Beyond Johnstown a magnificent panorama of the Alleghenies breaks into view with their myriad phases of beauty and grandeur. As we follow down the Conemaugh, along the breast of the mountains are the remains of inclined planes of the Portage Railroad, by which loaded canal-boats were transported over the mountains at points where the canal was not yet constructed. This was before the days of steam railroads, when canals were the most expeditious mode of freight transportation. Beyond Cressons the road begins the ascent of the Alleghenies, and in doing so makes many turns, and from the right hand of the road a gorgeous spectacle is presented looking down into the valleys, where the houses are dwarfed by distance until they look like mole-hills, and men are not distinguishable. There are horseshoe curves as sharp and graceful as any on the roads that climb over western mountains, while the scene is often more picturesque because of the high state of cultivation of the mountain slopes. A tunnel three-quarters of a mile in length pierces the brow of one of the highest peaks, after which the road descends rapidly to Cressons, a place noted for its seven mineral springs. Altoona is next passed, and a few minutes later the train rushes around the beautiful horseshoe curve at Kittanning, affording a charming prospect of lofty mountains, surrounding a lake of exquisite beauty, made by damming a pretty stream that comes gamboling down from cool retreats in the high altitudes. Out of the Tuckahoe Valley and on to Tyrone, where the Little Juniata is reached, along whose sweet-smelling banks the road hastens by Broad Top Mountain, Sliding Hill, through the gap of Jack’s Mountain, and thence into the Long Narrows, which is traversed by highway, river and canal, running in competition with the railroad. For several miles the scenery is wondrously beautiful, with kaleidoscopic glimpses of swift-passing mountain, foaming water-ways, laughing cascades, and bounty-bestowing valleys bedewed with the delicious waters of the blue Juniata. Thence on to Harrisburg the road speeds, with many a twist through smiling vales that swathe the mountain’s feet with ribbons of verdure; across the Susquehanna, where the river is more than a mile wide and freckled with impeding stones. Lancaster is soon reached, and thence eastward the scenery grows in grandeur until Chester Valley is passed and Paoli comes into view. This place is famous in history from the fact that here took place a massacre which will be remembered for ages as a reproach to the British. On September 20, 1777, the American forces under General Anthony Wayne were surprised by a large army of British regulars, commanded by General Gray. Notwithstanding the superior numbers of the enemy and his unpreparedness, General Wayne offered a stubborn resistance, and not until nearly one-half his men had fallen in the desperate conflict did he capitulate, upon terms of honorable surrender.