attends to the ladies' cabin, and we were very much flattered that she recognized us as people of quality at first sight-at least she told us so when Ma gave her a gold dollar. She said, too, that she could tell common people, no matter how fine they were dressed, for they never gave her any thing. "But now I am going to tell you what happened to me the first evening I spent on the canal boat. Cousin Bob Larkin invited- Leonore and myself to walk on the deck with him to see the moon. You know Bob's habit of making silly flattering speeches to every pretty girl he meets. He used to make a great many to me; but although I never thought any thing of them, I always liked Robert, he is so amiable and accomplished. But since he has become acquainted with Leonore, he has been all devotion to her; and indeed I don't wonder, for she is perfectly lovely both in person and character, and has had so many advantages of education, and can talk so delightfully about foreign countries, and with her painting and music she has entirely overshadowed her poor little ignorant rustic cousin. Well, Molly, I had yielded cheerfully to my fate, when Cousin Robert took us up to see the moon, as I told you. As usual, he and Leonore got into ecstasies about the moonlight, quoted poetry and all that, and I stood by like a candle-holder at a wedding, trying to pick up a little improvement by listening to their elegant conversation. Robert had just finished a speech about a nasty tin horn, which the driver was blowing, when suddenly he seized Cousin Leonore and made her stoop, and the beam of a bridge under which we were passing struck me such a blow that I fell senseless. "Now, wasn't it outrageous that he should have forgotten me so entirely, and only thought of saving Leonore; that thought struck me harder than the bridge did, and when I came to my senses I was so indignant that I refused to look at Robert, or listen to his apologies. They say he showed a great deal of feeling about it. But to be so neglected, and have my head bumped besides, is rather more than I can overlook. "I wasn't much hurt after all, and I tried to make up with Robert next day; but, bless you, he was in one of his unapproachable spells, and has continued so ever since. So elegant, so studiously polite, and at the same time cold and re I lost pulsive as a snake. He has cut both Leonore | oped in a dark, gray mist; so that I wandered and myself, and taken to talking philosophy with for some distance along the stream until I came Papa. In fact, he's become so stupid that I to a hut, and there made inquiries for Godbey's am glad he has left us for several days-as he house. A woman informed me that I had come did yesterday with the pretense of going to see half a mile out of my way, and that the place I the New River Cliffs. He said he would join us sought was on t'other side of the river, just oppoto-morrow, but I doubt it, he is so eccentric. site the path by which I had descended. no time in retracing my steps, and at the point found a boy with a rifle and bunch of squirrels just about crossing in a dug-out. He ferried me over and piloted me to the house, glad enough to find a shelter, and sufficiently wet, tired, and hungry to appreciate the rough but substantial entertainment it afforded. "Now, dear Molly, don't breathe a word of all this nonsense; but write all the news from home, and I'll promise to keep you posted in regard to our movements. Write to Jonesborough, Tennessee, which will be our next stoppingplace. Yours, affectionately, NETTY B." "The Godbeys-grandfather, father, and son To the surprise of all, Larkin joined them in Abingdon at the appointed time. He was in-have lived on the spot for the butt-end of a cena good-humor, apparently, but met the girls with a studied politeness rather than his usual easy cordiality. After tea, he exhibited his sketches, and gave the following narrative of his adven tures: tury. Their dwelling was erected by the senior Godbey, and somewhat resembled an old-fashioned block-house, intended for defense as well as shelter-a mode of building common among the early settlers of these regions. I was pleased "On parting with you at the railroad station, to find the next morning clear, and went out I dodged the express carriage and footed it to at an early hour to see the rocks. They rise Newbern, a distance of three miles. It is rather like a vast rampart to the height of three or four a lonesome-looking village, situated on a hill, hundred feet above the river, which washes their with a hotel of very unpromising exterior; but base for a distance of four miles. The perpenthe dinner I got at Bagsby's was a surprise; it dicular face of the Cliffs is perforated with nuwas uncommonly good, and only served to re- merous holes and caverns, and broken into mind me of what I knew before-that, to appre-varied and picturesque forms by the scaling of ciate life in Virginia, one must see the inside of their houses. After dinner I continued my walk to the Cliffs, about three miles farther, and descended to the river by a steep, dangerous path, where, to keep my footing, I was obliged to hold on to bushes and projecting rocks with my hands. When I got to the banks of New River, I looked about in vain for Godbey's house, to which I had been directed. the strata. In many places these square breaks occur with such regularity that, when struck aslant by the sunlight, they resemble ranged architectural openings. This feature has procured for them the far-fetched appellation of The Glass Windows.' "Immense flocks of buzzards haunt the Heights, finding safe and convenient places to snooze and sun themselves after their filthy "It was raining, and every thing was envel- feasts. They may be attracted, also, by the chances of prey afforded by the locality, as deer, pursued by the dogs, are sometimes driven over the precipices; while cows, and even sheep, browsing too near the brink, not unfrequently slip, and are dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks below. A countryman told me that, on one occasion, he was walking with a neighbor near the Cliffs, when he observed a sheep cropping the grass on a narrow ledge about a hundred feet from the base. In attempting to turn, the animal fell the whole distance to the ground. 'Come,' said he to his companion, let us go up and get the mutton.' As they approached the body, to their great surprise, it got up, shook itself, and ran away. Its life was probably saved by a heavy growth of wool. Having satisfied my curiosity, and made a hurried sketch, I returned to the Newbern Dépôt. THE LOVE-FEAST. est end to her ruby lips, when, with kitten-like vivacity, she snapped off the end with a clean semicircular cut about four and a half inches across. The enchanted groom then took his turn, which halved the pie exactly, and again returned it to his gentle partner. Thus they went on with alternate bites until they had devoured the whole provision; she rolling her milky blue eyes affectionately upon her spouse at every mouthful, and he giving her a hearty squeeze at the beginning of each pie. This unique love-feast set every body in the cars to snickering, but on me it had quite an opposite effect. I could have wept-" "As I came on in the train I had an opportu- | took up one of the pies and presented the plumpnity of making another sketch which, following the scene at the Cliffs, might illustrate the descent from the sublime to the ridiculous. A gawky-looking mountaineer got in at one of the stations with a buxom, red-cheeked young woman who, I understood, was his newly-made bride. Having found a seat to suit them, the groom went out and presently returned with ten or twelve turnovers, or Jack-pies. Reseating himself by his lady he piled up his investment on her lap, and then, oblivious of the forms of society, the cold world around him, of every thing but his own unutterable happiness, he put his arm around her, and she, nothing loth, laid her head lovingly upon his shoulder. He then "Bob Larkin, you audacious scoffer," cried INTERIOR VIEW OF THE SALT-WORKS. Mrs. Broadacre, "hush, this instant! I don't believe a word of that story. You invented it, I'll guarantee." "Why, Aunt-" "Don't call me Aunt-" of Saltville, a village at the head of the valley, containing the principal salt-works and dependencies. The valley contains several hundred acres of rich meadow, producing corn and grass in abund "Then, Madam Broadacre, here's the sketch ance, and sustaining numerous herds of the finest I made from the scene as it passed." "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself to be caricaturing poor simple people in that way. Can't you put your talents to a better use ?" On the morning after Larkin's return from Newbern he and the Squire rose early, and took the train going eastward, for the purpose of visiting the celebrated Salt Valley, situated on the line dividing Washington and Smyth counties, about twenty miles from Abingdon. At the Glade Spring Station they got out, with the intention of taking the branch road to Saltville, eight or nine miles distant. Finding, however, that the branch train was somewhat uncertain in its movements, the Squire proposed that they should walk, declaring that, although a little gray, he had lost none of his youthful stamina. The railroad track furnished pretty good walking, and they found so many objects of interest on their way that ere they were aware of the passage of time and distance they came in sight cattle. It is surrounded by a chain of conical hills from five to eight hundred feet in height, so regularly formed that, but for their extent, they might be mistaken for artificial mounds. These hills are overlooked by lofty and rugged mountains, whose frowning precipices contrast strikingly with the softer beauties of the valley. But these are only the superficial attractions of this interesting region. At the distance of two hundred and thirty feet below the surface is a bed of fossil salt of unascertained extent and thickness, while gypsum, its invariable geological associate, has been recently developed near the surface by excavations on the line of the railroad. The preparation and exportation of plaster, already commenced, bids fair to be an important addition to the wealth of the vallcy. The salt is procured by sinking wells to the depth of the salt-bed, when the water rises within forty-six feet of the surface, and is raised from thence by pumps into large tanks or res ervoirs elevated a convenient distance above the | that occupy the whole length of the buildings surface. The brine thus procured is a saturated solution, and for every hundred gallons yields twenty-two gallons of pure salt. The process of manufacturing it is perfectly simple. An arched furnace is constructed, probably a hundred and fifty feet in length, with the doors at one end and the chimney at the other. Two rows of heavy iron kettles, shaped like shallow bowls, are built into the top of the furnace in the largest works from eighty to a hundred in number. Large wooden pipes convey the brine from the tanks to these kettles, where the water is evaporated by boiling, while the salt crystallizes and is precipitated. During the operation a white saline vapor rises from the boilers, the inhalation of which is said to cure diseases of the lungs and throat. At regular intervals an attendant goes round, and with a mammoth ladle dips out the salt, chucking it into loosely woven split baskets, which are placed in pairs over the boilers. Here it drains and dries until the dipper has gone his round with the ladle. It is then thrown into the salt-sheds, immense magazines on either side of the furnaces. This process continues day and night without intermission for about a week, when it becomes necessary to cool off to clean the boilers, which have become thickly coated with a sedimentary deposit which impedes the transmission of heat. This incrustation, sometimes called pan-stone, is principally composed of the sulphates of lime and soda, and its removal is the most troublesome and least entertaining part of the business. The salt thus manufactured is of the purest quality, white and beautiful as the driven snow. Indeed, on seeing the men at work in the magazines with pick and shovel, a novice would swear they were working in a snow-bank; while the pipes and reservoirs, which at every leak become coated over with snowy concretions, sparkling like hoar-frost and icicles in the sun, serve to confirm the wintry illusion. The north fork of the Holston River, about a mile distant from Saltville, furnishes an outlet to the western market, and to avoid landcarriage, the brine is piped from the wells to |