being chiefly pines, instead of the
lovely forest trees, of every description, which adorned the hills
amongst which we travelled in Maryland and Virginia, by the Baltimore
and Ohio railway.
I must, however, do justice here to the eastern side of the mountains.
For more than 100 miles we closely followed the course of the Juniata,
from its source to where it ends its career by falling, quite a
magnificent river, into the Susquehanna, about twenty-two miles above
this place. After the junction, the noble Susquehanna was our companion
for that distance, this town being situated upon it.
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