Lady Duffus Hardy

Fire and ruins.—Through sylvan scenes.—The cave of Luray.—A jewelled city underground.—The white savages of Wise County.

After spending a delightful week in Richmond, we begin to think it is time to be “moving on.” So anxious are we to resume our journey southward, we decide to go by the evening train, but unfortunately about mid-day a thick smoke fills the air, and over-spreads the city like a funeral pall. We learn that the railway bridge is on fire, burning so furiously, and spreading so rapidly, that in the space of an incredibly short time the buildings on either side are gutted, and the wind carries the flying sparks over the city, and for a time it is in danger of total destruction; people rush out of their houses, and watch breathlessly the result; but the sparks fly over the house-tops in a flaming shower, setting fire to one roof after another; and at last, after scaring half the town, catching at the tindery thatch of the Allan House, threatening to destroy one of the chief landmarks of the ill-starred poet’s life, but the passers by rush to the rescue, and the old house is saved for the benefit of new generations of relic hunters.

We fear that the destruction of the railway bridge will cause us difficulty, and detain us in Richmond to our inconvenience; but our landlord assures us we shall be able to start in the evening, as we had originally designed. “Things are sure to be fixed all right,” he says. Wonderfully expressive, and variously applied is that little word “fix,” in the idiomatic language of this “Greater Britain.” Never did so small a word mean so much! It does duty as a “word of all work,” in the kitchen, in the stable, and in the lady’s chamber; the ladies “fix” their hair, the gentlemen “fix” their whiskers, they “fix” their dinners, they “fix” their babies, they “fix” their weddings, they “fix” their funerals—in fact that little insignificant monosyllable is imported into all the articles of their daily life, and they live in a general atmosphere of “fixing.”

In accordance with our host’s kind assurance, things are pleasantly “fixed” for our departure, the only inconvenience being that we have to drive across the foot-bridge (so called because it is a wide carriage drive) over the river, and take the train from Manchester on the other side. The shades of evening are fast falling round us as we drive down the narrow streets towards the river, and thence take our last view of these Richmond hills, which remind us so strongly of that other Richmond, girded by our winding river Thames.

The Capitol with its silent groups of heroic dead is dimly shadowed forth in the fading light; here and there the street lamps are lit, and look like glimmering glow-worms crawling up the narrow winding ways; and from the stained glass windows of many churches the mellow light streams through, revealing a fantastic kind of mosaic in brilliant hues—blue and crimson, green and gold, blending harmoniously together; the roll of the organ, and the united voices of the singers follow us down through the hilly street until they are lost in the distance.

The dark river is rushing beneath the foot-bridge at our feet; and on our right the foaming flood is lighted by the fading fires of the still burning wreck of the railway bridge. The whole structure is down, and the huge beams lying like fiery serpents on the river’s surface, now smouldering in red sullen fires, then up-leaping in tiny flickering tongues of blue flame, licking round and feeding upon every remnant that remains of the bridge that only at noon had stood proud and strong against the sky, its iron limbs spanning the dark water. It had been supported by twelve brick pillars, which are still left standing; each one wearing its crown of jewelled flames, burning in lurid flashes, like altars of the Eastern fire-worshippers, or beacon lights at sea, showing the gloomy gaps between, whence the burning masses had fallen into the sea. These colossal pillars blazing in the darkness, between the sable shadows of the river, and the moonless midnight of the sky, threw a light bright as the brightest day around us. On both banks of the broad river, before and behind us, rise the gaunt ruins that were prosperous factories in the morning, now mere blackened shells, yet picturesque and radiant in the soft golden ruddy glow of the beautiful cruel flames, that still lick and twist serpent-like in and out of the empty window frames. Successful commonplace prosperity at noon, they are transfigured into resplendent ruin at night. Well, the train awaited us on the opposite side, and there the owners of the destroyed property were already talking together, planning the rebuilding of their factories with improvements; wasting no words in useless regrets; they were scheming, and in their mind’s eye reconstructing the works, while the ruins still smouldered before their eyes.

The road to Western Virginia leads through some of the most beautiful scenery of the south. Lying near, and around us, are soft swelling hills and undulating valleys, with here and there dark pine woods, grouped in sombre masses; their branches standing out stiff and grim, like serried ranks of swords, pricking the skies—a standing army of nature’s wild recruits rooted to her breast, their only warfare being carried on with the raging elements, when the storm king comes crashing down from the distant mountains in a whirlwind of raging wrath, and armed with the invisible horrors of the air hurls itself upon the woodland kings, tearing their stiffened limbs, wrenching and twisting their tall straight trunks, and leaving them a shapeless shivering mass upon the ground, broken like a gallant army, but not vanquished; the earth still holds them fast, wrapping her soft moss about their bleeding wounds, fanning them with sweet airs, and lifting them up again to flourish in the face of the sun. Here and there broad bands of the silver stream sandal the foothills, and lace the ragged fringes of the earth together. We look round on a wide panoramic view of variegated green, where hill and valley, wooded knolls and rocky ridges, frowning forests and smiling meadows, are blended in one harmonious whole, and a soft hazy atmosphere lies like a heavenly mystery over all. The view is bounded and shut in by the lofty range of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Winding slowly and almost by imperceptible gradations downwards, we soon reach the beautiful Shenandoah valley, en route for the wonderful cave of “Luray,” which lies in the centre of Page county.

The earth’s surface here and for miles round is rugged and broken, as though by some great upheaval centuries ago; huge grey boulders are lying in all directions, as though some ancient Titan had flung them down in sport. Giant rocks, the work of the great sculptor Nature, lie in folded ridges, their stony draperies falling about them in massive magnificence that is beyond the reach of art. Rivulets of living water trickle down their gaping sides, and gather, and swell, and flow through darkened chasms half hidden from the light of the sun, playing an everlasting game of hide and seek, then rushing forth sparkling and laughing in its light.

Eastward about a mile from the pretty village of Luray, and partially screened by the dense thickets which crown the hilltops, there exists an extensive cave. Concerning its first discovery, many years ago, tradition tells an interesting story, indicating a man named Ruffner as its first discoverer. He with his family, it is said, was among the first settlers in the valley below, and one day he went out on a hunting expedition and never returned. After a search of many weeks, his gun was found at the entrance to the cave, and in due time he was discovered, having wandered among its labyrinthine courts and passages till he was lost and dead of starvation. From this event it was called “Ruffner’s” cave, and is so printed on the maps both of that period and since. Little interest, however, attached to the cave, and for a time it seemed to have passed from the memory of man, and remained neglected and hidden away in the heart of the mountain until the summer of 1878, when a number of gentlemen formed themselves into a company not only for the more complete exploration of the old cave, but for a regularly organised search for new wonders. They hoped to discover even a more extensive cave, which from their geological survey they believed to exist in the neighbourhood. They ranged the hillside, penetrated dense thickets and tangled woods; crept and groped under rocky ledges—first taking care to rout the brood of rattlesnakes from their slimy bed, and hunting the frightened foxes from their burrows under the ground, where for ages they had lived in savage security—but for many weeks their search was in vain. However, on returning one evening, exhausted and disheartened, along the northern side of the hill, they observed a suspicious looking hollow choked up with straggling bushes, loose stones, weeds, and rubbish of all kinds, the accumulation of years. They set to work at daydawn, clearing away the tangled brushwood, tossing out the loose stones, and plunging deeper and deeper into the dark abyss, till they felt a rush of cool air creeping up through the broken earth, and after a few hours’ laborious endeavour they found themselves in a lofty passage, which formed a kind of antechamber to a vast palace of wonder which had been building since the world began. Thus was the Luray cave discovered; but it is only during the last year that it has been rendered accessible to the public. Nature hides her most beautiful secrets so closely within her breast, and surrounds them with so many mysteries, that art and labour, hand in hand, must come to the fore before they can become the property of the world outside.

Surely Aladdin’s magical lamp never lighted up such jewelled wonders as are to be beheld here! Here are halls and corridors, stairways and galleries, chasms and bridges, built or hollowed out with a weird architectural magnificence wonderful to behold. We stand in the spacious nave of the cathedral, and gaze at its groined and glittering roof, and Gothic columns of many-coloured stalactite. The utter silence (which never exists in the outer world, where there is always the whirr of invisible insects, the stir of leaves, the whispering of grasses, and a thousand other nameless sounds) here is supremely impressive; the air, laden with solemn stillness, lies heavy and close round us. We listen for the roll of some hidden organ to fill the darkening shadows with music, and tempt us to fall upon our knees in worship of the Great Unknown. We pass through a narrow jagged passage full of grotesque shapes and caricatures of things real and unreal, till we come to a damp, low-roofed opening called the bridal chamber, which is profusely ornamented with fantastic formations of crystalline rock. It is said, I don’t know how truthfully, that some benighted imbeciles have already been married on this spot. The roof is everywhere supported by hundreds of columns of various gradations of colour and size, from a thin walking cane to the grand pillar in the “giant’s hall,” which is nearly twenty feet in circumference, and is ribbed and rugged like the bark of a tree. A curious feature in this particular cave is the profusion of thin icicles—I do not know by what other name to call them; it seems as though threads of ice had been woven together in a veil of frost work unknown to decorative art. They hang from the edges, and drape the walls in falling folds like a tapestry curtain; they droop in graceful folds before Diana’s bath, and are drawn round the couch of the “sleeping beauty”—for a symmetrical form that is almost human lies shrouded in ice beneath it. Fancy has found some appropriate name for every nook and corner, form and figure, of this underground world. However fantastic these stalactite embellishments may be they are never inharmonious, one thing never seems out of keeping with another. Here we may gather to ourselves lessons of loveliness, and the mysterious mingling of the beautiful in form and colour that Æstheticism tries in vain to teach.

We wander through the “garden,” and gaze round with still greater amazement upon the gorgeous colouring and delicate formation of these stalactite flowers, so airy and fragile; they look as though a breath would wither them, yet they have been in bloom for ages, and will bloom on for ages more. The grey stone is covered with this growth of glassy flowers, with quivering petals of pink and violet and white. We are inclined to smell them, scarce believing they are cold and scentless. Presently we come upon a glacial forest scene, where the fluted columns, uprising like knotted trunks of trees, spread their thin, brittle branches till we fancy we see them quivering in the still air. Let fancy take the bit in her mouth and run away with our reason, and we shall believe we are standing amid a spectral group of ancient willow and elm trees which have perished from the upper world, and live out their frozen life of ages here below. Here and there a tiny rill of water trickles like a silver thread down among the folded draperies, till it is lost among the fretted frostwork below. Then crossing a rude stony balcony we look down into a wide, deep chasm, which yawns beneath our feet, and it is not difficult for the imagination to evolve the most uncanny creatures of weird, unearthly forms from the depths of darkness which the magnesium lights illuminate but cannot penetrate.

At last we come up from those vast underground realms to the light of the living sun, awestruck and impressed with the wonders thereof. While we are carrying out our small human lives, taxing our intellect, our imagination and our skill to build up vast edifices of brick and stone on this outer earth, which in a few short years must crumble away, an unknown and invisible world is being slowly perfected beneath our feet—a world not made by hands—every touch and tint the work of a passing age; silently and slowly the viewless workers labour on, under the land and under the sea, while cycles and ages pass! Will not this outer crust whereon we live slowly crack like a shell, and one day fall away, and leave a world such as the Revelation tells of, whose jewelled palaces are of silver and gold, the glory and wonder whereof this world knoweth not! We feel as though we had stood on the outermost edge and caught a glimpse of the wonder-land where nature is working her will in silence and darkness.

Some of the most picturesque and sublime scenery of the South may be found in the regions of Western Virginia, where nature in her wildest mood holds sovereign sway among her everlasting hills, clothed with majestic woods running down to the narrow valleys and winding lands which intersect the mountains. Here in these solitudes, scattered through these lonely regions, live a primitive people, leading a primitive life.

They are supposed to be the descendants of the Irish and Scotch who came over to this country about two hundred years ago, and wandered on and on till they reached these solitudes and then settled down in sparse and scattered groups far apart, not in villages but in single families, where they have been living undisturbed through all these changing years, marrying and intermarrying with some kind of ceremony peculiar to themselves, from generation to generation. Children have been born, grown to be old men, and died, having never passed out from their own solitary homes.

They hold no communion with the outer world; no “iron horse” steams through their solitudes, and few and far between indeed are the travellers who invade their wilderness. Even with each other their communication is scarce and scant—their nearest neighbour may be residing from five to twenty miles away; visiting is therefore a rather difficult process, especially as there are no roads leading from one place to another. People have to find their way, or rather make their way, over the rough, stony mountain, and through the tangled woods, wading through brooks and leaping across dangerous chasms before they can enjoy the luxury of looking on a human face! These poor people can neither read nor write, they have no means of learning to do either; they are beyond the reach of the school-board, without the pale of civilisation. There are no schools, no books, no newspapers, no post, no highroads, no church, no law but what their own untaught nature lays down; no religion save that which they evolve from the mystery of their own being—for even in the most savage, untutored breast, a still small voice is always whispering speculations as to the unknown from the beginning to the end and after. They build their own log huts (some of which are in the last stage of dilapidation) and make their own rough furniture. Having cleared as much land as they want, they grow patches of corn, cabbages, and such like; nuts, fruits and sorrel, and other kinds of green stuff which they use for food all grow plentifully in these uncultivated lands. Some own a cow and a few fowls, and wild hogs are numerous enough to supply them with all they need of animal food.

In all this region cotton grows abundantly, and they weave their own clothes, the old spindle of two hundred years ago being still in use among them. The men wear shoes—when they can get them—all the year round; but the women go barefoot except in the winter time and during the inclement season, when the streams are turned to frozen ice, and the earth is shrouded in thick snow. It is the women who do the outdoor work, while their lords and masters, following the example of savage Indian tribes, stay by the fireside and smoke their pipes. Occasionally, once in a year or two, some one of this scattered community will load his mule and fill his cart with different commodities of his own and his neighbour’s and make a pilgrimage to the nearest town—which may be a hundred miles off or more—and sell or exchange them for such necessaries as they require, and with which they cannot supply themselves. The existence of these primitive people is very well known to such travellers as from time to time have penetrated these solitudes; but this state of things will not be allowed to remain long unchanged; the spirit of progress is abroad, and is already making a subtle and invisible progress even among these primeval solitudes.

Some three or four years ago a solitary gentleman of engineering proclivities started on a voyage of discovery through these desolate regions, and after long wanderings and many disappointments fell figuratively upon his feet at last, and after a patient investigation of certain localities came to the conclusion that some of nature’s rich resources were hidden away in the heart of these mountains. Having once convinced himself of this truth he returned to civilisation, and with little difficulty organised a company, and in the course of a few months returned with a staff of engineers and workers necessary for the full development and carrying out of his design. The shaft was sunk, the mine is now in full working order, and promises to be a great success.

Meanwhile there have been many and great difficulties to be overcome in the suspicious ignorance and sturdy opposition of these, the original inhabitants of the soil, who regard the new order of things with evil eyes, and watch with ill-disguised dissatisfaction, and low, muttered threats that the invasion of their privacy shall be paid for by the lives of their invaders, who, however, go steadily on with their work with a fearless determination to carry it through in spite of the opposition of this hostile community.

The new comers associated with the old inhabitants, whenever occasion served, in a frank, friendly fashion, endeavouring to convince them that any act of violence on their part would be followed by speedy punishment and the total expulsion of the whole scattered community from the soil where they had become rooted for generations past. But in vain they tried to persuade them that the new order of things would be for their benefit, and would bring them into connection with the great world, giving to them and to their children an opportunity of rising and improving their condition. They have no ambition, and being utterly unconscious of their ignorance are content therewith. They don’t know anything nor don’t want to know anything; they have many curious traditions circulating among them, descending from father to son, and growing and deepening in wonder by the way. They are full too of strange superstitions, as a people living so utterly apart from the rest of the world, lost in the speculations and mystery of their own lonely lives would naturally be; they may have a kind of dreamy conviction that somewhere across the mountains the inhabitants boil and eat brown babies, and, if occasion serves, are in no ways loth to indulge surreptitiously in the luxury of a fine fat white boy!

However, they are day by day getting more reconciled to the presence of their civilised brethren, who by general tact and little helpful kindnesses have won their toleration and good will. Though they still stand aloof and watch the progress of affairs with curious eyes, they give no assistance and offer no opposition.

Meanwhile public attention having been called to the existence of the valuable mines throughout these districts, the construction of a railway is under consideration; and if the projected undertaking be carried out villages and towns will spring up like magic in these untrodden wilds, the echoes of life and labour resound through the now silent solitudes, and the flood of a new strong life will burst among these wandering weaklings of humanity, and either absorb them into their own strength, or drive to still deeper and farther solitary wilds the white savages of Wise County.