The third and last mountain over which the traveller passes, as he proceeds from Fincastle to the Sweet Springs, is Peter's Mountain--here called the Sweet Spring Mountain. This is, on several accounts, one of the most remarkable mountains in Virginia. It is remarkable, in the first place, for the appearance of regularity which it presents to the eye of the traveller, when viewed from the west. It extends sixty or seventy miles, between Jackson river on the north, and New river on the south, apparently in a straight line, and of nearly a uniform elevation. But this is not its whole extent. The mountain north of Jackson river, and that south of New river, are evidently continuations of the same mountain, and exhibit the same unbroken and regular appearance. While on the east there are numerous spurs extending from it in every direction, there is nothing of the kind observable on the west. Were it not for the magnitude of this mountain, its elevation, and its peculiar structure, we might readily have imagined it to be, like the Chinese wall, the work of man, constructed by the line and the plummet, in a former age, as a bulwark of defence, by some hardier race than ours; but these point us to the heavens for its great original. As we looked back upon it from the valley on its west, our thoughts reverted to the period, when the red men of the forest took up the line of march, and relinquished the east to the peaceable possession of their treacherous invaders. Here, it was natural to suppose, they halted, and pitched their tents, and constructed their villages, and began again to feel as though they were "monarchs of all they surveyed." As they looked upon the mountain behind them, feelings of security would be restored, and they would consider this mountain as a barrier, reared by the Great Spirit for their protection.