Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 10).djvu/174



T is impossible to leave the study of the Cumberland Road without gathering up into a single chapter a number of threads which have not been woven into the preceding record. And first, the very appearance of the old road as seen by travelers who pass over it today. One cannot go a single mile over it without becoming deeply impressed with the evidence of the age and the individuality of the old Cumberland Road. There is nothing like it in the United States. Leaping the Ohio at Wheeling, the Cumberland Road throws itself across Ohio and Indiana, straight as an arrow, like an ancient elevated pathway of the gods, chopping hills in twain at a blow, traversing the lowlands on high grades like a railroad bed, vaulting river and stream on massive bridges of unparalleled size. The farther one travels upon