From Virginia’s airy situation

From Virginia’s airy situation one could look over a vast far-reaching panorama of mountain ranges and deserts; and whether the day was bright or overcast, whether the sun was rising or setting, or flaming in the zenith, or whether night and the moon held sway, the spectacle was always impressive and beautiful. Over your head Mount Davidson lifted its gray dome, and before and below you a rugged canyon clove the battlement hills, making a sombre gateway through which a soft-tinted desert was glimpsed, with the silver thread of a river winding through it, bordered with trees which many miles of distance diminished to a delicate fringe; and still further away the snowy mountains rose up and stretched their long barrier to the filmy horizon – far enough beyond a lake that burned in the desert like a fallen sun, though that. Itself, lay fifty miles removed.
Look from your window where you would, there was fascination in the picture. At rare intervals – but very rare – there were clouds in our skies, and then the setting sun would gild and flush and glorify this mighty expanse of scenery with a bewildering pomp of color that held the eye like a spell and moved the spirit like music.
From the book “Roughing it” written by “Mark Twain.”