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.