The Wind Gap Is An Opening In The Same Mountain Ridge Which Is Cloven By
The Water Gap, But, Unlike That, It Extends Only About Half-Way Down To
The Base.
Through this opening, bordered on each side by large loose
blocks of stone, the road passes.
After you have reached the open country
beyond, you look back and see the ridge stretching away eastward towards
the Water Gap, and in the other direction towards the southwest till it
sinks out of sight, a rocky wall of uniform height, with this opening in
the midst, which looks as if part of the mountain had here fallen into an
abyss below. Beyond the Wind Gap we came to the village of Windham, lying
in the shelter of this mountain barrier, and here, about twelve o'clock,
our driver stopped a moment at an inn to give water to his horses. The
bar-room was full of fresh-colored young men in military uniforms, talking
Pennsylvania German rather rapidly and vociferously. They surrounded a
thick-set man, in a cap and shirt-sleeves, whom they called Tscho, or
Joe, and insisted that he should give them a tune on his fiddle.
"Spiel, Tscho, spiel, spiel," was shouted on every side, and at last Tscho
took the floor with a fiddle and began to play. About a dozen of the young
men stood up on the floor, in couples, facing each other, and hammered out
the tune with their feet, giving a tread or tap on the floor to correspond
with every note of the instrument, and occasionally crossing from side to
side. I have never seen dancing more diligently performed.
When the player had drawn the final squeak from his violin, we got into
our vehicle, and in somewhat more than an hour were entering the little
village of Nazareth, pleasantly situated among fields the autumnal verdure
of which indicated their fertility. Nazareth is a Moravian village, of
four or five hundred inhabitants, looking prodigiously like a little town
of the old world, except that it is more neatly kept. The houses are
square and solid, of stone or brick, built immediately on the street; a
pavement of broad flags runs under their windows, and between the flags
and the carriage-way is a row of trees. In the centre of the village is a
square with an arcade for a market, and a little aside from the main
street, in a hollow covered with bright green grass, is another square, in
the midst of which stands a large white church. Near it is an avenue, with
two immense lime-trees growing at the gate, leading to the field in which
they bury their dead. Looking upon this square is a large building, three
or four stories high, where a school for boys is kept, to which pupils are
sent from various parts of the country, and which enjoys a very good
reputation. We entered the garden of this school, an inclosure thickly
overshadowed with tall forest and exotic trees of various kinds, with
shrubs below, and winding walks and summer-houses and benches.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 145 of 206
Words from 74945 to 75465
of 107287