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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of On Horseback, by Charles Dudley Warner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: On Horseback
+
+Author: Charles Dudley Warner
+
+Release Date: August 20, 2016 [EBook #3126]
+Last Updated: February 24, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON HORSEBACK ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+ON HORSEBACK
+
+By Charles Dudley Warner
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+“The way to mount a horse”--said the Professor.
+
+“If you have no ladder--put in the Friend of Humanity.”
+
+The Professor had ridden through the war for the Union on the right
+side, enjoying a much better view of it than if he had walked, and knew
+as much about a horse as a person ought to know for the sake of his
+character. The man who can recite the tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims,
+on horseback, giving the contemporary pronunciation, never missing an
+accent by reason of the trot, and at the same time witch North Carolina
+and a strip of East Tennessee with his noble horsemanship, is a kind of
+Literary Centaur of whose double instruction any Friend of Humanity may
+be glad to avail himself.
+
+“The way to mount a horse is to grasp the mane with the left hand
+holding the bridle-rein, put your left foot in the stirrup, with the
+right hand on the back of the saddle, and---”
+
+Just then the horse stepped quickly around on his hind feet, and looked
+the Professor in the face. The Superintendents of Affairs, who occupy
+the flagging in front of the hotel, seated in cane-bottomed chairs
+tilted back, smiled. These useful persons appear to have a life-lease
+of this portion of the city pavement, and pretty effectually block it up
+nearly all day and evening. When a lady wishes to make her way through
+the blockade, it is the habit of these observers of life to rise and
+make room, touching their hats, while she picks her way through, and
+goes down the street with a pretty consciousness of the flutter she
+has caused. The war has not changed the Southern habit of sitting
+out-of-doors, but has added a new element of street picturesqueness in
+groups of colored people lounging about the corners. There appears to be
+more leisure than ever.
+
+The scene of this little lesson in horsemanship was the old town of
+Abingdon, in southwest Virginia, on the Virginia and East Tennessee
+railway; a town of ancient respectability, which gave birth to the
+Johnstons and Floyds and other notable people; a town, that still
+preserves the flavor of excellent tobacco and, something of the
+easy-going habits of the days of slavery, and is a sort of educational
+center, where the young ladies of the region add the final graces of
+intellectual life in moral philosophy and the use of the globes to their
+natural gifts. The mansion of the late and left Floyd is now a seminary,
+and not far from it is the Stonewall Jackson Institute, in the midst
+of a grove of splendid oaks, whose stately boles and wide-spreading
+branches give a dignity to educational life. The distinction of the
+region is its superb oak-trees. As it was vacation in these institutions
+of learning, the travelers did not see any of the vines that
+traditionally cling to the oak.
+
+The Professor and the Friend of Humanity were about starting on a
+journey, across country southward, through regions about which the
+people of Abingdon could give little useful information. If the
+travelers had known the capacities and resources of the country, they
+would not have started without a supply train, or the establishment
+of bases of provisions in advance. But, as the Professor remarked,
+knowledge is something that one acquires when he has no use for it. The
+horses were saddled; the riders were equipped with flannel shirts and
+leather leggings; the saddle-bags were stuffed with clean linen, and
+novels, and sonnets of Shakespeare, and other baggage, it would have
+been well if they had been stuffed with hard-tack, for in real life meat
+is more than raiment.
+
+The hotel, in front of which there is cultivated so much of what the
+Germans call sitzfleisch, is a fair type of the majority of Southern
+hotels, and differs from the same class in the North in being left a
+little more to run itself. The only information we obtained about it was
+from its porter at the station, who replied to the question, “Is it
+the best?” “We warrant you perfect satisfaction in every respect.”
+ This seems to be only a formula of expression, for we found that
+the statement was highly colored. It was left to our imagination to
+conjecture how the big chambers of the old house, with their gaping
+fireplaces, might have looked when furnished and filled with gay
+company, and we got what satisfaction we could out of a bygone bustle
+and mint-julep hilarity. In our struggles with the porter to obtain the
+little items of soap, water, and towels, we were convinced that we had
+arrived too late, and that for perfect satisfaction we should have been
+here before the war. It was not always as now. In colonial days the
+accommodations and prices at inns were regulated by law. In the old
+records in the court-house we read that if we had been here in 1777, we
+could have had a gallon of good rum for sixteen shillings; a quart bowl
+of rum toddy made with loaf sugar for two shillings, or with brown sugar
+for one shilling and sixpence. In 1779 prices had risen. Good rum sold
+for four pounds a gallon. It was ordered that a warm dinner should cost
+twelve shillings, a cold dinner nine shillings, and a good breakfast
+twelve shillings. But the item that pleased us most, and made us regret
+our late advent, was that for two shillings we could have had a “good
+lodging, with clean sheets.” The colonists were fastidious people.
+
+Abingdon, prettily situated on rolling hills, and a couple of thousand
+feet above the sea, with views of mountain peaks to the south, is a
+cheerful and not too exciting place for a brief sojourn, and hospitable
+and helpful to the stranger. We had dined--so much, at least, the public
+would expect of us--with a descendant of Pocahontas; we had assisted on
+Sunday morning at the dedication of a new brick Methodist church, the
+finest edifice in the region--a dedication that took a long time, since
+the bishop would not proceed with it until money enough was raised in
+open meeting to pay the balance due on it: a religious act, though it
+did give a business aspect to the place at the time; and we had been the
+light spots in the evening service at the most aristocratic church of
+color. The irresponsibility of this amiable race was exhibited in the
+tardiness with which they assembled: at the appointed time nobody was
+there except the sexton; it was three quarters of an hour before the
+congregation began to saunter in, and the sermon was nearly over before
+the pews were at all filled. Perhaps the sermon was not new, but it was
+fervid, and at times the able preacher roared so that articulate sounds
+were lost in the general effect. It was precisely these passages of
+cataracts of sound and hard breathing which excited the liveliest
+responses,--“Yes, Lord,” and “Glory to God.” Most of these responses
+came from the “Amen corner.” The sermon contained the usual vivid
+description of the last judgment--ah, and I fancied that the
+congregation did not get the ordinary satisfaction out of it. Fashion
+had entered the fold, and the singing was mostly executed by a choir in
+the dusky gallery, who thinly and harshly warbled the emotional hymns.
+It occupied the minister a long time to give out the notices of the
+week, and there was not an evening or afternoon that had not its
+meetings, its literary or social gathering, its picnic or fair for the
+benefit of the church, its Dorcas society, or some occasion of religious
+sociability. The raising of funds appeared to be the burden on the
+preacher's mind. Two collections were taken up. At the first, the boxes
+appeared to get no supply except from the two white trash present. But
+the second was more successful. After the sermon was over, an elder
+took his place at a table within the rails, and the real business of the
+evening began. Somebody in the Amen corner struck up a tune that had
+no end, but a mighty power of setting the congregation in motion. The
+leader had a voice like the pleasant droning of a bag-pipe, and the
+faculty of emitting a continuous note like that instrument, without
+stopping to breathe. It went on and on like a Bach fugue, winding and
+whining its way, turning the corners of the lines of the catch without a
+break. The effect was soon visible in the emotional crowd: feet began
+to move in a regular cadence and voices to join in, with spurts of
+ejaculation; and soon, with an air of martyrdom, the members began
+to leave their seats and pass before the table and deposit their
+contributions. It was a cent contribution, and we found it very
+difficult, under the contagious influence of the hum from the Amen
+corner, not to rise and go forward and deposit a cent. If anything could
+extract the pennies from a reluctant worldling, it would be the buzzing
+of this tune. It went on and on, until the house appeared to be drained
+dry of its cash; and we inferred by the stopping of the melody that
+the preacher's salary was secure for the time being. On inquiring,
+we ascertained that the pecuniary flood that evening had risen to the
+height of a dollar and sixty cents.
+
+All was ready for the start. It should have been early in the morning,
+but it was not; for Virginia is not only one of the blessed regions
+where one can get a late breakfast, but where it is almost impossible to
+get an early one. At ten A. M. the two horsemen rode away out of sight
+of the Abingdon spectators, down the eastern turnpike. The day was warm,
+but the air was full of vitality and the spirit of adventure. It was
+the 22d of July. The horses were not ambitious, but went on at an easy
+fox-trot that permits observation and encourages conversation. It
+had been stipulated that the horses should be good walkers, the one
+essential thing in a horseback journey. Few horses, even in a country
+where riding is general, are trained to walk fast. We hear much of
+horses that can walk five miles an hour, but they are as rare as white
+elephants. Our horses were only fair walkers. We realized how necessary
+this accomplishment is, for between the Tennessee line and Asheville,
+North Carolina, there is scarcely a mile of trotting-ground.
+
+We soon turned southward and descended into the Holston River Valley.
+Beyond lay the Tennessee hills and conspicuous White-Top Mountain (5530
+feet), which has a good deal of local celebrity (standing where the
+States of Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina corner), and had been
+pointed out to us at Abingdon. We had been urged, personally and
+by letter, to ascend this mountain, without fail. People recommend
+mountains to their friends as they do patent medicines. As we leisurely
+jogged along we discussed this, and endeavored to arrive at some rule of
+conduct for the journey. The Professor expressed at once a feeling about
+mountain-climbing that amounted to hostility,--he would go nowhere that
+he could not ride. Climbing was the most unsatisfactory use to which a
+mountain could be put. As to White-Top, it was a small mountain, and
+not worth ascending. The Friend of Humanity, who believes in
+mountain-climbing as a theory, and for other people, and knows the value
+of being able to say, without detection, that he has ascended any high
+mountain about which he is questioned,--since this question is the first
+one asked about an exploration in a new country,--saw that he should
+have to use a good deal of diplomacy to get the Professor over any
+considerable elevation on the trip. And he had to confess also that a
+view from a mountain is never so satisfactory as a view of a mountain,
+from a moderate height. The Professor, however, did not argue the matter
+on any such reasonable ground, but took his stand on his right as a
+man not to ascend a mountain. With this appeal to first principles,--a
+position that could not be confuted on account of its vagueness
+(although it might probably be demonstrated that in society man has no
+such right), there was no way of agreement except by a compromise. It
+was accordingly agreed that no mountain under six thousand feet is worth
+ascending; that disposed of White-Top. It was further agreed that any
+mountain that is over six thousand feet high is too high to ascend on
+foot.
+
+With this amicable adjustment we forded the Holston, crossing it twice
+within a few miles. This upper branch of the Tennessee is a noble
+stream, broad, with a rocky bed and a swift current. Fording it is
+ticklish business except at comparatively low water, and as it
+is subject to sudden rises, there must be times when it seriously
+interrupts travel. This whole region, full of swift streams, is without
+a bridge, and, as a consequence, getting over rivers and brooks and
+the dangers of ferries occupy a prominent place in the thoughts of
+the inhabitants. The life necessarily had the “frontier” quality all
+through, for there can be little solid advance in civilization in the
+uncertainties of a bridgeless condition. An open, pleasant valley, the
+Holston, but cultivation is more and more negligent and houses are few
+and poorer as we advance.
+
+We had left behind the hotels of “perfect satisfaction,” and expected
+to live on the country, trusting to the infrequent but remunerated
+hospitality of the widely scattered inhabitants. We were to dine at
+Ramsey's. Ramsey's had been recommended to us as a royal place of
+entertainment the best in all that region; and as the sun grew hot in
+the sandy valley, and the weariness of noon fell upon us, we magnified
+Ramsey's in our imagination,--the nobility of its situation, its
+cuisine, its inviting restfulness,--and half decided to pass the night
+there in the true abandon of plantation life. Long before we reached
+it, the Holston River which we followed had become the Laurel, a most
+lovely, rocky, winding stream, which we forded continually, for the
+valley became too narrow much of the way to accommodate a road and
+a river. Eagerly as we were looking out for it, we passed the great
+Ramsey's without knowing it, for it was the first of a little settlement
+of two houses and a saw-mill and barn. It was a neat log house of two
+lower rooms and a summer kitchen, quite the best of the class that we
+saw, and the pleasant mistress of it made us welcome. Across the road
+and close, to the Laurel was the spring-house, the invariable adjunct
+to every well-to-do house in the region, and on the stony margin of
+the stream was set up the big caldron for the family washing; and
+here, paddling in the shallow stream, while dinner was preparing, we
+established an intimacy with the children and exchanged philosophical
+observations on life with the old negress who was dabbling the clothes.
+What impressed this woman was the inequality in life. She jumped to the
+unwarranted conclusion that the Professor and the Friend were very rich,
+and spoke with asperity of the difficulty she experienced in getting
+shoes and tobacco. It was useless to point out to her that her alfresco
+life was singularly blessed and free from care, and the happy lot of
+any one who could loiter all day by this laughing stream, undisturbed by
+debt or ambition. Everybody about the place was barefooted, except the
+mistress, including the comely daughter of eighteen, who served our
+dinner in the kitchen. The dinner was abundant, and though it seemed
+to us incongruous at the time, we were not twelve hours older when we
+looked back upon it with longing. On the table were hot biscuit, ham,
+pork, and green beans, apple-sauce, blackberry preserves, cucumbers,
+coffee, plenty of milk, honey, and apple and blackberry pie. Here we had
+our first experience, and I may say new sensation, of “honey on pie.” It
+has a cloying sound as it is written, but the handmaiden recommended it
+with enthusiasm, and we evidently fell in her esteem, as persons from
+an uncultivated society, when we declared our inexperience of “honey on
+pie.” “Where be you from?” It turned out to be very good, and we have
+tried to introduce it in families since our return, with indifferent
+success. There did not seem to be in this family much curiosity about
+the world at large, nor much stir of social life. The gayety of madame
+appeared to consist in an occasional visit to paw and maw and grandmaw,
+up the river a few miles, where she was raised.
+
+Refreshed by the honey and fodder at Ramsey's, the pilgrims went gayly
+along the musical Laurel, in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun,
+which played upon the rapids and illumined all the woody way. Inspired
+by the misapprehension of the colored philosopher and the dainties of
+the dinner, the Professor soliloquized:
+
+  “So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
+   Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
+   The which he will not every hour survey,
+   For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
+   Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
+   Since seldom coming, in the long year set,
+   Like stones of wealth they thinly placed are,
+   Or captain jewels in the carcanet.”
+
+Five miles beyond Ramsey's the Tennessee line was crossed. The Laurel
+became more rocky, swift, full of rapids, and the valley narrowed down
+to the riverway, with standing room, however, for stately trees along
+the banks. The oaks, both black and white, were, as they had been
+all day, gigantic in size and splendid in foliage. There is a certain
+dignity in riding in such stately company, and the travelers clattered
+along over the stony road under the impression of possible high
+adventure in a new world of such freshness. Nor was beauty wanting. The
+rhododendrons had, perhaps, a week ago reached their climax, and now
+began to strew the water and the ground with their brilliant petals,
+dashing all the way with color; but they were still matchlessly
+beautiful. Great banks of pink and white covered the steep hillsides;
+the bending stems, ten to twenty feet high, hung their rich clusters
+over the river; avenues of glory opened away in the glade of the stream;
+and at every turn of the winding way vistas glowing with the hues
+of romance wrenched exclamations of delight and wonder from the
+Shakespearean sonneteer and his humble Friend. In the deep recesses of
+the forest suddenly flamed to the view, like the splashes of splendor
+on the somber canvas of an old Venetian, these wonders of color,--the
+glowing summer-heart of the woods.
+
+It was difficult to say, meantime, whether the road was laid out in the
+river, or the river in the road. In the few miles to Egger's (this was
+the destination of our great expectations for the night) the stream was
+crossed twenty-seven times,--or perhaps it would be more proper to say
+that the road was crossed twenty-seven times. Where the road did not
+run in the river, its bed was washed out and as stony as the bed of the
+stream. This is a general and accurate description of all the roads
+in this region, which wind along and in the streams, through narrow
+valleys, shut in by low and steep hills. The country is full of springs
+and streams, and between Abingdon and Egger's is only one (small)
+bridge. In a region with scarcely any level land or intervale, farmers
+are at a disadvantage. All along the road we saw nothing but mean
+shanties, generally of logs, with now and then a decent one-story frame,
+and the people looked miserably poor.
+
+As we picked our way along up the Laurel, obliged for the most part to
+ride single-file, or as the Professor expressed it,
+
+  “Let me confess that we two must be twain,
+   Although our undivided loves are one,”
+
+we gathered information about Egger's from the infrequent hovels on the
+road, which inflamed our imaginations. Egger was the thriving man of
+the region, and lived in style in a big brick house. We began to feel
+a doubt that Egger would take us in, and so much did his brick
+magnificence impress us that we regretted we had not brought apparel fit
+for the society we were about to enter.
+
+It was half-past six, and we were tired and hungry, when the domain
+of Egger towered in sight,--a gaunt, two-story structure of raw brick,
+unfinished, standing in a narrow intervale. We rode up to the gate, and
+asked a man who sat in the front-door porch if this was Egger's, and if
+we could be accommodated for the night. The man, without moving, allowed
+that it was Egger's, and that we could probably stay there. This person,
+however, exhibited so much indifference to our company, he was such a
+hairy, unkempt man, and carried on face, hands, and clothes so much more
+of the soil of the region than a prudent proprietor would divert from
+raising corn, that we set him aside as a poor relation, and asked
+for Mr. Egger. But the man, still without the least hospitable stir,
+admitted that that was the name he went by, and at length advised us to
+“lite” and hitch our horses, and sit on the porch with him and enjoy the
+cool of the evening. The horses would be put up by and by, and in fact
+things generally would come round some time. This turned out to be the
+easy way of the country. Mr. Egger was far from being inhospitable, but
+was in no hurry, and never had been in a hurry. He was not exactly a
+gentleman of the old school. He was better than that. He dated from
+the time when there were no schools at all, and he lived in that placid
+world which is without information and ideas. Mr. Egger showed his
+superiority by a total lack of curiosity about any other world.
+
+This brick house, magnificent by comparison with other dwellings in this
+country, seemed to us, on nearer acquaintance, only a thin, crude shell
+of a house, half unfinished, with bare rooms, the plastering already
+discolored. In point of furnishing it had not yet reached the “God bless
+our Home” stage in crewel. In the narrow meadow, a strip of vivid green
+south of the house, ran a little stream, fed by a copious spring, and
+over it was built the inevitable spring-house. A post, driven into the
+bank by the stream, supported a tin wash-basin, and here we performed
+our ablutions. The traveler gets to like this freedom and primitive
+luxury.
+
+The farm of Egger produces corn, wheat, grass, and sheep; it is a good
+enough farm, but most of it lies at an angle of thirty-five to forty
+degrees. The ridge back of the house, planted in corn, was as steep as
+the roof of his dwelling. It seemed incredible that it ever could have
+been plowed, but the proprietor assured us that it was plowed with
+mules, and I judged that the harvesting must be done by squirrels. The
+soil is good enough, if it would stay in place, but all the hillsides
+are seamed with gullies. The discolored state of the streams was
+accounted for as soon as we saw this cultivated land. No sooner is the
+land cleared of trees and broken up than it begins to wash. We saw more
+of this later, especially in North Carolina, where we encountered no
+stream of water that was not muddy, and saw no cultivated ground that
+was not washed. The process of denudation is going on rapidly wherever
+the original forests are girdled (a common way of preparing for crops),
+or cut away.
+
+As the time passed and there was no sign of supper, the question became
+a burning one, and we went to explore the kitchen. No sign of it there.
+No fire in the stove, nothing cooked in the house, of course. Mrs. Egger
+and her comely young barefooted daughter had still the milking to attend
+to, and supper must wait for the other chores. It seemed easier to be
+Mr. Egger, in this state of existence, and sit on the front porch and
+meditate on the price of mules and the prospect of a crop, than to be
+Mrs. Egger, whose work was not limited from sun to sun; who had, in
+fact, a day's work to do after the men-folks had knocked off; whose
+chances of neighborhood gossip were scanty, whose amusements were
+confined to a religious meeting once a fortnight. Good, honest people
+these, not unduly puffed up by the brick house, grubbing away year in
+and year out. Yes, the young girl said, there was a neighborhood party,
+now and then, in the winter. What a price to pay for mere life!
+
+Long before supper was ready, nearly nine o'clock, we had almost lost
+interest in it. Meantime two other guests had arrived, a couple of
+drovers from North Carolina, who brought into the circle--by this time
+a wood-fire had been kindled in the sitting-room, which contained a bed,
+an almanac, and some old copies of a newspaper--a rich flavor of cattle,
+and talk of the price of steers. As to politics, although a presidential
+campaign was raging, there was scarcely an echo of it here. This was
+Johnson County, Tennessee, a strong Republican county but dog-gone it,
+says Mr. Egger, it's no use to vote; our votes are overborne by the rest
+of the State. Yes, they'd got a Republican member of Congress,--he'd
+heard his name, but he'd forgotten it. The drover said he'd heard it
+also, but he didn't take much interest in such things, though he wasn't
+any Republican. Parties is pretty much all for office, both agreed. Even
+the Professor, who was traveling in the interest of Reform, couldn't
+wake up a discussion out of such a state of mind.
+
+Alas! the supper, served in a room dimly lighted with a smoky lamp, on
+a long table covered with oilcloth, was not of the sort to arouse the
+delayed and now gone appetite of a Reformer, and yet it did not
+lack variety: cornpone (Indian meal stirred up with water and heated
+through), hot biscuit, slack-baked and livid, fried salt-pork swimming
+in grease, apple-butter, pickled beets, onions and cucumbers raw, coffee
+(so-called), buttermilk, and sweet milk when specially asked for (the
+correct taste, however, is for buttermilk), and pie. This was not the
+pie of commerce, but the pie of the country,--two thick slabs of
+dough, with a squeezing of apple between. The profusion of this supper
+staggered the novices, but the drovers attacked it as if such cooking
+were a common occurrence and did justice to the weary labors of Mrs.
+Egger.
+
+Egger is well prepared to entertain strangers, having several rooms and
+several beds in each room. Upon consultation with the drovers, they said
+they'd just as soon occupy an apartment by themselves, and we gave up
+their society for the night. The beds in our chamber had each one sheet,
+and the room otherwise gave evidence of the modern spirit; for in one
+corner stood the fashionable aesthetic decoration of our Queen Anne
+drawing-rooms,--the spinning-wheel. Soothed by this concession to taste,
+we crowded in between the straw and the home-made blanket and sheet, and
+soon ceased to hear the barking of dogs and the horned encounters of the
+drovers' herd.
+
+We parted with Mr. Egger after breakfast (which was a close copy of
+the supper) with more respect than regret. His total charge for
+the entertainment of two men and two horses--supper, lodging, and
+breakfast--was high or low, as the traveler chose to estimate it. It was
+$1.20: that is, thirty cents for each individual, or ten cents for each
+meal and lodging.
+
+Our road was a sort of by-way up Gentry Creek and over the Cut Laurel
+Gap to Worth's, at Creston Post Office, in North Carolina,--the next
+available halting place, said to be fifteen miles distant, and turning
+out to be twenty-two, and a rough road. There is a little settlement
+about Egger's, and the first half mile of our way we had the company of
+the schoolmistress, a modest, pleasant-spoken girl. Neither she nor
+any other people we encountered had any dialect or local peculiarity of
+speech. Indeed, those we encountered that morning had nothing in manner
+or accent to distinguish them. The novelists had led us to expect
+something different; and the modest and pretty young lady with frank and
+open blue eyes, who wore gloves and used the common English speech, had
+never figured in the fiction of the region. Cherished illusions vanish
+often on near approach. The day gave no peculiarity of speech to note,
+except the occasional use of “hit” for “it.”
+
+The road over Cut Laurel Gap was very steep and stony, the thermometer
+mounted up to 80 deg., and, notwithstanding the beauty of the way, the
+ride became tedious before we reached the summit. On the summit is the
+dwelling and distillery of a colonel famous in these parts. We stopped
+at the house for a glass of milk; the colonel was absent, and while the
+woman in charge went after it, we sat on the veranda and conversed with
+a young lady, tall, gent, well favored, and communicative, who leaned in
+the doorway.
+
+“Yes, this house stands on the line. Where you sit, you are in
+Tennessee; I'm in North Carolina.”
+
+“Do you live here?”
+
+“Law, no; I'm just staying a little while at the colonel's. I live over
+the mountain here, three miles from Taylorsville. I thought I'd be where
+I could step into North Carolina easy.”
+
+“How's that?”
+
+“Well, they wanted me to go before the grand jury and testify about
+some pistol-shooting down by our house, some friends of mine got into
+a little difficulty,--and I did n't want to. I never has no difficulty
+with nobody, never says nothing about nobody, has nothing against
+nobody, and I reckon nobody has nothing against me.”
+
+“Did you come alone?”
+
+“Why, of course. I come across the mountain by a path through the woods.
+That's nothing.”
+
+A discreet, pleasant, pretty girl. This surely must be the Esmeralda who
+lives in these mountains, and adorns low life by her virgin purity
+and sentiment. As she talked on, she turned from time to time to the
+fireplace behind her, and discharged a dark fluid from her pretty lips,
+with accuracy of aim, and with a nonchalance that was not assumed, but
+belongs to our free-born American girls. I cannot tell why this habit of
+hers (which is no worse than the sister habit of “dipping”) should take
+her out of the romantic setting that her face and figure had placed her
+in; but somehow we felt inclined to ride on farther for our heroine.
+
+“And yet,” said the Professor, as we left the site of the colonel's
+thriving distillery, and by a winding, picturesque road through a rough
+farming country descended into the valley,--“and yet, why fling aside
+so readily a character and situation so full of romance, on account of
+a habit of this mountain Helen, which one of our best poets has almost
+made poetical, in the case of the pioneer taking his westward way, with
+ox-goad pointing to the sky:
+
+  “'He's leaving on the pictured rock
+   His fresh tobacco stain.'
+
+“To my mind the incident has Homeric elements. The Greeks would have
+looked at it in a large, legendary way. Here is Helen, strong and lithe
+of limb, ox-eyed, courageous, but woman-hearted and love-inspiring,
+contended for by all the braves and daring moonshiners of Cut Laurel
+Gap, pursued by the gallants of two States, the prize of a border
+warfare of bowie knives and revolvers. This Helen, magnanimous as
+attractive, is the witness of a pistol difficulty on her behalf, and
+when wanted by the areopagus, that she may neither implicate a lover
+nor punish an enemy (having nothing, this noble type of her sex against
+nobody), skips away to Mount Ida, and there, under the aegis of the flag
+of her country, in a Licensed Distillery, stands with one slender foot
+in Tennessee and the other in North Carolina...”
+
+“Like the figure of the Republic itself, superior to state sovereignty,”
+ interposed the Friend.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said the Professor, urging up Laura Matilda (for
+so he called the nervous mare, who fretted herself into a fever in the
+stony path), “I was quite able to get the woman out of that position
+without the aid of a metaphor. It is a large and Greek idea, that of
+standing in two mighty States, superior to the law, looking east and
+looking west, ready to transfer her agile body to either State on the
+approach of messengers of the court; and I'll be hanged if I didn't
+think that her nonchalant rumination of the weed, combined with her
+lofty moral attitude, added something to the picture.”
+
+The Friend said that he was quite willing to join in the extremest
+defense of the privileges of beauty,--that he even held in abeyance
+judgment on the practice of dipping; but when it came to chewing, gum
+was as far as he could go as an allowance for the fair sex.
+
+  “When I consider everything that grows
+   Holds in perfection but a little moment...”
+
+The rest of the stanza was lost, for the Professor was splashing through
+the stream. No sooner had we descended than the fording of streams
+began again. The Friend had been obliged to stipulate that the Professor
+should go ahead at these crossings, to keep the impetuous nag of the
+latter from throwing half the contents of the stream upon his slower and
+uncomplaining companion.
+
+What a lovely country, but for the heat of noon and the long
+wearisomeness of the way!--not that the distance was great, but miles
+and miles more than expected. How charming the open glades of the
+river, how refreshing the great forests of oak and chestnut, and what a
+panorama of beauty the banks of rhododendrons, now intermingled with the
+lighter pink and white of the laurel! In this region the rhododendron is
+called laurel and the laurel (the sheep-laurel of New England) is called
+ivy.
+
+At Worth's, well on in the afternoon, we emerged into a wide, open
+farming intervale, a pleasant place of meadows and streams and decent
+dwellings. Worth's is the trading center of the region, has a post
+office and a saw-mill and a big country store; and the dwelling of the
+proprietor is not unlike a roomy New England country house. Worth's
+has been immemorially a stopping-place in a region where places of
+accommodation are few. The proprietor, now an elderly man, whose
+reminiscences are long ante bellum, has seen the world grow up about
+him, he the honored, just center of it, and a family come up into the
+modern notions of life, with a boarding-school education and glimpses of
+city life and foreign travel. I fancy that nothing but tradition and
+a remaining Southern hospitality could induce this private family to
+suffer the incursions of this wayfaring man. Our travelers are not apt
+to be surprised at anything in American life, but they did not expect to
+find a house in this region with two pianos and a bevy of young ladies,
+whose clothes were certainly not made on Cut Laurel Gap, and to read
+in the books scattered about the house the evidences of the finishing
+schools with which our country is blessed, nor to find here pupils
+of the Stonewall Jackson Institute at Abingdon. With a flush of local
+pride, the Professor took up, in the roomy, pleasant chamber set apart
+for the guests, a copy of Porter's “Elements of Moral Science.”
+
+“Where you see the 'Elements of Moral Science,'” the Friend generalized,
+“there'll be plenty of water and towels;” and the sign did not fail. The
+friends intended to read this book in the cool of the day; but as they
+sat on the long veranda, the voice of a maiden reading the latest novel
+to a sewing group behind the blinds in the drawing-room; and the antics
+of a mule and a boy in front of the store opposite; and the arrival of
+a spruce young man, who had just ridden over from somewhere, a matter
+of ten miles' gallop, to get a medicinal potion for his sick mother, and
+lingered chatting with the young ladies until we began to fear that his
+mother would recover before his return; the coming and going of lean
+women in shackly wagons to trade at the store; the coming home of the
+cows, splashing through the stream, hooking right and left, and lowing
+for the hand of the milker,--all these interruptions, together with the
+generally drowsy quiet of the approach of evening, interfered with the
+study of the Elements. And when the travelers, after a refreshing rest,
+went on their way next morning, considering the Elements and the pianos
+and the refinement, to say nothing of the cuisine, which is not treated
+of in the text-book referred to, they were content with a bill double
+that of brother Egger, in his brick magnificence.
+
+The simple truth is, that the traveler in this region must be content
+to feed on natural beauties. And it is an unfortunate truth in natural
+history that the appetite for this sort of diet fails after a time,
+if the inner man is not supplied with other sort of food. There is no
+landscape in the world that is agreeable after two days of rusty-bacon
+and slack biscuit.
+
+“How lovely this would be,” exclaimed the Professor, if it had a
+background of beefsteak and coffee!
+
+We were riding along the west fork of the Laurel, distinguished locally
+as Three Top Creek,--or, rather, we were riding in it, crossing it
+thirty-one times within six miles; a charming wood (and water) road,
+under the shade of fine trees with the rhododendron illuminating the
+way, gleaming in the forest and reflected in the stream, all the ten
+miles to Elk Cross Roads, our next destination. We had heard a great
+deal about Elk Cross Roads; it was on the map, it was down in the
+itinerary furnished by a member of the Coast Survey. We looked forward
+to it as a sweet place of repose from the noontide heat. Alas! Elk
+Cross Roads is a dirty grocery store, encumbered with dry-goods boxes,
+fly-blown goods, flies, loafers. In reply to our inquiry we were told
+that they had nothing to eat, for us, and not a grain of feed for the
+horses. But there was a man a mile farther on, who was well to do and
+had stores of food,--old man Tatern would treat us in bang-up style. The
+difficulty of getting feed for the horses was chronic all through the
+journey. The last corn crop had failed, the new oats and corn had not
+come in, and the country was literally barren. We had noticed all along
+that the hens were taking a vacation, and that chickens were not put
+forward as an article of diet.
+
+We were unable, when we reached the residence of old man Tatem, to
+imagine how the local superstition of his wealth arose. His house is
+of logs, with two rooms, a kitchen and a spare room, with a low loft
+accessible by a ladder at the side of the chimney. The chimney is a huge
+construction of stone, separating the two parts of the house; in fact,
+the chimney was built first, apparently, and the two rooms were then
+built against it. The proprietor sat in a little railed veranda. These
+Southern verandas give an air to the meanest dwelling, and they are much
+used; the family sit here, and here are the washbasin and pail (which is
+filled from the neighboring spring-house), and the row of milk-pans.
+The old man Tatern did not welcome us with enthusiasm; he had no
+corn,--these were hard times. He looked like hard times, grizzled times,
+dirty times. It seemed time out of mind since he had seen comb or razor,
+and although the lovely New River, along which we had ridden to his
+house,--a broad, inviting stream,--was in sight across the meadow, there
+was no evidence that he had ever made acquaintance with its cleansing
+waters. As to corn, the necessities of the case and pay being dwelt on,
+perhaps he could find a dozen ears. A dozen small cars he did find, and
+we trust that the horses found them.
+
+We took a family dinner with old man Tatern in the kitchen, where there
+was a bed and a stove,--a meal that the host seemed to enjoy, but which
+we could not make much of, except the milk; that was good. A painful
+meal, on the whole, owing to the presence in the room of a grown-up
+daughter with a graveyard cough, without physician or medicine, or
+comforts. Poor girl! just dying of “a misery.”
+
+In the spare room were two beds; the walls were decorated with the
+gay-colored pictures of patent-medicine advertisements--a favorite art
+adornment of the region; and a pile of ancient illustrated papers with
+the usual patent-office report, the thoughtful gift of the member for
+the district. The old man takes in the “Blue Ridge Baptist,” a journal
+which we found largely taken up with the experiences of its editor on
+his journeys roundabout in search of subscribers. This newspaper was the
+sole communication of the family with the world at large, but the old
+man thought he should stop it,--he did n't seem to get the worth of his
+money out of it. And old man Tatem was a thrifty and provident man. On
+the hearth in this best room--as ornaments or memento mori were a couple
+of marble gravestones, a short headstone and foot-stone, mounted on
+bases and ready for use, except the lettering. These may not have been
+so mournful and significant as they looked, nor the evidence of simple,
+humble faith; they may have been taken for debt. But as parlor ornaments
+they had a fascination which we could not escape.
+
+It was while we were bathing in the New River, that afternoon, and
+meditating on the grim, unrelieved sort of life of our host, that the
+Professor said, “judging by the face of the 'Blue Ridge Baptist,' he
+will charge us smartly for the few nubbins of corn and the milk.” The
+face did not deceive us; the charge was one dollar. At this rate it
+would have broken us to have tarried with old man Tatem (perhaps he is
+not old, but that is the name he goes by) over night.
+
+It was a hot afternoon, and it needed some courage to mount and climb
+the sandy hill leading us away from the corn-crib of Tatem. But we
+entered almost immediately into fine stretches of forest, and rode under
+the shade of great oaks. The way, which began by the New River, soon led
+us over the hills to the higher levels of Watauga County. So far on our
+journey we had been hemmed in by low hills, and without any distant
+or mountain outlooks. The excessive heat seemed out of place at the
+elevation of over two thousand feet, on which we were traveling. Boone,
+the county seat of Watauga County, was our destination, and, ever since
+morning, the guideboards and the trend of the roads had notified us that
+everything in this region tends towards Boone as a center of interest.
+The simple ingenuity of some of the guide-boards impressed us. If, on
+coming to a fork, the traveler was to turn to the right, the sign read,
+
+   To BOONE 10 M.
+If he was to go to the left, it read, .M 01 ENOOB oT
+
+A short ride of nine miles, on an ascending road, through an open,
+unfenced forest region, brought us long before sundown to this capital.
+When we had ridden into its single street, which wanders over gentle
+hills, and landed at the most promising of the taverns, the Friend
+informed his comrade that Boone was 3250 feet above Albemarle Sound, and
+believed by its inhabitants to be the highest village east of the
+Rocky Mountains. The Professor said that it might be so, but it was a
+God-forsaken place. Its inhabitants numbered perhaps two hundred and
+fifty, a few of them colored. It had a gaunt, shaky court-house and
+jail, a store or two, and two taverns. The two taverns are needed to
+accommodate the judges and lawyers and their clients during the session
+of the court. The court is the only excitement and the only amusement.
+It is the event from which other events date. Everybody in the county
+knows exactly when court sits, and when court breaks. During the session
+the whole county is practically in Boone, men, women, and children.
+They camp there, they attend the trials, they take sides; half of
+them, perhaps, are witnesses, for the region is litigious, and the
+neighborhood quarrels are entered into with spirit. To be fond of
+lawsuits seems a characteristic of an isolated people in new conditions.
+The early settlers of New England were.
+
+Notwithstanding the elevation of Boone, which insured a pure air, the
+thermometer that afternoon stood at from 85 to 89 deg. The flies enjoyed
+it. How they swarmed in this tavern! They would have carried off all
+the food from the dining-room table (for flies do not mind eating
+off oilcloth, and are not particular how food is cooked), but for the
+machine with hanging flappers that swept the length of it; and they
+destroy all possibility of sleep except in the dark. The mountain
+regions of North Carolina are free from mosquitoes, but the fly has
+settled there, and is the universal scourge. This tavern, one end of
+which was a store, had a veranda in front, and a back gallery, where
+there were evidences of female refinement in pots of plants and flowers.
+The landlord himself kept tavern very much as a hostler would, but we
+had to make a note in his favor that he had never heard of a milk punch.
+And it might as well be said here, for it will have to be insisted on
+later, that the traveler, who has read about the illicit stills till
+his imagination dwells upon the indulgence of his vitiated tastes in the
+mountains of North Carolina, is doomed to disappointment. If he wants
+to make himself an exception to the sober people whose cooking will make
+him long for the maddening bowl, he must bring his poison with him.
+We had found no bread since we left Virginia; we had seen cornmeal and
+water, slack-baked; we had seen potatoes fried in grease, and bacon
+incrusted with salt (all thirst-provokers), but nothing to drink
+stronger than buttermilk. And we can say that, so far as our example
+is concerned, we left the country as temperate as we found it. How can
+there be mint juleps (to go into details) without ice? and in the summer
+there is probably not a pound of ice in all the State north of Buncombe
+County.
+
+There is nothing special to be said about Boone. We were anxious to
+reach it, we were glad to leave it; we note as to all these places
+that our joy at departing always exceeds that on arriving, which is
+a merciful provision of nature for people who must keep moving. This
+country is settled by genuine Americans, who have the aboriginal
+primitive traits of the universal Yankee nation. The front porch in the
+morning resembled a carpenter's shop; it was literally covered with the
+whittlings of the row of natives who had spent the evening there in the
+sedative occupation of whittling.
+
+We took that morning a forest road to Valle Crusis, seven miles, through
+noble growths of oaks, chestnuts, hemlocks, rhododendrons,--a charming
+wood road, leading to a place that, as usual, did not keep the promise
+of its name. Valle Crusis has a blacksmith shop and a dirty, flyblown
+store. While the Professor consulted the blacksmith about a loose shoe,
+the Friend carried his weariness of life without provisions up to a
+white house on the hill, and negotiated for boiled milk. This house was
+occupied by flies. They must have numbered millions, settled in black
+swarms, covering tables, beds, walls, the veranda; the kitchen was
+simply a hive of them. The only book in sight, Whewell's--“Elements of
+Morality,” seemed to attract flies. Query, Why should this have such a
+different effect from Porter's? A white house,--a pleasant-looking
+house at a distance,--amiable, kindly people in it,--why should we have
+arrived there on its dirty day? Alas! if we had been starving, Valle
+Crusis had nothing to offer us.
+
+So we rode away, in the blazing heat, no poetry exuding from the
+Professor, eight miles to Banner's Elk, crossing a mountain and passing
+under Hanging Rock, a conspicuous feature in the landscape, and the only
+outcropping of rock we had seen: the face of a ledge, rounded up into
+the sky, with a green hood on it. From the summit we had the first
+extensive prospect during our journey. The road can be described as
+awful,--steep, stony, the horses unable to make two miles an hour on it.
+Now and then we encountered a rude log cabin without barns or outhouses,
+and a little patch of feeble corn. The women who regarded the passers
+from their cabin doors were frowzy and looked tired. What with the heat
+and the road and this discouraged appearance of humanity, we reached
+the residence of Dugger, at Banner's Elk, to which we had been directed,
+nearly exhausted. It is no use to represent this as a dash across
+country on impatient steeds. It was not so. The love of truth is
+stronger than the desire of display. And for this reason it is
+impossible to say that Mr. Dugger, who is an excellent man, lives in
+a clean and attractive house, or that he offers much that the pampered
+child of civilization can eat. But we shall not forget the two eggs,
+fresh from the hens, whose temperature must have been above the normal,
+nor the spring-house in the glen, where we found a refuge from the flies
+and the heat. The higher we go, the hotter it is. Banner's Elk boasts an
+elevation of thirty-five to thirty-seven hundred feet.
+
+We were not sorry, towards sunset, to descend along the Elk River
+towards Cranberry Forge. The Elk is a lovely stream, and, though not
+very clear, has a reputation for trout; but all this region was under
+operation of a three-years game law, to give the trout a chance to
+multiply, and we had no opportunity to test the value of its reputation.
+Yet a boy whom we encountered had a good string of quarter-pound trout,
+which he had taken out with a hook and a feather rudely tied on it, to
+resemble a fly. The road, though not to be commended, was much better
+than that of the morning, the forests grew charming in the cool of the
+evening, the whippoorwill sang, and as night fell the wanderers, in
+want of nearly everything that makes life desirable, stopped at the Iron
+Company's hotel, under the impression that it was the only comfortable
+hotel in North Carolina.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Cranberry Forge is the first wedge of civilization fairly driven into
+the northwest mountains of North Carolina. A narrow-gauge railway,
+starting from Johnson City, follows up the narrow gorge of the Doe
+River, and pushes into the heart of the iron mines at Cranberry,
+where there is a blast furnace; and where a big company store, rows of
+tenement houses, heaps of slag and refuse ore, interlacing tracks, raw
+embankments, denuded hillsides, and a blackened landscape, are the signs
+of a great devastating American enterprise. The Cranberry iron is in
+great esteem, as it has the peculiar quality of the Swedish iron. There
+are remains of old furnaces lower down the stream, which we passed on
+our way. The present “plant” is that of a Philadelphia company,
+whose enterprise has infused new life into all this region, made it
+accessible, and spoiled some pretty scenery.
+
+When we alighted, weary, at the gate of the pretty hotel, which crowns
+a gentle hill and commands a pleasing, evergreen prospect of many gentle
+hills, a mile or so below the works, and wholly removed from all sordid
+associations, we were at the point of willingness that the whole country
+should be devastated by civilization. In the local imagination this
+hotel of the company is a palace of unequaled magnificence, but probably
+its good taste, comfort, and quiet elegance are not appreciated after
+all. There is this to be said about Philadelphia,--and it will go far
+in pleading for it in the Last Day against its monotonous rectangularity
+and the babel-like ambition of its Public Building,--that wherever its
+influence extends, there will be found comfortable lodgings and the
+luxury of an undeniably excellent cuisine. The visible seal that
+Philadelphia sets on its enterprise all through the South is a good
+hotel.
+
+This Cottage Beautiful has on two sides a wide veranda, set about with
+easy chairs; cheerful parlors and pretty chambers, finished in
+native woods, among which are conspicuous the satin stripes of the
+cucumber-tree; luxurious beds, and an inviting table ordered by a
+Philadelphia landlady, who knows a beefsteak from a boot-tap. Is it
+“low” to dwell upon these things of the senses, when one is on a tour in
+search of the picturesque? Let the reader ride from Abingdon through a
+wilderness of cornpone and rusty bacon, and then judge. There were,
+to be sure, novels lying about, and newspapers, and fragments of
+information to be picked up about a world into which the travelers
+seemed to emerge. They, at least, were satisfied, and went off to their
+rooms with the restful feeling that they had arrived somewhere and no
+unquiet spirit at morn would say “to horse.” To sleep, perchance to
+dream of Tatem and his household cemetery; and the Professor was heard
+muttering in his chamber,
+
+  “Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
+   The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
+   But then begins a journey in my head,
+   To work my mind, when body's work's expir'd.”
+
+The morning was warm (the elevation of the hotel must be between
+twenty-five hundred and three thousand feet), rainy, mildly rainy; and
+the travelers had nothing better to do than lounge upon the veranda,
+read feeble ten-cent fictions, and admire the stems of the white
+birches, glistening in the moisture, and the rhododendron--trees, twenty
+feet high, which were shaking off their last pink blossoms, and look
+down into the valley of the Doe. It is not an exciting landscape,
+nothing bold or specially wild in it, but restful with the monotony of
+some of the wooded Pennsylvania hills.
+
+Sunday came up smiling, a lovely day, but offering no church privileges,
+for the ordinance of preaching is only occasional in this region.
+The ladies of the hotel have, however, gathered in the valley a
+Sunday-school of fifty children from the mountain cabins. A couple
+of rainy days, with the thermometer rising to 80 deg., combined with
+natural laziness to detain the travelers in this cottage of ease. They
+enjoyed this the more because it was on their consciences that they
+should visit Linville Falls, some twenty-five miles eastward, long held
+up before them as the most magnificent feature of this region, and on no
+account to be omitted. Hence, naturally, a strong desire to omit it. The
+Professor takes bold ground against these abnormal freaks of nature, and
+it was nothing to him that the public would demand that we should see
+Linville Falls. In the first place, we could find no one who had ever
+seen them, and we spent two days in catechizing natives and strangers.
+The nearest we came to information was from a workman at the furnace,
+who was born and raised within three miles of the Falls. He had heard
+of people going there. He had never seen them himself. It was a good
+twenty-five miles there, over the worst road in the State we'd think it
+thirty before we got there. Fifty miles of such travel to see a little
+water run down-hill! The travelers reflected. Every country has a local
+waterfall of which it boasts; they had seen a great many. One more would
+add little to the experience of life. The vagueness of information,
+to be sure, lured the travelers to undertake the journey; but the
+temptation was resisted--something ought to be left for the next
+explorer--and so Linville remains a thing of the imagination.
+
+Towards evening, July 29, between showers, the Professor and the Friend
+rode along the narrow-gauge road, down Johnson's Creek, to Roan Station,
+the point of departure for ascending Roan Mountain. It was a ride of
+an hour and a half over a fair road, fringed with rhododendrons, nearly
+blossomless; but at a point on the stream this sturdy shrub had formed
+a long bower where under a table might have been set for a temperance
+picnic, completely overgrown with wild grape, and still gay with bloom.
+The habitations on the way are mostly board shanties and mean frame
+cabins, but the railway is introducing ambitious architecture here
+and there in the form of ornamental filigree work on flimsy houses;
+ornamentation is apt to precede comfort in our civilization.
+
+Roan Station is on the Doe River (which flows down from Roan Mountain),
+and is marked at 1265 feet above the sea. The visitor will find here a
+good hotel, with open wood fires (not ungrateful in a July evening), and
+obliging people. This railway from Johnson City, hanging on the edge of
+the precipices that wall the gorge of the Doe, is counted in this region
+by the inhabitants one of the engineering wonders of the world. The
+tourist is urged by all means to see both it and Linville Falls.
+
+The tourist on horseback, in search of exercise and recreation, is not
+probably expected to take stock of moral conditions. But this Mitchell
+County, although it was a Union county during the war and is Republican
+in politics (the Southern reader will perhaps prefer another adverb to
+“although”), has had the worst possible reputation. The mountains
+were hiding-places of illicit distilleries; the woods were full of
+grog-shanties, where the inflaming fluid was sold as “native brandy,”
+ quarrels and neighborhood difficulties were frequent, and the knife
+and pistol were used on the slightest provocation. Fights arose about
+boundaries and the title to mica mines, and with the revenue officers;
+and force was the arbiter of all disputes. Within the year four murders
+were committed in the sparsely settled county. Travel on any of the
+roads was unsafe. The tone of morals was what might be expected with
+such lawlessness. A lady who came up on the road on the 4th of July,
+when an excursion party of country people took possession of the cars,
+witnessed a scene and heard language past belief. Men, women, and
+children drank from whisky bottles that continually circulated, and a
+wild orgy resulted. Profanity, indecent talk on topics that even the
+license of the sixteenth century would not have tolerated, and freedom
+of manners that even Teniers would have shrunk from putting on canvas,
+made the journey horrible.
+
+The unrestrained license of whisky and assault and murder had produced a
+reaction a few months previous to our visit. The people had risen up in
+their indignation and broken up the groggeries. So far as we observed
+temperance prevailed, backed by public-opinion. In our whole ride
+through the mountain region we saw only one or two places where liquor
+was sold.
+
+It is called twelve miles from Roan Station to Roan Summit. The distance
+is probably nearer fourteen, and our horses were five hours in walking
+it. For six miles the road runs by Doe River, here a pretty brook shaded
+with laurel and rhododendron, and a few cultivated patches of ground,
+and infrequent houses. It was a blithe morning, and the horsemen would
+have given full indulgence to the spirit of adventure but for the
+attitude of the Professor towards mountains. It was not with him a
+matter of feeling, but of principle, not to ascend them. But here lay
+Roan, a long, sprawling ridge, lifting itself 6250 feet up into the
+sky. Impossible to go around it, and the other side must be reached. The
+Professor was obliged to surrender, and surmount a difficulty which he
+could not philosophize out of his mind.
+
+From the base of the mountain a road is very well engineered, in easy
+grades for carriages, to the top; but it was in poor repair and stony.
+We mounted slowly through splendid forests, specially of fine chestnuts
+and hemlocks. This big timber continues till within a mile and a half
+of the summit by the winding road, really within a short distance of the
+top. Then there is a narrow belt of scrubby hardwood, moss-grown, and
+then large balsams, which crown the mountain. As soon as we came
+out upon the southern slope we found great open spaces, covered with
+succulent grass, and giving excellent pasturage to cattle. These rich
+mountain meadows are found on all the heights of this region. The
+surface of Roan is uneven, and has no one culminating peak that commands
+the country, like the peak of Mount Washington, but several eminences
+within its range of probably a mile and a half, where various views can
+be had. Near the highest point, sheltered from the north by balsams,
+stands a house of entertainment, with a detached cottage, looking
+across the great valley to the Black Mountain range. The surface of the
+mountain is pebbly, but few rocks crop out; no ledges of any size are
+seen except at a distance from the hotel, on the north side, and the
+mountain consequently lacks that savage, unsubduable aspect which
+the White Hills of New Hampshire have. It would, in fact, have been
+difficult to realize that we were over six thousand feet above the sea,
+except for that pallor in the sunlight, that atmospheric thinness and
+want of color which is an unpleasant characteristic of high altitudes.
+To be sure, there is a certain brilliancy in the high air,--it is apt to
+be foggy on Roan,--and objects appear in sharp outline, but I have often
+experienced on such places that feeling of melancholy, which would,
+of course, deepen upon us all if we were sensible that the sun was
+gradually withdrawing its power of warmth and light. The black balsam is
+neither a cheerful nor a picturesque tree; the frequent rains and mists
+on Roan keep the grass and mosses green, but the ground damp. Doubtless
+a high mountain covered with vegetation has its compensation, but for me
+the naked granite rocks in sun and shower are more cheerful.
+
+The advantage of Roan is that one can live there and be occupied for a
+long time in mineral and botanical study. Its mild climate, moisture,
+and great elevation make it unique in this country for the botanist. The
+variety of plants assembled there is very large, and there are many, we
+were told, never or rarely found elsewhere in the United States. At any
+rate, the botanists rave about Roan Mountain, and spend weeks at a time
+on it. We found there ladies who could draw for us Grey's lily (then
+passed), and had kept specimens of the rhododendron (not growing
+elsewhere in this region) which has a deep red, almost purple color.
+
+The hotel (since replaced by a good house) was a rude mountain
+structure, with a couple of comfortable rooms for office and
+sitting-room, in which big wood fires were blazing; for though the
+thermometer might record 60 deg., as it did when we arrived, fire was
+welcome. Sleeping-places partitioned off in the loft above gave
+the occupants a feeling of camping out, all the conveniences being
+primitive; and when the wind rose in the night and darkness, and the
+loose boards rattled and the timbers creaked, the sensation was not
+unlike that of being at sea. The hotel was satisfactorily kept, and
+Southern guests, from as far south as New Orleans, were spending the
+season there, and not finding time hang heavy on their hands. This
+statement is perhaps worth more than pages of description as to the
+character of Roan, and its contrast to Mount Washington.
+
+The summer weather is exceedingly uncertain on all these North Carolina
+mountains; they are apt at any moment to be enveloped in mist; and it
+would rather rain on them than not. On the afternoon of our arrival
+there was fine air and fair weather, but not a clear sky. The distance
+was hazy, but the outlines were preserved. We could see White Top, in
+Virginia; Grandfather Mountain, a long serrated range; the twin towers
+of Linville; and the entire range of the Black Mountains, rising from
+the valley, and apparently lower than we were. They get the name of
+Black from the balsams which cover the summits.
+
+The rain on Roan was of less annoyance by reason of the delightful
+company assembled at the hotel, which was in a manner at home there,
+and, thrown upon its own resources, came out uncommonly strong in
+agreeableness. There was a fiddle in the house, which had some of the
+virtues of that celebrated in the history of old Mark Langston; the
+Professor was enabled to produce anything desired out of the literature
+of the eighteenth century; and what with the repartee of bright women,
+big wood fires, reading, and chat, there was no dull day or evening on
+Roan. I can fancy, however, that it might tire in time, if one were not
+a botanist, without the resource of women's society. The ladies staying
+here were probably all accomplished botanists, and the writer is
+indebted to one of them for a list of plants found on Roan, among which
+is an interesting weed, catalogued as Humana, perplexia negligens. The
+species is, however, common elsewhere.
+
+The second morning opened, after a night of high wind, with a
+thunder-shower. After it passed, the visitors tried to reach Eagle
+Cliff, two miles off, whence an extensive western prospect is had, but
+were driven back by a tempest, and rain practically occupied the
+day. Now and then through the parted clouds we got a glimpse of a
+mountain-side, or the gleam of a valley. On the lower mountains, at wide
+intervals apart, were isolated settlements, commonly a wretched cabin
+and a spot of girdled trees. A clergyman here, not long ago, undertook
+to visit some of these cabins and carry his message to them. In
+one wretched hut of logs he found a poor woman, with whom, after
+conversation on serious subjects, he desired to pray. She offered no
+objection, and he kneeled down and prayed. The woman heard him, and
+watched him for some moments with curiosity, in an effort to ascertain
+what he was doing, and then said:
+
+“Why, a man did that when he put my girl in a hole.”
+
+Towards night the wind hauled round from the south to the northwest, and
+we went to High Bluff, a point on the north edge, where some rocks are
+piled up above the evergreens, to get a view of the sunset. In every
+direction the mountains were clear, and a view was obtained of the vast
+horizon and the hills and lowlands of several States--a continental
+prospect, scarcely anywhere else equaled for variety or distance. The
+grandeur of mountains depends mostly on the state of the atmosphere.
+Grandfather loomed up much more loftily than the day before, the giant
+range of the Blacks asserted itself in grim inaccessibility, and we
+could see, a small pyramid on the southwest horizon, King's Mountain in
+South Carolina, estimated to be distant one hundred and fifty miles. To
+the north Roan falls from this point abruptly, and we had, like a map
+below us, the low country all the way into Virginia. The clouds lay like
+lakes in the valleys of the lower hills, and in every direction were
+ranges of mountains wooded to the summits. Off to the west by south lay
+the Great Smoky Mountains, disputing eminence with the Blacks.
+
+Magnificent and impressive as the spectacle was, we were obliged to
+contrast it unfavorably with that of the White Hills. The rock here is a
+sort of sand or pudding stone; there is no limestone or granite. And
+all the hills are tree-covered. To many this clothing of verdure is most
+restful and pleasing. I missed the sharp outlines, the delicate artistic
+sky lines, sharply defined in uplifted bare granite peaks and ridges,
+with the purple and violet color of the northern mountains, and which it
+seems to me that limestone and granite formations give. There are none
+of the great gorges and awful abysses of the White Mountains, both
+valleys and mountains here being more uniform in outline. There are few
+precipices and jutting crags, and less is visible of the giant ribs and
+bones of the planet.
+
+Yet Roan is a noble mountain. A lady from Tennessee asked me if I
+had ever seen anything to compare with it--she thought there could be
+nothing in the world. One has to dodge this sort of question in the
+South occasionally, not to offend a just local pride. It is certainly
+one of the most habitable of big mountains. It is roomy on top, there is
+space to move about without too great fatigue, and one might pleasantly
+spend a season there, if he had agreeable company and natural tastes.
+
+Getting down from Roan on the south side is not as easy as ascending on
+the north; the road for five miles to the foot of the mountain is merely
+a river of pebbles, gullied by the heavy rains, down which the horses
+picked their way painfully. The travelers endeavored to present a
+dashing and cavalier appearance to the group of ladies who waved good-by
+from the hotel, as they took their way over the waste and wind-blown
+declivities, but it was only a show, for the horses would neither
+caracole nor champ the bit (at a dollar a day) down-hill over the
+slippery stones, and, truth to tell, the wanderers turned with regret
+from the society of leisure and persiflage to face the wilderness of
+Mitchell County.
+
+“How heavy,” exclaimed the Professor, pricking Laura Matilda to call her
+attention sharply to her footing--
+
+  “How heavy do I journey on the way,
+   When what I seek--my weary travel's end
+   Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
+   Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend!
+   The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
+   Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
+   As if by some instinct the wretch did know
+   His rider loved not speed, being made from thee:
+   The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
+   That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
+   Which heavily he answers with a groan,
+   More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
+   For that same groan doth put this in my mind;
+   My grief lies onward and my joy behind.”
+
+This was not spoken to the group who fluttered their farewells,
+but poured out to the uncomplaining forest, which rose up in
+ever statelier--and grander ranks to greet the travelers as they
+descended--the silent, vast forest, without note of bird or chip of
+squirrel, only the wind tossing the great branches high overhead in
+response to the sonnet. Is there any region or circumstance of life that
+the poet did not forecast and provide for? But what would have been his
+feelings if he could have known that almost three centuries after these
+lines were penned, they would be used to express the emotion of an
+unsentimental traveler in the primeval forests of the New World? At any
+rate, he peopled the New World with the children of his imagination.
+And, thought the Friend, whose attention to his horse did not permit him
+to drop into poetry, Shakespeare might have had a vision of this vast
+continent, though he did not refer to it, when he exclaimed:
+
+  “What is your substance, whereof are you made,
+   That millions of strange shadows on you tend?”
+
+Bakersville, the capital of Mitchell County, is eight miles from the
+top of Roan, and the last three miles of the way the horsemen found
+tolerable going, over which the horses could show their paces. The
+valley looked fairly thrifty and bright, and was a pleasing introduction
+to Bakersville, a pretty place in the hills, of some six hundred
+inhabitants, with two churches, three indifferent hotels, and a
+court-house. This mountain town, 2550 feet above the sea, is said
+to have a decent winter climate, with little snow, favorable to
+fruit-growing, and, by contrast with New England, encouraging to people
+with weak lungs.
+
+This is the center of the mica mining, and of considerable excitement
+about minerals. All around, the hills are spotted with “diggings.” Most
+of the mines which yield well show signs of having been worked before,
+a very long time ago, no doubt by the occupants before the Indians. The
+mica is of excellent quality and easily mined. It is got out in large
+irregular-shaped blocks and transported to the factories, where it is
+carefully split by hand, and the laminae, of as large size as can be
+obtained, are trimmed with shears and tied up in packages for market.
+The quantity of refuse, broken, and rotten mica piled up about the
+factories is immense, and all the roads round about glisten with its
+scales. Garnets are often found imbedded in the laminae, flattened by
+the extreme pressure to which the mass was subjected. It is fascinating
+material, this mica, to handle, and we amused ourselves by experimenting
+on the thinness to which its scales could be reduced by splitting. It
+was at Bakersville that we saw specimens of mica that resembled the
+delicate tracery in the moss-agate and had the iridescent sheen of the
+rainbow colors--the most delicate greens, reds, blues, purples, and
+gold, changing from one to the other in the reflected light. In
+the texture were the tracings of fossil forms of ferns and the most
+exquisite and delicate vegetable beauty of the coal age. But the
+magnet shows this tracery to be iron. We were shown also emeralds and
+“diamonds,” picked up in this region, and there is a mild expectation in
+all the inhabitants of great mineral treasure. A singular product of the
+region is the flexible sandstone. It is a most uncanny stone. A slip of
+it a couple of feet long and an inch in diameter each way bends in the
+hand like a half-frozen snake. This conduct of a substance that we have
+been taught to regard as inflexible impairs one's confidence in the
+stability of nature and affects him as an earthquake does.
+
+This excitement over mica and other minerals has the usual effect of
+starting up business and creating bad blood. Fortunes have been
+made, and lost in riotous living; scores of visionary men have been
+disappointed; lawsuits about titles and claims have multiplied, and
+quarrels ending in murder have been frequent in the past few years. The
+mica and the illicit whisky have worked together to make this region one
+of lawlessness and violence. The travelers were told stories of the lack
+of common morality and decency in the region, but they made no note of
+them. And, perhaps fortunately, they were not there during court week
+to witness the scenes of license that were described. This court week,
+which draws hither the whole population, is a sort of Saturnalia.
+Perhaps the worst of this is already a thing of the past; for the
+outrages a year before had reached such a pass that by a common movement
+the sale of whisky was stopped (not interdicted, but stopped), and not a
+drop of liquor could be bought in Bakersville nor within three miles of
+it.
+
+The jail at Bakersville is a very simple residence. The main building is
+brick, two stories high and about twelve feet square. The walls are so
+loosely laid up that it seems as if a colored prisoner might butt his
+head through. Attached to this is a room for the jailer. In the lower
+room is a wooden cage, made of logs bolted together and filled with
+spikes, nine feet by ten feet square and perhaps seven or eight feet
+high. Between this cage and the wall is a space of eighteen inches in
+width. It has a narrow door, and an opening through which the food is
+passed to the prisoners, and a conduit leading out of it. Of course it
+soon becomes foul, and in warm weather somewhat warm. A recent prisoner,
+who wanted more ventilation than the State allowed him, found some
+means, by a loose plank, I think, to batter a hole in the outer wall
+opposite the window in the cage, and this ragged opening, seeming to the
+jailer a good sanitary arrangement, remains. Two murderers occupied this
+apartment at the time of our visit. During the recent session of court,
+ten men had been confined in this narrow space, without room enough for
+them to lie down together. The cage in the room above, a little larger,
+had for tenant a person who was jailed for some misunderstanding about
+an account, and who was probably innocent--from the jailer's statement.
+This box is a wretched residence, month after month, while awaiting
+trial.
+
+We learned on inquiry that it is practically impossible to get a jury to
+convict of murder in this region, and that these admitted felons would
+undoubtedly escape. We even heard that juries were purchasable here,
+and that a man's success in court depended upon the length of his purse.
+This is such an unheard-of thing that we refused to credit it. When the
+Friend attempted to arouse the indignation of the Professor about the
+barbarity of this jail, the latter defended it on the ground that
+as confinement was the only punishment that murderers were likely to
+receive in this region, it was well to make their detention disagreeable
+to them. But the Friend did not like this wild-beast cage for men, and
+could only exclaim,
+
+“Oh, murder! what crimes are done in thy name.”
+
+If the comrades wished an adventure, they had a small one, more
+interesting to them than to the public, the morning they left
+Bakersville to ride to Burnsville, which sets itself up as the capital
+of Yancey. The way for the first three miles lay down a small creek and
+in a valley fairly settled, the houses, a store, and a grist-mill
+giving evidence of the new enterprise of the region. When Toe River was
+reached, there was a choice of routes. We might ford the Toe at that
+point, where the river was wide, but shallow, and the crossing safe,
+and climb over the mountain by a rough but sightly road, or descend the
+stream by a better road and ford the river at a place rather dangerous
+to those unfamiliar with it. The danger attracted us, but we promptly
+chose the hill road on account of the views, for we were weary of the
+limited valley prospects.
+
+The Toe River, even here, where it bears westward, is a very respectable
+stream in size, and not to be trifled with after a shower. It gradually
+turns northward, and, joining the Nollechucky, becomes part of the
+Tennessee system. We crossed it by a long, diagonal ford, slipping and
+sliding about on the round stones, and began the ascent of a steep hill.
+The sun beat down unmercifully, the way was stony, and the horses did
+not relish the weary climbing. The Professor, who led the way, not for
+the sake of leadership, but to be the discoverer of laden blackberry
+bushes, which began to offer occasional refreshment, discouraged by the
+inhospitable road and perhaps oppressed by the moral backwardness of
+things in general, cried out:
+
+  “Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,--
+   As, to behold desert a beggar born,
+   And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
+   And purest faith unhappily foresworn,
+   And gilded honor shamefully misplaced,
+   And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
+   And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
+   And strength by limping sway disabled,
+   And art made tongue-tied by authority,
+   And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
+   And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
+   And captive good attending captain ill:
+   Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
+   Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.”
+
+In the midst of a lively discussion of this pessimistic view of the
+inequalities of life, in which desert and capacity are so often put
+at disadvantage by birth in beggarly conditions, and brazen assumption
+raises the dust from its chariot wheels for modest merit to plod along
+in, the Professor swung himself off his horse to attack a blackberry
+bush, and the Friend, representing simple truth, and desirous of getting
+a wider prospect, urged his horse up the hill. At the top he encountered
+a stranger, on a sorrel horse, with whom he entered into conversation
+and extracted all the discouragement the man had as to the road to
+Burnsville.
+
+Nevertheless, the view opened finely and extensively. There are few
+exhilarations comparable to that of riding or walking along a high
+ridge, and the spirits of the traveler rose many degrees above the point
+of restful death, for which the Professor was crying when he encountered
+the blackberry bushes. Luckily the Friend soon fell in with a like
+temptation, and dismounted. He discovered something that spoiled his
+appetite for berries. His coat, strapped on behind the saddle, had
+worked loose, the pocket was open, and the pocket-book was gone. This
+was serious business. For while the Professor was the cashier, and
+traveled like a Rothschild, with large drafts, the Friend represented
+the sub-treasury. That very morning, in response to inquiry as to the
+sinews of travel, the Friend had displayed, without counting, a roll of
+bills. These bills had now disappeared, and when the Friend turned back
+to communicate his loss, in the character of needy nothing not trimm'd
+in jollity, he had a sympathetic listener to the tale of woe.
+
+Going back on such a journey is the woefulest experience, but retrace
+our steps we must. Perhaps the pocket-book lay in the road not half a
+mile back. But not in half a mile, or a mile, was it found. Probably,
+then, the man on the sorrel horse had picked it up. But who was the man
+on the sorrel horse, and where had he gone? Probably the coat worked
+loose in crossing Toe River and the pocket-book had gone down-stream.
+The number of probabilities was infinite, and each more plausible than
+the others as it occurred to us. We inquired at every house we had
+passed on the way, we questioned every one we met. At length it began
+to seem improbable that any one would remember if he had picked up a
+pocketbook that morning. This is just the sort of thing that slips an
+untrained memory.
+
+At a post office or doctor's shop, or inn for drovers, it might be
+either or neither, where several horses were tied to the fence, and a
+group of men were tilted back in cane chairs on the veranda, we unfolded
+our misfortune and made particular inquiries for a man on a sorrel
+horse. Yes, such a man, David Thomas by name, had just ridden towards
+Bakersville. If he had found the pocket-book, we would recover it. He
+was an honest man. It might, however, fall into hands that would freeze
+to it.
+
+Upon consultation, it was the general verdict that there were men in
+the county who would keep it if they had picked it up. But the assembly
+manifested the liveliest interest in the incident. One suggested Toe
+River. Another thought it risky to drop a purse on any road. But there
+was a chorus of desire expressed that we should find it, and in this
+anxiety was exhibited a decided sensitiveness about the honor of
+Mitchell County. It seemed too bad that a stranger should go away with
+the impression that it was not safe to leave money anywhere in it. We
+felt very much obliged for this genuine sympathy, and we told them that
+if a pocket-book were lost in this way on a Connecticut road, there
+would be felt no neighborhood responsibility for it, and that nobody
+would take any interest in the incident except the man who lost, and the
+man who found.
+
+By the time the travelers pulled up at a store in Bakersville they
+had lost all expectation of recovering the missing article, and were
+discussing the investment of more money in an advertisement in the
+weekly newspaper of the capital. The Professor, whose reform sentiments
+agreed with those of the newspaper, advised it. There was a group of
+idlers, mica acquaintances of the morning, and philosophers in front of
+the store, and the Friend opened the colloquy by asking if a man named
+David Thomas had been seen in town. He was in town, had ridden in within
+an hour, and his brother, who was in the group, would go in search of
+him. The information was then given of the loss, and that the rider had
+met David Thomas just before it was discovered, on the mountain beyond
+the Toe. The news made a sensation, and by the time David Thomas
+appeared a crowd of a hundred had drawn around the horsemen eager for
+further developments. Mr. Thomas was the least excited of the group as
+he took his position on the sidewalk, conscious of the dignity of the
+occasion and that he was about to begin a duel in which both reputation
+and profit were concerned. He recollected meeting the travelers in the
+morning.
+
+The Friend said, “I discovered that I had lost my purse just after
+meeting you; it may have been dropped in Toe River, but I was told back
+here that if David Thomas had picked it up, it was as safe as if it were
+in the bank.”
+
+“What sort of a pocket-book was it?” asked Mr. Thomas.
+
+“It was of crocodile skin, or what is sold for that, very likely it is
+an imitation, and about so large indicating the size.”
+
+“What had it in it?”
+
+“Various things. Some specimens of mica; some bank checks, some money.”
+
+“Anything else?”
+
+“Yes, a photograph. And, oh, something that I presume is not in another
+pocket-book in North Carolina,--in an envelope, a lock of the hair of
+George Washington, the Father of his Country.” Sensation mixed with
+incredulity. Washington's hair did seem such an odd part of an outfit
+for a journey of this kind.
+
+“How much money was in it?”
+
+“That I cannot say, exactly. I happen to remember four twenty-dollar
+United States notes, and a roll of small bills, perhaps something over a
+hundred dollars.”
+
+“Is that the pocket-book?” asked David Thomas, slowly pulling the loved
+and lost out of his trousers pocket.
+
+“It is.”
+
+“You'd be willing to take your oath on it?”
+
+“I should be delighted to.”
+
+“Well, I guess there ain't so much money in it. You can count it
+[handing it over]; there hain't been nothing taken out. I can't read,
+but my friend here counted it over, and he says there ain't as much as
+that.”
+
+Intense interest in the result of the counting. One hundred and ten
+dollars! The Friend selected one of the best engraved of the notes, and
+appealed to the crowd if they thought that was the square thing to do.
+They did so think, and David Thomas said it was abundant. And then said
+the Friend:
+
+“I'm exceedingly grateful to you besides. Washington's hair is getting
+scarce, and I did not want to lose these few hairs, gray as they are.
+You've done the honest thing, Mr. Thomas, as was expected of you. You
+might have kept the whole. But I reckon if there had been five hundred
+dollars in the book and you had kept it, it wouldn't have done you half
+as much good as giving it up has done; and your reputation as an honest
+man is worth a good deal more than this pocket-book. [The Professor
+was delighted with this sentiment, because it reminded him of a
+Sunday-school.] I shall go away with a high opinion of the honesty of
+Mitchell County.”
+
+“Oh, he lives in Yancey,” cried two or three voices. At which there was
+a great laugh.
+
+“Well, I wondered where he came from.” And the Mitchell County people
+laughed again at their own expense, and the levee broke up. It was
+exceedingly gratifying, as we spread the news of the recovered property
+that afternoon at every house on our way to the Toe, to see what
+pleasure it gave. Every man appeared to feel that the honor of the
+region had been on trial--and had stood the test.
+
+The eighteen miles to Burnsville had now to be added to the morning
+excursion, but the travelers were in high spirits, feeling the truth of
+the adage that it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have
+lost at all. They decided, on reflection, to join company with the
+mail-rider, who was going to Burnsville by the shorter route, and could
+pilot them over the dangerous ford of the Toe.
+
+The mail-rider was a lean, sallow, sinewy man, mounted on a sorry sorrel
+nag, who proved, however, to have blood in her, and to be a fast walker
+and full of endurance. The mail-rider was taciturn, a natural habit
+for a man who rides alone the year round, over a lonely road, and has
+nothing whatever to think of. He had been in the war sixteen months, in
+Hugh White's regiment,--reckon you've heerd of him?
+
+“Confederate?”
+
+“Which?”
+
+“Was he on the Union or Confederate side?”
+
+“Oh, Union.”
+
+“Were you in any engagements?”
+
+“Which?”
+
+“Did you have any fighting?”
+
+“Not reg'lar.”
+
+“What did you do?”
+
+“Which?”
+
+“What did you do in Hugh White's regiment?”
+
+“Oh, just cavorted round the mountains.”
+
+“You lived on the country?”
+
+“Which?”
+
+“Picked up what you could find, corn, bacon, horses?”
+
+“That's about so. Did n't make much difference which side was round, the
+country got cleaned out.”
+
+“Plunder seems to have been the object?”
+
+“Which?”
+
+“You got a living out of the farmers?”
+
+“You bet.”
+
+Our friend and guide seemed to have been a jayhawker and mountain
+marauder--on the right side. His attachment to the word “which”
+ prevented any lively flow of conversation, and there seemed to be only
+two trains of ideas running in his mind: one was the subject of horses
+and saddles, and the other was the danger of the ford we were coming to,
+and he exhibited a good deal of ingenuity in endeavoring to excite
+our alarm. He returned to the ford from every other conversational
+excursion, and after every silence.
+
+“I do' know's there 's any great danger; not if you know the ford. Folks
+is carried away there. The Toe gits up sudden. There's been right smart
+rain lately.
+
+“If you're afraid, you can git set over in a dugout, and I'll take your
+horses across. Mebbe you're used to fording? It's a pretty bad ford
+for them as don't know it. But you'll get along if you mind your eye.
+There's some rocks you'll have to look out for. But you'll be all right
+if you follow me.”
+
+Not being very successful in raising an interest in the dangers of his
+ford, although he could not forego indulging a malicious pleasure
+in trying to make the strangers uncomfortable, he finally turned his
+attention to a trade. “This hoss of mine,” he said, “is just the kind of
+brute-beast you want for this country. Your hosses is too heavy. How'll
+you swap for that one o' yourn?” The reiterated assertion that the
+horses were not ours, that they were hired, made little impression on
+him. All the way to Burnsville he kept referring to the subject of a
+trade. The instinct of “swap” was strong in him. When we met a yoke of
+steers, he turned round and bantered the owner for a trade. Our saddles
+took his fancy. They were of the army pattern, and he allowed that one
+of them would just suit him. He rode a small flat English pad, across
+which was flung the United States mail pouch, apparently empty. He
+dwelt upon the fact that his saddle was new and ours were old, and the
+advantages that would accrue to us from the exchange. He did n't care
+if they had been through the war, as they had, for he fancied an army
+saddle. The Friend answered for himself that the saddle he rode belonged
+to a distinguished Union general, and had a bullet in it that was put
+there by a careless Confederate in the first battle of Bull Run, and the
+owner would not part with it for money. But the mail-rider said he did
+n't mind that. He would n't mind swapping his new saddle for my old one
+and the rubber coat and leggings. Long before we reached the ford we
+thought we would like to swap the guide, even at the risk of drowning.
+The ford was passed, in due time, with no inconvenience save that of wet
+feet, for the stream was breast high to the horses; but being broad and
+swift and full of sunken rocks and slippery stones, and the crossing
+tortuous, it is not a ford to be commended. There is a curious delusion
+that a rider has in crossing a swift broad stream. It is that he is
+rapidly drifting up-stream, while in fact the tendency of the horse is
+to go with the current.
+
+The road in the afternoon was not unpicturesque, owing to the streams
+and the ever noble forests, but the prospect was always very limited.
+Agriculturally, the country was mostly undeveloped. The travelers
+endeavored to get from the rider an estimate of the price of land. Not
+much sold, he said. “There was one sale of a big piece last year; the
+owner enthorited Big Tom Wilson to sell it, but I d'know what he got for
+it.”
+
+All the way along, the habitations were small log cabins, with one room,
+chinked with mud, and these were far between; and only occasionally
+thereby a similar log structure, unchinked, laid up like a cob house,
+that served for a stable. Not much cultivation, except now and then
+a little patch of poor corn on a steep hillside, occasionally a few
+apple-trees, and a peach-tree without fruit. Here and there was a house
+that had been half finished and then abandoned, or a shanty in which a
+couple of young married people were just beginning life. Generally the
+cabins (confirming the accuracy of the census of 1880) swarmed with
+children, and nearly all the women were thin and sickly.
+
+In the day's ride we did not see a wheeled vehicle, and only now
+and then a horse. We met on the road small sleds, drawn by a steer,
+sometimes by a cow, on which a bag of grist was being hauled to the
+mill, and boys mounted on steers gave us good-evening with as much pride
+as if they were bestriding fiery horses.
+
+In a house of the better class, which was a post-house, and where the
+rider and the woman of the house had a long consultation over a letter
+to be registered, we found the rooms decorated with patent-medicine
+pictures, which were often framed in strips of mica, an evidence of
+culture that was worth noting. Mica was the rage. Every one with whom
+we talked, except the rider, had more or less the mineral fever. The
+impression was general that the mountain region of North Carolina was
+entering upon a career of wonderful mineral development, and the most
+extravagant expectations were entertained. Mica was the shining object
+of most “prospecting,” but gold was also on the cards.
+
+The country about Burnsville is not only mildly picturesque, but very
+pleasing. Burnsville, the county-seat of Yancey, at an elevation of 2840
+feet, is more like a New England village than any hitherto seen. Most of
+the houses stand about a square, which contains the shabby court-house;
+around it are two small churches, a jail, an inviting tavern with a long
+veranda, and a couple of stores. On an overlooking hill is the seminary.
+Mica mining is the exciting industry, but it is agriculturally a good
+country. The tavern had recently been enlarged to meet the new demands
+for entertainment and is a roomy structure, fresh with paint and
+only partially organized. The travelers were much impressed with the
+brilliant chambers, the floors of which were painted in alternate
+stripes of vivid green and red. The proprietor, a very intelligent
+and enterprising man, who had traveled often in the North, was full
+of projects for the development of his region and foremost in its
+enterprises, and had formed a considerable collection of minerals.
+Besides, more than any one else we met, he appreciated the beauty of his
+country, and took us to a neighboring hill, where we had a view of
+Table Mountain to the east and the nearer giant Blacks. The elevation of
+Burnsville gives it a delightful summer climate, the gentle undulations
+of the country are agreeable, the views noble, the air is good, and
+it is altogether a “livable” and attractive place. With facilities of
+communication, it would be a favorite summer resort. Its nearness to the
+great mountains (the whole Black range is in Yancey County), its fine
+pure air, its opportunity for fishing and hunting, commend it to those
+in search of an interesting and restful retreat in summer.
+
+But it should be said that before the country can attract and retain
+travelers, its inhabitants must learn something about the preparation of
+food. If, for instance, the landlord's wife at Burnsville had traveled
+with her husband, her table would probably have been more on a level
+with his knowledge of the world, and it would have contained something
+that the wayfaring man, though a Northerner, could eat. We have been on
+the point several times in this journey of making the observation, but
+have been restrained by a reluctance to touch upon politics, that it was
+no wonder that a people with such a cuisine should have rebelled. The
+travelers were in a rebellious mood most of the time.
+
+The evidences of enterprise in this region were pleasant to see, but
+the observers could not but regret, after all, the intrusion of the
+money-making spirit, which is certain to destroy much of the present
+simplicity. It is as yet, to a degree, tempered by a philosophic spirit.
+The other guest of the house was a sedate, long-bearded traveler for
+some Philadelphia house, and in the evening he and the landlord fell
+into a conversation upon what Socrates calls the disadvantage of the
+pursuit of wealth to the exclusion of all noble objects, and they let
+their fancy play about Vanderbilt, who was agreed to be the richest man
+in the world, or that ever lived.
+
+“All I want,” said the long-bearded man, “is enough to be comfortable. I
+would n't have Vanderbilt's wealth if he'd give it to me.”
+
+“Nor I,” said the landlord. “Give me just enough to be comfortable.”
+ [The tourist couldn't but note that his ideas of enough to be
+comfortable had changed a good deal since he had left his little farm
+and gone into the mica business, and visited New York, and enlarged and
+painted his tavern.] “I should like to know what more Vanderbilt gets
+out of his money than I get out of mine. I heard tell of a young man who
+went to Vanderbilt to get employment. Vanderbilt finally offered to give
+the young man, if he would work for him, just what he got himself. The
+young man jumped at that--he'd be perfectly satisfied with that pay.
+And Vanderbilt said that all he got was what he could eat and wear, and
+offered to give the young man his board and clothes.”
+
+“I declare” said the long-bearded man. “That's just it. Did you ever see
+Vanderbilt's house? Neither did I, but I heard he had a vault built in
+it five feet thick, solid. He put in it two hundred millions of dollars,
+in gold. After a year, he opened it and put in twelve millions more,
+and called that a poor year. They say his house has gold shutters to the
+windows, so I've heard.”
+
+“I shouldn't wonder,” said the landlord. “I heard he had one door in
+his house cost forty thousand dollars. I don't know what it is made of,
+unless it's made of gold.”
+
+Sunday was a hot and quiet day. The stores were closed and the two
+churches also, this not being the Sunday for the itinerant preacher. The
+jail also showed no sign of life, and when we asked about it, we learned
+that it was empty, and had been for some time. No liquor is sold in the
+place, nor within at least three miles of it. It is not much use to try
+to run a jail without liquor.
+
+In the course of the morning a couple of stout fellows arrived, leading
+between them a young man whom they had arrested,--it didn't appear on
+any warrant, but they wanted to get him committed and locked up. The
+offense charged was carrying a pistol; the boy had not used it against
+anybody, but he had flourished it about and threatened, and the
+neighbors wouldn't stand that; they were bound to enforce the law
+against carrying concealed weapons.
+
+The captors were perfectly good-natured and on friendly enough terms
+with the young man, who offered no resistance, and seemed not unwilling
+to go to jail. But a practical difficulty arose. The jail was locked
+up, the sheriff had gone away into the country with the key, and no
+one could get in. It did not appear that there was any provision for
+boarding the man in jail; no one in fact kept it. The sheriff was sent
+for, but was not to be found, and the prisoner and his captors loafed
+about the square all day, sitting on the fence, rolling on the grass,
+all of them sustained by a simple trust that the jail would be open some
+time.
+
+Late in the afternoon we left them there, trying to get into the
+jail. But we took a personal leaf out of this experience. Our Virginia
+friends, solicitous for our safety in this wild country, had urged us
+not to venture into it without arms--take at least, they insisted, a
+revolver each. And now we had to congratulate ourselves that we had
+not done so. If we had, we should doubtless on that Sunday have been
+waiting, with the other law-breaker, for admission into the Yancey
+County jail.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+From Burnsville the next point in our route was Asheville, the most
+considerable city in western North Carolina, a resort of fashion, and
+the capital of Buncombe County. It is distant some forty to forty-five
+miles, too long a journey for one day over such roads. The easier
+and common route is by the Ford of Big Ivy, eighteen miles, the first
+stopping-place; and that was a long ride for the late afternoon when we
+were in condition to move.
+
+The landlord suggested that we take another route, stay that night on
+Caney River with Big Tom Wilson, only eight miles from Burnsville, cross
+Mount Mitchell, and go down the valley of the Swannanoa to Asheville. He
+represented this route as shorter and infinitely more picturesque. There
+was nothing worth seeing on the Big Ivy way. With scarcely a moment's
+reflection and while the horses were saddling, we decided to ride to Big
+Tom Wilson's. I could not at the time understand, and I cannot now, why
+the Professor consented. I should hardly dare yet confess to my
+fixed purpose to ascend Mount Mitchell. It was equally fixed in the
+Professor's mind not to do it. We had not discussed it much. But it is
+safe to say that if he had one well-defined purpose on this trip, it was
+not to climb Mitchell. “Not,” as he put it,--
+
+  “Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
+   Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,”
+
+had suggested the possibility that he could do it.
+
+But at the moment the easiest thing to do seemed to be to ride down
+to Wilson's. When there we could turn across country to the Big Ivy,
+although, said the landlord, you can ride over Mitchell just as easy as
+anywhere--a lady rode plump over the peak of it last week, and never got
+off her horse. You are not obliged to go; at Big Tom's, you can go any
+way you please.
+
+Besides, Big Tom himself weighed in the scale more than Mount
+Mitchell, and not to see him was to miss one of the most characteristic
+productions of the country, the typical backwoodsman, hunter, guide. So
+we rode down Bolling Creek, through a pretty, broken country, crossed
+the Caney River, and followed it up a few miles to Wilson's plantation.
+There are little intervales along the river, where hay is cut and corn
+grown, but the region is not much cleared, and the stock browse about in
+the forest. Wilson is the agent of the New York owner of a tract of
+some thirteen thousand acres of forest, including the greater portion of
+Mount Mitchell, a wilderness well stocked with bears and deer, and
+full of streams abounding in trout. It is also the playground of the
+rattlesnake. With all these attractions Big Tom's life is made lively in
+watching game poachers, and endeavoring to keep out the foraging cattle
+of the few neighbors. It is not that the cattle do much injury in
+the forest, but the looking after them is made a pretense for roaming
+around, and the roamers are liable to have to defend themselves against
+the deer, or their curiosity is excited about the bears, and lately they
+have taken to exploding powder in the streams to kill the fish.
+
+Big Tom's plantation has an openwork stable, an ill-put-together frame
+house, with two rooms and a kitchen, and a veranda in front, a loft, and
+a spring-house in the rear. Chickens and other animals have free run
+of the premises. Some fish-rods hung in the porch, and hunter's gear
+depended on hooks in the passage-way to the kitchen. In one room were
+three beds, in the other two, only one in the kitchen. On the porch was
+a loom, with a piece of cloth in process. The establishment had the
+air of taking care of itself. Neither Big Tom nor his wife was at home.
+Sunday seemed to be a visiting day, and the travelers had met many
+parties on horseback. Mrs. Wilson was away for a visit of a day or two.
+One of the sons, who was lounging on the veranda, was at last induced
+to put up the horses; a very old woman, who mumbled and glared at the
+visitors, was found in the kitchen, but no intelligible response could
+be got out of her. Presently a bright little girl, the housekeeper in
+charge, appeared. She said that her paw had gone up to her brother's
+(her brother was just married and lived up the river in the house where
+Mr. Murchison stayed when he was here) to see if he could ketch a bear
+that had been rootin' round in the corn-field the night before. She
+expected him back by sundown--by dark anyway. 'Les he'd gone after the
+bear, and then you could n't tell when he would come.
+
+It appeared that Big Tom was a thriving man in the matter of family.
+More boys appeared. Only one was married, but four had “got their time.”
+ As night approached, and no Wilson, there was a good deal of lively and
+loud conversation about the stock and the chores, in all of which the
+girl took a leading and intelligent part, showing a willingness to do
+her share, but not to have all the work put upon her. It was time to go
+down the road and hunt up the cows; the mule had disappeared and must
+be found before dark; a couple of steers hadn't turned up since the day
+before yesterday, and in the midst of the gentle contention as to whose
+business all this was, there was an alarm of cattle in the corn-patch,
+and the girl started off on a run in that direction. It was due to the
+executive ability of this small girl, after the cows had been milked and
+the mule chased and the boys properly stirred up, that we had supper.
+It was of the oilcloth, iron fork, tin spoon, bacon, hot bread and
+honey variety, distinguished, however, from all meals we had endured or
+enjoyed before by the introduction of fried eggs (as the breakfast next
+morning was by the presence of chicken), and it was served by the active
+maid with right hearty good-will and genuine hospitable intent.
+
+While it was in progress, after nine o'clock, Big Tom arrived, and, with
+a simple greeting, sat down and attacked the supper and began to tell
+about the bear. There was not much to tell except that he hadn't seen
+the bear, and that, judged by his tracks and his sloshing around, he
+must be a big one. But a trap had been set for him, and he judged it
+wouldn't be long before we had some bear meat. Big Tom Wilson, as he is
+known all over this part of the State, would not attract attention from
+his size. He is six feet and two inches tall, very spare and muscular,
+with sandy hair, long gray beard, and honest blue eyes. He has a
+reputation for great strength and endurance; a man of native simplicity
+and mild manners. He had been rather expecting us from what Mr.
+Murchison wrote; he wrote (his son had read out the letter) that Big Tom
+was to take good care of us, and anybody that Mr. Murchison sent could
+have the best he'd got.
+
+Big Tom joined us in our room after supper. This apartment, with two
+mighty feather-beds, was hung about with all manner of stuffy family
+clothes, and had in one end a vast cavern for a fire. The floor was
+uneven, and the hearthstones billowy. When the fire was lighted, the
+effect of the bright light in the cavern and the heavy shadows in the
+room was Rembrandtish. Big Tom sat with us before the fire and told bear
+stories. Talk? Why, it was not the least effort. The stream flowed on
+without a ripple. “Why, the old man,” one of the sons confided to us
+next morning, “can begin and talk right over Mount Mitchell and all the
+way back, and never make a break.” Though Big Tom had waged a lifelong
+warfare with the bears, and taken the hide off at least a hundred of
+them, I could not see that he had any vindictive feeling towards the
+varmint, but simply an insatiable love of killing him, and he regarded
+him in that half-humorous light in which the bear always appears to
+those who study him. As to deer--he couldn't tell how many of them he
+had slain. But Big Tom was a gentleman: he never killed deer for mere
+sport. With rattlesnakes, now, it was different. There was the skin of
+one hanging upon a tree by the route we would take in the morning,
+a buster, he skinned him yesterday. There was an entire absence, of
+braggadocio in Big Tom's talk, but somehow, as he went on, his backwoods
+figure loomed larger and larger in our imagination, and he seemed
+strangely familiar. At length it came over us where we had met him
+before. It was in Cooper's novels. He was the Leather-Stocking exactly.
+And yet he was an original; for he assured us that he had never read the
+Leather-Stocking Tales. What a figure, I was thinking, he must have
+made in the late war! Such a shot, such a splendid physique, such
+iron endurance! I almost dreaded to hear his tales of the havoc he had
+wrought on the Union army. Yes, he was in the war, he was sixteen months
+in the Confederate army, this Homeric man. In what rank? “Oh, I was a
+fifer!”
+
+But hunting and war did not by any means occupy the whole of Big Tom's
+life. He was also engaged in “lawin'.” He had a long-time feud with a
+neighbor about a piece of land and alleged trespass, and they'd
+been “lawin'” for years, with no definite result; but as a topic of
+conversation it was as fully illustrative of frontier life as the
+bear-fighting.
+
+Long after we had all gone to bed, we heard Big Tom's continuous voice,
+through the thin partition that separated us from the kitchen, going on
+to his little boy about the bear; every circumstance of how he tracked
+him, and what corner of the field he entered, and where he went out, and
+his probable size and age, and the prospect of his coming again; these
+were the details of real everyday life, and worthy to be dwelt on by the
+hour. The boy was never tired of pursuing them. And Big Tom was just a
+big boy, also, in his delight in it all.
+
+Perhaps it was the fascination of Big Tom, perhaps the representation
+that we were already way off the Big Ivy route, and that it would, in
+fact, save time to go over the mountain and we could ride all the way,
+that made the Professor acquiesce, with no protest worth noticing, in
+the preparations that went on, as by a natural assumption, for going
+over Mitchell. At any rate, there was an early breakfast, luncheon
+was put up, and by half-past seven we were riding up the Caney,--a
+half-cloudy day,--Big Tom swinging along on foot ahead, talking nineteen
+to the dozen. There was a delightful freshness in the air, the dew-laden
+bushes, and the smell of the forest. In half an hour we called at the
+hunting shanty of Mr. Murchison, wrote our names on the wall, according
+to custom, and regretted that we could not stay for a day in that
+retreat and try the speckled trout. Making our way through the low
+growth and bushes of the valley, we came into a fine open forest,
+watered by a noisy brook, and after an hour's easy going reached the
+serious ascent.
+
+From Wilson's to the peak of Mitchell it is seven and a half miles; we
+made it in five and a half hours. A bridle path was cut years ago, but
+it has been entirely neglected. It is badly washed, it is stony, muddy,
+and great trees have fallen across it which wholly block the way for
+horses. At these places long detours were necessary, on steep hillsides
+and through gullies, over treacherous sink-holes in the rocks, through
+quaggy places, heaps of brush, and rotten logs. Those who have ever
+attempted to get horses over such ground will not wonder at the slow
+progress we made. Before we were halfway up the ascent, we realized the
+folly of attempting it on horseback; but then to go on seemed as easy as
+to go back. The way was also exceedingly steep in places, and what with
+roots, and logs, and slippery rocks and stones, it was a desperate climb
+for the horses.
+
+What a magnificent forest! Oaks, chestnuts, Poplars, hemlocks, the
+cucumber (a species of magnolia, with a pinkish, cucumber-like cone),
+and all sorts of northern and southern growths meeting here in splendid
+array. And this gigantic forest, with little diminution in size of
+trees, continued two thirds of the way up. We marked, as we went on, the
+maple, the black walnut, the buckeye, the hickory, the locust, and the
+guide pointed out in one section the largest cherry-trees we had ever
+seen; splendid trunks, each worth a large sum if it could be got to
+market. After the great trees were left behind, we entered a garden of
+white birches, and then a plateau of swamp, thick with raspberry bushes,
+and finally the ridges, densely crowded with the funereal black balsam.
+
+Halfway up, Big Tom showed us his favorite, the biggest tree he knew. It
+was a poplar, or tulip. It stands more like a column than a tree, rising
+high into the air, with scarcely a perceptible taper, perhaps sixty,
+more likely a hundred, feet before it puts out a limb.
+
+Its girth six feet from the ground is thirty-two feet! I think it might
+be called Big Tom. It stood here, of course, a giant, when Columbus
+sailed from Spain, and perhaps some sentimental traveler will attach the
+name of Columbus to it.
+
+In the woods there was not much sign of animal life, scarcely the note
+of a bird, but we noticed as we rode along in the otherwise primeval
+silence a loud and continuous humming overhead, almost like the sound
+of the wind in pine tops. It was the humming of bees! The upper branches
+were alive with these industrious toilers, and Big Tom was always on the
+alert to discover and mark a bee-gum, which he could visit afterwards.
+Honey hunting is one of his occupations. Collecting spruce gum is
+another, and he was continually hacking off with his hatchet knobs of
+the translucent secretion. How rich and fragrant are these forests! The
+rhododendron was still in occasional bloom' and flowers of brilliant hue
+gleamed here and there.
+
+The struggle was more severe as we neared the summit, and the footing
+worse for the horses. Occasionally it was safest to dismount and lead
+them up slippery ascents; but this was also dangerous, for it was
+difficult to keep them from treading on our heels, in their frantic
+flounderings, in the steep, wet, narrow, brier-grown path. At one
+uncommonly pokerish place, where the wet rock sloped into a bog, the
+rider of Jack thought it prudent to dismount, but Big Tom insisted that
+Jack would “make it” all right, only give him his head. The rider gave
+him his head, and the next minute Jack's four heels were in the air, and
+he came down on his side in a flash. The rider fortunately extricated
+his leg without losing it, Jack scrambled out with a broken shoe, and
+the two limped along. It was a wonder that the horses' legs were not
+broken a dozen times.
+
+As we approached the top, Big Tom pointed out the direction, a half mile
+away, of a small pond, a little mountain tarn, overlooked by a ledge of
+rock, where Professor Mitchell lost his life. Big Tom was the guide
+that found his body. That day, as we sat on the summit, he gave in great
+detail the story, the general outline of which is well known.
+
+The first effort to measure the height of the Black Mountains was made
+in 1835, by Professor Elisha Mitchell, professor of mathematics and
+chemistry in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mr.
+Mitchell was a native of Connecticut, born in Washington, Litchfield
+County, in 1793; graduated at Yale, ordained a Presbyterian minister,
+and was for a time state surveyor; and became a professor at Chapel
+Hill in 1818. He first ascertained and published the fact that the Black
+Mountains are the highest land east of the Rocky Mountains. In 1844
+he visited the locality again. Measurements were subsequently made by
+Professor Guyot and by Senator Clingman. One of the peaks was named for
+the senator (the one next in height to Mitchell is described as Clingman
+on the state map), and a dispute arose as to whether Mitchell had really
+visited and measured the highest peak. Senator Clingman still maintains
+that he did not, and that the peak now known as Mitchell is the one that
+Clingman first described. The estimates of altitudes made by the three
+explorers named differed considerably. The height now fixed for Mount
+Mitchell is 6711; that of Mount Washington is 6285. There are twelve
+peaks in this range higher than Mount Washington, and if we add those
+in the Great Smoky Mountains which overtop it, there are some twenty in
+this State higher than the granite giant of New Hampshire.
+
+In order to verify his statement, Professor Mitchell (then in his
+sixty-fourth year) made a third ascent in June, 1857. He was alone, and
+went up from the Swannanoa side. He did not return. No anxiety was felt
+for two or three days, as he was a good mountaineer, and it was supposed
+he had crossed the mountain and made his way out by the Caney River.
+But when several days passed without tidings of him, a search party was
+formed. Big Tom Wilson was with it. They explored the mountain in all
+directions unsuccessfully. At length Big Tom separated himself from his
+companions and took a course in accordance with his notion of that which
+would be pursued by a man lost in the clouds or the darkness. He
+soon struck the trail of the wanderer, and, following it, discovered
+Mitchell's body lying in a pool at the foot of a rocky precipice some
+thirty feet high. It was evident that Mitchell, making his way along
+the ridge in darkness or fog, had fallen off. It was the ninth (or the
+eleventh) day of his disappearance, but in the pure mountain air the
+body had suffered no change. Big Tom brought his companions to the
+place, and on consultation it was decided to leave the body undisturbed
+till Mitchell's friends could be present.
+
+There was some talk of burying him on the mountain, but the friends
+decided otherwise, and the remains, with much difficulty, were got down
+to Asheville and there interred.
+
+Some years afterwards, I believe at the instance of a society of
+scientists, it was resolved to transport the body to the summit of Mount
+Mitchell; for the tragic death of the explorer had forever settled in
+the popular mind the name of the mountain. The task was not easy. A
+road had to be cut, over which a sledge could be hauled, and the hardy
+mountaineers who undertook the removal were three days in reaching the
+summit with their burden. The remains were accompanied by a considerable
+concourse, and the last rites on the top were participated in by a
+hundred or more scientists and prominent men from different parts of
+the State. Such a strange cortege had never before broken the silence
+of this lonely wilderness, nor was ever burial more impressive than this
+wild interment above the clouds.
+
+We had been preceded in our climb all the way by a huge bear. That he
+was huge, a lunker, a monstrous old varmint, Big Tom knew by the size of
+his tracks; that he was making the ascent that morning ahead of us, Big
+Tom knew by the freshness of the trail. We might come upon him at any
+moment; he might be in the garden; was quite likely to be found in the
+raspberry patch. That we did not encounter him I am convinced was not
+the fault of Big Tom, but of the bear.
+
+After a struggle of five hours we emerged from the balsams and briers
+into a lovely open meadow, of lush clover, timothy, and blue grass. We
+unsaddled the horses and turned them loose to feed in it. The meadow
+sloped up to a belt of balsams and firs, a steep rocky knob, and
+climbing that on foot we stood upon the summit of Mitchell at one
+o'clock. We were none too soon, for already the clouds were preparing
+for what appears to be a daily storm at this season.
+
+The summit is a nearly level spot of some thirty or forty feet in extent
+either way, with a floor of rock and loose stones. The stunted balsams
+have been cut away so as to give a view. The sweep of prospect is vast,
+and we could see the whole horizon except in the direction of Roan,
+whose long bulk was enveloped in cloud. Portions of six States were in
+sight, we were told, but that is merely a geographical expression. What
+we saw, wherever we looked, was an inextricable tumble of mountains,
+without order or leading line of direction,--domes, peaks, ridges,
+endless and countless, everywhere, some in shadow, some tipped with
+shafts of sunlight, all wooded and green or black, and all in more
+softened contours than our Northern hills, but still wild, lonesome,
+terrible. Away in the southwest, lifting themselves up in a gleam of
+the western sky, the Great Smoky Mountains loomed like a frowning
+continental fortress, sullen and remote. With Clingman and Gibbs and
+Holdback peaks near at hand and apparently of equal height, Mitchell
+seemed only a part and not separate from the mighty congregation of
+giants.
+
+In the center of the stony plot on the summit lie the remains of
+Mitchell. To dig a grave in the rock was impracticable, but the loose
+stones were scooped away to the depth of a foot or so, the body was
+deposited, and the stones were replaced over it. It was the original
+intention to erect a monument, but the enterprise of the projectors of
+this royal entombment failed at that point. The grave is surrounded by
+a low wall of loose stones, to which each visitor adds one, and in the
+course of ages the cairn may grow to a good size. The explorer lies
+there without name or headstone to mark his awful resting-place. The
+mountain is his monument. He is alone with its majesty. He is there in
+the clouds, in the tempests, where the lightnings play, and thunders
+leap, amid the elemental tumult, in the occasional great calm and
+silence and the pale sunlight. It is the most majestic, the most
+lonesome grave on earth.
+
+As we sat there, awed a little by this presence, the clouds were
+gathering from various quarters and drifting towards us. We could watch
+the process of thunder-storms and the manufacture of tempests. I have
+often noticed on other high mountains how the clouds, forming like genii
+released from the earth, mount into the upper air, and in masses of torn
+fragments of mist hurry across the sky as to a rendezvous of witches.
+This was a different display. These clouds came slowly sailing from the
+distant horizon, like ships on an aerial voyage. Some were below us,
+some on our level; they were all in well-defined, distinct masses,
+molten silver on deck, below trailing rain, and attended on earth
+by gigantic shadows that moved with them. This strange fleet of
+battle-ships, drifted by the shifting currents, was maneuvering for an
+engagement. One after another, as they came into range about our peak
+of observation, they opened fire. Sharp flashes of lightning darted from
+one to the other; a jet of flame from one leaped across the interval
+and was buried in the bosom of its adversary; and at every discharge the
+boom of great guns echoed through the mountains. It was something more
+than a royal salute to the tomb of the mortal at our feet, for the
+masses of cloud were rent in the fray, at every discharge the rain
+was precipitated in increasing torrents, and soon the vast hulks were
+trailing torn fragments and wreaths of mist, like the shot-away shrouds
+and sails of ships in battle. Gradually, from this long-range practice
+with single guns and exchange of broadsides, they drifted into
+closer conflict, rushed together, and we lost sight of the individual
+combatants in the general tumult of this aerial war.
+
+We had barely twenty minutes for our observations, when it was time
+to go; and had scarcely left the peak when the clouds enveloped it. We
+hastened down under the threatening sky to the saddles and the luncheon.
+Just off from the summit, amid the rocks, is a complete arbor, or
+tunnel, of rhododendrons. This cavernous place a Western writer has made
+the scene of a desperate encounter between Big Tom and a catamount, or
+American panther, which had been caught in a trap and dragged it there,
+pursued by Wilson. It is an exceedingly graphic narrative, and is
+enlivened by the statement that Big Tom had the night before drunk up
+all the whisky of the party which had spent the night on the summit. Now
+Big Tom assured us that the whisky part of the story was an invention;
+he was not (which is true) in the habit of using it; if he ever did take
+any, it might be a drop on Mitchell; in fact, when he inquired if we
+had a flask, he remarked that a taste of it would do him good then and
+there. We regretted the lack of it in our baggage. But what inclined Big
+Tom to discredit the Western writer's story altogether was the fact that
+he never in his life had had a difficulty with a catamount, and never
+had seen one in these mountains.
+
+Our lunch was eaten in haste. Big Tom refused the chicken he had
+provided for us, and strengthened himself with slices of raw salt pork,
+which he cut from a hunk with his clasp-knife. We caught and saddled our
+horses, who were reluctant to leave the rich feed, enveloped ourselves
+in waterproofs, and got into the stony path for the descent just as the
+torrent came down. It did rain. It lightened, the thunder crashed, the
+wind howled and twisted the treetops. It was as if we were pursued by
+the avenging spirits of the mountains for our intrusion. Such a tempest
+on this height had its terrors even for our hardy guide. He preferred to
+be lower down while it was going on. The crash and reverberation of the
+thunder did not trouble us so much as the swish of the wet branches in
+our faces and the horrible road, with its mud, tripping roots, loose
+stones, and slippery rocks. Progress was slow. The horses were in
+momentary danger of breaking their legs. In the first hour there was not
+much descent. In the clouds we were passing over Clingman, Gibbs, and
+Holdback. The rain had ceased, but the mist still shut off all view, if
+any had been attainable, and bushes and paths were deluged. The descent
+was more uncomfortable than the ascent, and we were compelled a good
+deal of the way to lead the jaded horses down the slippery rocks.
+
+From the peak to the Widow Patten's, where we proposed to pass the
+night, is twelve miles, a distance we rode or scrambled down, every step
+of the road bad, in five and a half hours. Halfway down we came out upon
+a cleared place, a farm, with fruit-trees and a house in ruins. Here had
+been a summer hotel much resorted to before the war, but now abandoned.
+Above it we turned aside for the view from Elizabeth rock, named from
+the daughter of the proprietor of the hotel, who often sat here, said
+Big Tom, before she went out of this world. It is a bold rocky ledge,
+and the view from it, looking south, is unquestionably the finest, the
+most pleasing and picture-like, we found in these mountains. In the
+foreground is the deep gorge of a branch of the Swannanoa, and opposite
+is the great wall of the Blue Ridge (the Blue Ridge is the most
+capricious and inexplicable system) making off to the Blacks. The depth
+of the gorge, the sweep of the sky line, and the reposeful aspect of the
+scene to the sunny south made this view both grand and charming.
+Nature does not always put the needed dash of poetry into her extensive
+prospects.
+
+Leaving this clearing and the now neglected spring, where fashion used
+to slake its thirst, we zigzagged down the mountain-side through a
+forest of trees growing at every step larger and nobler, and at length
+struck a small stream, the North Fork of the Swannanoa, which led us to
+the first settlement. Just at night,--it was nearly seven o'clock,--we
+entered one of the most stately forests I have ever seen, and rode for
+some distance in an alley of rhododendrons that arched overhead and made
+a bower. It was like an aisle in a temple; high overhead was the somber,
+leafy roof, supported by gigantic columns. Few widows have such an
+avenue of approach to their domain as the Widow Patten has.
+
+Cheering as this outcome was from the day's struggle and storm, the
+Professor seemed sunk in a profound sadness. The auguries which the
+Friend drew from these signs of civilization of a charming inn and a
+royal supper did not lighten the melancholy of his mind. “Alas,” he
+said,
+
+  “Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
+   And make me travel forth without my cloak,
+   To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
+   Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
+   'T is not enough that through the cloud thou break,
+   To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
+   For no man well of such a salve can speak
+   That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
+   Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief:
+   Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss.”
+
+“Loss of what?” cried the Friend, as he whipped up his halting steed.
+
+“Loss of self-respect. I feel humiliated that I consented to climb this
+mountain.”
+
+“Nonsense! You'll live to thank me for it, as the best thing you ever
+did. It's over and done now, and you've got it to tell your friends.”
+
+“That's just the trouble. They'll ask me if I went up Mitchell, and I
+shall have to say I did. My character for consistency is gone. Not that
+I care much what they think, but my own self-respect is gone. I never
+believed I would do it. A man ca'nt afford to lower himself in his own
+esteem, at my time of life.”
+
+The Widow Patten's was only an advanced settlement in this narrow valley
+on the mountain-side, but a little group of buildings, a fence, and a
+gate gave it the air of a place, and it had once been better cared
+for than it is now. Few travelers pass that way, and the art of
+entertaining, if it ever existed, is fallen into desuetude. We
+unsaddled at the veranda, and sat down to review our adventure, make the
+acquaintance of the family, and hear the last story from Big Tom. The
+mountaineer, though wet, was as fresh as a daisy, and fatigue in no wise
+checked the easy, cheerful flow of his talk. He was evidently a favorite
+with his neighbors, and not unpleasantly conscious of the extent of
+his reputation. But he encountered here another social grade. The Widow
+Patten was highly connected. We were not long in discovering that she
+was an Alexander. She had been a schoolmate of Senator Vance,--“Zeb
+Vance” he still was to her,--and the senator and his wife had stayed at
+her house. I wish I could say that the supper, for which we waited
+till nine o'clock, was as “highly connected” as the landlady. It was,
+however, a supper that left its memory. We were lodged in a detached
+house, which we had to ourselves, where a roaring wood fire made amends
+for other things lacking. It was necessary to close the doors to
+keep out the wandering cows and pigs, and I am bound to say that,
+notwithstanding the voices of the night, we slept there the sleep of
+peace.
+
+In the morning a genuine surprise awaited us; it seemed impossible, but
+the breakfast was many degrees worse than the supper; and when we paid
+our bill, large for the region, we were consoled by the thought that we
+paid for the high connection as well as for the accommodations. This
+is a regular place of entertainment, and one is at liberty to praise it
+without violation of delicacy.
+
+The broken shoe of Jack required attention, and we were all the morning
+hunting a blacksmith, as we rode down the valley. Three blacksmith's
+shanties were found, and after long waiting to send for the operator it
+turned out in each case that he had no shoes, no nails, no iron to make
+either of. We made a detour of three miles to what was represented as a
+regular shop. The owner had secured the service of a colored blacksmith
+for a special job, and was, not inclined to accommodate us; he had no
+shoes, no nails. But the colored blacksmith, who appreciated the plight
+we were in, offered to make a shoe, and to crib four nails from those he
+had laid aside for a couple of mules; and after a good deal of delay,
+we were enabled to go on. The incident shows, as well as anything, the
+barrenness and shiftlessness of the region. A horseman with whom we rode
+in the morning gave us a very low estimate of the trustworthiness of
+the inhabitants. The valley is wild and very pretty all the way down to
+Colonel Long's,--twelve miles,--but the wretched-looking people along
+the way live in a wretched manner.
+
+Just before reaching Colonel Long's we forded the stream (here of
+good size), the bridge having tumbled down, and encountered a party of
+picnickers under the trees--signs of civilization; a railway station is
+not far off. Colonel Long's is a typical Southern establishment: a white
+house, or rather three houses, all of one story, built on to each other
+as beehives are set in a row, all porches and galleries. No one at home
+but the cook, a rotund, broad-faced woman, with a merry eye, whose very
+appearance suggested good cooking and hospitality; the Missis and the
+children had gone up to the river fishing; the Colonel was somewhere
+about the place; always was away when he was wanted. Guess he'd take us
+in, mighty fine man the Colonel; and she dispatched a child from a cabin
+in the rear to hunt him up. The Colonel was a great friend of her folks
+down to Greenville; they visited here. Law, no, she didn't live here.
+Was just up here spending the summer, for her health. God-forsaken lot
+of people up here, poor trash. She wouldn't stay here a day, but the
+Colonel was a friend of her folks, the firstest folks in Greenville.
+Nobody round here she could 'sociate with. She was a Presbyterian, the
+folks round here mostly Baptists and Methodists. More style about the
+Presbyterians. Married? No, she hoped not. She did n't want to support
+no husband. Got 'nuff to do to take care of herself. That her little
+girl? No; she'd only got one child, down to Greenville, just the
+prettiest boy ever was, as white as anybody. How did she what? reconcile
+this state of things with not being married and being a Presbyterian?
+Sho! she liked to carry some religion along; it was mighty handy
+occasionally, mebbe not all the time. Yes, indeed, she enjoyed her
+religion.
+
+The Colonel appeared and gave us a most cordial welcome. The fat and
+merry cook blustered around and prepared a good dinner, memorable for
+its “light” bread, the first we had seen since Cranberry Forge. The
+Colonel is in some sense a public man, having been a mail agent, and
+a Republican. He showed us photographs and engravings of Northern
+politicians, and had the air of a man who had been in Washington. This
+was a fine country for any kind of fruit,--apples, grapes, pears; it
+needed a little Northern enterprise to set things going. The travelers
+were indebted to the Colonel for a delightful noonday rest, and with
+regret declined his pressing invitation to pass the night with him.
+
+The ride down the Swannanoa to Asheville was pleasant, through a
+cultivated region, over a good road. The Swannanoa is, however, a turbid
+stream. In order to obtain the most impressive view of Asheville we
+approached it by the way of Beaucatcher Hill, a sharp elevation a mile
+west of the town. I suppose the name is a corruption of some descriptive
+French word, but it has long been a favorite resort of the frequenters
+of Asheville, and it may be traditional that it is a good place to catch
+beaux. The summit is occupied by a handsome private residence, and from
+this ridge the view, which has the merit of “bursting” upon the traveler
+as he comes over the hill, is captivating in its extent and variety. The
+pretty town of Asheville is seen to cover a number of elevations gently
+rising out of the valley, and the valley, a rich agricultural region,
+well watered and fruitful, is completely inclosed by picturesque hills,
+some of them rising to the dignity of mountains. The most conspicuous
+of these is Mount Pisgah, eighteen miles distant to the southwest, a
+pyramid of the Balsam range, 5757 feet high. Mount Pisgah, from its
+shape, is the most attractive mountain in this region.
+
+The sunset light was falling upon the splendid panorama and softening
+it. The windows of the town gleamed as if on fire. From the steep slope
+below came the mingled sounds of children shouting, cattle driven home,
+and all that hum of life that marks a thickly peopled region preparing
+for the night. It was the leisure hour of an August afternoon, and
+Asheville was in all its watering-place gayety, as we reined up at
+the Swannanoa hotel. A band was playing on the balcony. We had reached
+ice-water, barbers, waiters, civilization.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Ashville, delightful for situation, on small hills that rise above
+the French Broad below its confluence with the Swannanoa, is a sort of
+fourteenth cousin to Saratoga. It has no springs, but lying 2250
+feet above the sea and in a lovely valley, mountain girt, it has pure
+atmosphere and an equable climate; and being both a summer and winter
+resort, it has acquired a watering-place air. There are Southerners who
+declare that it is too hot in summer, and that the complete circuit of
+mountains shuts out any lively movement of air. But the scenery is so
+charming and noble, the drives are so varied, the roads so unusually
+passable for a Southern country, and the facilities for excursions so
+good, that Asheville is a favorite resort.
+
+Architecturally the place is not remarkable, but its surface is
+so irregular, there are so many acclivities and deep valleys that
+improvements can never obliterate, that it is perforce picturesque. It
+is interesting also, if not pleasing, in its contrasts--the enterprise
+of taste and money-making struggling with the laissez faire of the
+South. The negro, I suppose, must be regarded as a conservative element;
+he has not much inclination to change his clothes or his cabin, and his
+swarming presence gives a ragged aspect to the new civilization. And
+to say the truth, the new element of Southern smartness lacks the
+trim thrift the North is familiar with; though the visitor who needs
+relaxation is not disposed to quarrel with the easy-going terms on which
+life is taken.
+
+Asheville, it is needless to say, appeared very gay and stimulating to
+the riders from the wilderness. The Professor, who does not even pretend
+to patronize Nature, had his revenge as we strolled about the streets
+(there is but one of much consideration), immensely entertained by the
+picturesque contrasts. There was more life and amusement here in
+five minutes, he declared, than in five days of what people called
+scenery--the present rage for scenery, anyway, being only a fashion and
+a modern invention. The Friend suspected from this penchant for the city
+that the Professor must have been brought up in the country.
+
+There was a kind of predetermined and willful gayety about Asheville
+however, that is apt to be present in a watering-place, and gave to it
+the melancholy tone that is always present in gay places. We fancied
+that the lively movement in the streets had an air of unreality. A band
+of musicians on the balcony of the Swannanoa were scraping and tooting
+and twanging with a hired air, and on the opposite balcony of the Eagle
+a rival band echoed and redoubled the perfunctory joyousness. The gayety
+was contagious: the horses felt it; those that carried light burdens
+of beauty minced and pranced, the pony in the dog-cart was inclined to
+dash, the few passing equipages had an air of pleasure; and the people
+of color, the comely waitress and the slouching corner-loafer, responded
+to the animation of the festive strains. In the late afternoon the
+streets were full of people, wagons, carriages, horsemen, all with a
+holiday air, dashed with African color and humor--the irresponsibility
+of the most insouciant and humorous race in the world, perhaps more
+comical than humorous; a mixture of recent civilization and rudeness,
+peculiar and amusing; a happy coming together, it seemed, of Southern
+abandon and Northern wealth, though the North was little represented at
+this season.
+
+As evening came on, the streets, though wanting gas, were still more
+animated; the shops were open, some very good ones, and the white
+and black throng increasing, especially the black, for the negro is
+preeminently a night bird. In the hotels dancing was promised--the
+german was announced; on the galleries and in the corridors were
+groups of young people, a little loud in manner and voice,--the young
+gentleman, with his over-elaborate manner to ladies in bowing and
+hat-lifting, and the blooming girls from the lesser Southern cities,
+with the slight provincial note, and yet with the frank and engaging
+cordiality which is as charming as it is characteristic. I do not know
+what led the Professor to query if the Southern young women were not
+superior to the Southern young men, but he is always asking questions
+nobody can answer. At the Swannanoa were half a dozen bridal couples,
+readily recognizable by the perfect air they had of having been
+married a long time. How interesting such young voyagers are, and how
+interesting they are to each other! Columbus never discovered such a
+large world as they have to find out and possess each in the other.
+
+Among the attractions of the evening it was difficult to choose. There
+was a lawn-party advertised at Battery Point (where a fine hotel has
+since been built) and we walked up to that round knob after dark. It is
+a hill with a grove, which commands a charming view, and was fortified
+during the war. We found it illuminated with Chinese lanterns; and
+little tables set about under the trees, laden with cake and ice-cream,
+offered a chance to the stranger to contribute money for the benefit
+of the Presbyterian Church. I am afraid it was not a profitable
+entertainment, for the men seemed to have business elsewhere, but the
+ladies about the tables made charming groups in the lighted grove. Man
+is a stupid animal at best, or he would not make it so difficult for the
+womenkind to scrape together a little money for charitable purposes.
+But probably the women like this method of raising money better than the
+direct one.
+
+The evening gayety of the town was well distributed. When we descended
+to the Court-House Square, a great crowd had collected, black, white,
+and yellow, about a high platform, upon which four glaring torches
+lighted up the novel scene, and those who could read might decipher this
+legend on a standard at the back of the stage:
+
+           HAPPY JOHN.
+      ONE OF THE SLAVES OF WADE HAMPTON.
+          COME AND SEE HIM!
+
+Happy John, who occupied the platform with Mary, a “bright” yellow girl,
+took the comical view of his race, which was greatly enjoyed by his
+audience. His face was blackened to the proper color of the stage-darky,
+and he wore a flaming suit of calico, the trousers and coat striped
+longitudinally according to Punch's idea of “Uncle Sam,” the coat a
+swallow-tail bound and faced with scarlet, and a bell-crowned white
+hat. This conceit of a colored Yankee seemed to tickle all colors in
+the audience amazingly. Mary, the “bright” woman (this is the universal
+designation of the light mulatto), was a pleasing but bold yellow girl,
+who wore a natty cap trimmed with scarlet, and had the assured or pert
+manner of all traveling sawdust performers.
+
+“Oh, yes,” exclaimed a bright woman in the crowd, “Happy John was sure
+enough one of Wade Hampton's slaves, and he's right good looking when
+he's not blackened up.”
+
+Happy John sustained the promise of his name by spontaneous gayety and
+enjoyment of the fleeting moment; he had a glib tongue and a ready, rude
+wit, and talked to his audience with a delicious mingling of impudence,
+deference, and patronage, commenting upon them generally, administering
+advice and correction in a strain of humor that kept his hearers in a
+pleased excitement. He handled the banjo and the guitar alternately,
+and talked all the time when he was not singing. Mary (how much harder
+featured and brazen a woman is in such a position than a man of the
+same caliber!) sang, in an untutored treble, songs of sentiment, often
+risque, in solo and in company with John, but with a cold, indifferent
+air, in contrast to the rollicking enjoyment of her comrade.
+
+The favorite song, which the crowd compelled her to repeat, touched
+lightly the uncertainties of love, expressed in the falsetto pathetic
+refrain:
+
+  “Mary's gone away wid de coon.”
+
+All this, with the moon, the soft summer night, the mixed crowd of
+darkies and whites, the stump eloquence of Happy John, the singing, the
+laughter, the flaring torches, made a wild scene. The entertainment was
+quite free, with a “collection” occasionally during the performance.
+
+What most impressed us, however, was the turning to account by Happy
+John of the “nigger” side of the black man as a means of low comedy,
+and the enjoyment of it by all the people of color. They appeared to
+appreciate as highly as anybody the comic element in themselves,
+and Happy John had emphasized it by deepening his natural color and
+exaggerating the “nigger” peculiarities. I presume none of them analyzed
+the nature of his infectious gayety, nor thought of the pathos that lay
+so close to it, in the fact of his recent slavery, and the distinction
+of being one of Wade Hampton's niggers, and the melancholy mirth of this
+light-hearted race's burlesque of itself.
+
+A performance followed which called forth the appreciation of the crowd
+more than the wit of Happy John or the faded songs of the yellow girl.
+John took two sweet-cakes and broke each in fine pieces into a saucer,
+and after sugaring and eulogizing the dry messes, called for two small
+darky volunteers from the audience to come up on the platform and devour
+them. He offered a prize of fifteen cents to the one who should first
+eat the contents of his dish, not using his hands, and hold up the
+saucer empty in token of his victory. The cake was tempting, and the
+fifteen cents irresistible, and a couple of boys in ragged shirts and
+short trousers and a suspender apiece came up shamefacedly to enter for
+the prize. Each one grasped his saucer in both hands, and with face over
+the dish awaited the word “go,” which John gave, and started off the
+contest with a banjo accompaniment. To pick up with the mouth the dry
+cake and choke it down was not so easy as the boys apprehended, but they
+went into the task with all their might, gobbling and swallowing as
+if they loved cake, occasionally rolling an eye to the saucer of the
+contestant to see the relative progress, John strumming, ironically
+encouraging, and the crowd roaring. As the combat deepened and the
+contestants strangled and stuffed and sputtered, the crowd went into
+spasms of laughter. The smallest boy won by a few seconds, holding up
+his empty saucer, with mouth stuffed, vigorously trying to swallow, like
+a chicken with his throat clogged with dry meal, and utterly unable to
+speak. The impartial John praised the victor in mock heroics, but said
+that the trial was so even that he would divide the prize, ten cents to
+one and five to the other--a stroke of justice that greatly increased
+his popularity. And then he dismissed the assembly, saying that he had
+promised the mayor to do so early, because he did not wish to run an
+opposition to the political meeting going on in the courthouse.
+
+The scene in the large court-room was less animated than that out-doors;
+a half-dozen tallow dips, hung on the wall in sconces and stuck on the
+judge's long desk, feebly illuminated the mixed crowd of black and white
+who sat in, and on the backs of, the benches, and cast only a fitful
+light upon the orator, who paced back and forth and pounded the rail.
+It was to have been a joint discussion between the two presidential
+electors running in that district, but, the Republican being absent, his
+place was taken by a young man of the town. The Democratic orator took
+advantage of the absence of his opponent to describe the discussion
+of the night before, and to give a portrait of his adversary. He was
+represented as a cross between a baboon and a jackass, who would be a
+natural curiosity for Barnum. “I intend,” said the orator, “to put
+him in a cage and exhibit him about the deestrict.” This political hit
+called forth great applause. All his arguments were of this pointed
+character, and they appeared to be unanswerable. The orator appeared
+to prove that there wasn't a respectable man in the opposite party who
+wasn't an office-holder, nor a white man of any kind in it who was not
+an office-holder. If there were any issues or principles in the canvass,
+he paid his audience the compliment of knowing all about them, for he
+never alluded to any. In another state of society, such a speech of
+personalities might have led to subsequent shootings, but no doubt his
+adversary would pay him in the same coin when next they met, and
+the exhibition seemed to be regarded down here as satisfactory and
+enlightened political canvassing for votes. The speaker who replied,
+opened his address with a noble tribute to woman (as the first speaker
+had ended his), directed to a dozen of that sex who sat in the gloom of
+a corner. The young man was moderate in his sarcasm, and attempted to
+speak of national issues, but the crowd had small relish for that sort
+of thing. At eleven o'clock, when we got away from the unsavory room
+(more than half the candles had gone out), the orator was making slow
+headway against the refished blackguardism of the evening. The german
+was still “on” at the hotel when we ascended to our chamber, satisfied
+that Asheville was a lively town.
+
+The sojourner at Asheville can amuse himself very well by walking or
+driving to the many picturesque points of view about the town; livery
+stables abound, and the roads are good. The Beau-catcher Hill is always
+attractive; and Connolly's, a private place a couple of miles from
+town, is ideally situated, being on a slight elevation in the valley,
+commanding the entire circuit of mountains, for it has the air of repose
+which is so seldom experienced in the location of a dwelling in America
+whence an extensive prospect is given. Or if the visitor is disinclined
+to exertion, he may lounge in the rooms of the hospitable Asheville
+Club; or he may sit on the sidewalk in front of the hotels, and talk
+with the colonels and judges and generals and ex-members of Congress,
+the talk generally drifting to the new commercial and industrial life
+of the South, and only to politics as it affects these; and he will be
+pleased, if the conversation takes a reminiscent turn, with the lack of
+bitterness and the tone of friendliness. The negro problem is commonly
+discussed philosophically and without heat, but there is always
+discovered, underneath, the determination that the negro shall never
+again get the legislative upper hand. And the gentleman from South
+Carolina who has an upland farm, and is heartily glad slavery is
+gone, and wants the negro educated, when it comes to ascendency in
+politics--such as the State once experienced--asks you what you would
+do yourself. This is not the place to enter upon the politico-social
+question, but the writer may note one impression gathered from much
+friendly and agreeable conversation. It is that the Southern whites
+misapprehend and make a scarecrow of “social equality.” When, during the
+war, it was a question at the North of giving the colored people of the
+Northern States the ballot, the argument against it used to be stated
+in the form of a question: “Do you want your daughter to marry a negro?”
+ Well, the negro has his political rights in the North, and there has
+come no change in the social conditions whatever. And there is no doubt
+that the social conditions would remain exactly as they are at the South
+if the negro enjoyed all the civil rights which the Constitution tries
+to give him. The most sensible view of this whole question was taken by
+an intelligent colored man, whose brother was formerly a representative
+in Congress. “Social equality,” he said in effect, “is a humbug. We do
+not expect it, we do not want it. It does not exist among the blacks
+themselves. We have our own social degrees, and choose our own
+associates. We simply want the ordinary civil rights, under which we
+can live and make our way in peace and amity. This is necessary to our
+self-respect, and if we have not self-respect, it is not to be supposed
+that the race can improve. I'll tell you what I mean. My wife is a
+modest, intelligent woman, of good manners, and she is always neat,
+and tastefully dressed. Now, if she goes to take the cars, she is not
+permitted to go into a clean car with decent people, but is ordered into
+one that is repellent, and is forced into company that any refined woman
+would shrink from. But along comes a flauntingly dressed woman, of known
+disreputable character, whom my wife would be disgraced to know, and
+she takes any place that money will buy. It is this sort of thing that
+hurts.”
+
+We took the eastern train one evening to Round Nob (Henry's Station),
+some thirty miles, in order to see the wonderful railway that descends,
+a distance of eight miles, from the summit of Swannanoa Gap (2657 feet
+elevation) to Round Nob Hotel (1607 feet). The Swannanoa Summit is the
+dividing line between the waters that flow to the Atlantic and those
+that go to the Gulf of Mexico. This fact was impressed upon us by the
+inhabitants, who derive a good deal of comfort from it. Such divides are
+always matter of local pride. Unfortunately, perhaps, it was too dark
+before we reached Henry's to enable us to see the road in all its loops
+and parallels as it appears on the map, but we gained a better effect.
+The hotel, when we first sighted it, all its windows blazing with light,
+was at the bottom of a well. Beside it--it was sufficiently light to see
+that--a column of water sprang straight into the air to the height, as
+we learned afterwards from two official sources, of 225 and 265 feet;
+and the information was added that it is the highest fountain in the
+world. This stout column, stiff as a flagstaff, with its feathery head
+of mist gleaming like silver in the failing light, had the most charming
+effect. We passed out of sight of hotel and fountain, but were conscious
+of being--whirled on a circular descending grade, and very soon they
+were in sight again. Again and again they disappeared and came to view,
+now on one side and now on the other, until our train seemed to be
+bewitched, making frantic efforts by dodgings and turnings, now through
+tunnels and now over high pieces of trestle, to escape the inevitable
+attraction that was gravitating it down to the hospitable lights at the
+bottom of the well. When we climbed back up the road in the morning, we
+had an opportunity to see the marvelous engineering, but there is little
+else to see, the view being nearly always very limited.
+
+The hotel at the bottom of the ravine, on the side of Round Nob, offers
+little in the way of prospect, but it is a picturesque place, and we
+could understand why it was full of visitors when we came to the table.
+It was probably the best-kept house of entertainment in the State,
+and being in the midst of the Black Hills, it offers good chances for
+fishing and mountain climbing.
+
+In the morning the fountain, which is, of course, artificial, refused
+to play, the rain in the night having washed in debris which clogged the
+conduit. But it soon freed itself and sent up for a long time, like
+a sulky geyser, mud and foul water. When it got freedom and tolerable
+clearness, we noted that the water went up in pulsations, which were
+marked at short distances by the water falling off, giving the column
+the appearance of a spine. The summit, always beating the air in efforts
+to rise higher, fell over in a veil of mist.
+
+There are certain excursions that the sojourner at Asheville must make.
+He must ride forty-five miles south through Henderson and Transylvania
+to Caesar's Head, on the South Carolina border, where the mountain
+system abruptly breaks down into the vast southern plain; where the
+observer, standing on the edge of the precipice, has behind him and
+before him the greatest contrast that nature can offer. He must also
+take the rail to Waynesville, and visit the much-frequented White
+Sulphur Springs, among the Balsam Mountains, and penetrate the Great
+Smoky range by way of Quallatown, and make the acquaintance of the
+remnant of Cherokee Indians living on the north slope of Cheoah
+Mountain. The Professor could have made it a matter of personal merit
+that he escaped all these encounters with wild and picturesque nature,
+if his horse had not been too disabled for such long jaunts. It is only
+necessary, however, to explain to the public that the travelers are not
+gormandizers of scenery, and were willing to leave some portions of the
+State to the curiosity of future excursionists.
+
+But so much was said about Hickory Nut Gap that a visit to it could not
+be evaded. The Gap is about twenty-four miles southeast of Asheville. In
+the opinion of a well-informed colonel, who urged us to make the trip,
+it is the finest piece of scenery it this region. We were brought up on
+the precept “get the best,” and it was with high anticipations that we
+set out about eleven o'clock one warm, foggy morning. We followed a very
+good road through a broken, pleasant country, gradually growing wilder
+and less cultivated. There was heavy rain most of the day on the hills,
+and occasionally a shower swept across our path. The conspicuous object
+toward which we traveled all the morning was a shapely conical hill at
+the beginning of the Gap.
+
+At three o'clock we stopped at the Widow Sherrill's for dinner. Her
+house, only about a mile from the summit, is most picturesquely situated
+on a rough slope, giving a wide valley and mountain view. The house
+is old rambling, many-roomed, with wide galleries on two sides. If
+one wanted a retired retreat for a few days, with good air and fair
+entertainment, this could be commended. It is an excellent fruit region;
+apples especially are sound and of good flavor. That may be said of all
+this part of the State. The climate is adapted to apples, as the hilly
+part of New England is. I fancy the fruit ripens slowly, as it does in
+New England, and is not subject to quick decay like much of that grown
+in the West. But the grape also can be grown in all this mountain
+region. Nothing but lack of enterprise prevents any farmer from enjoying
+abundance of fruit. The industry carried on at the moment at the Widow
+Sherrill's was the artificial drying of apples for the market. The
+apples are pared, cored, and sliced in spirals, by machinery, and
+dried on tin sheets in a patented machine. The industry appears to be a
+profitable one hereabouts, and is about the only one that calls in the
+aid of invention.
+
+While our dinner was preparing, we studied the well-known pictures of
+“Jane” and “Eliza,” the photographs of Confederate boys, who had
+never returned from the war, and the relations, whom the traveling
+photographers always like to pillory in melancholy couples, and some
+stray volumes of the Sunday-school Union. Madame Sherrill, who carries
+on the farm since the death of her husband, is a woman of strong and
+liberal mind, who informed us that she got small comfort in the churches
+in the neighborhood, and gave us, in fact, a discouraging account of the
+unvital piety of the region.
+
+The descent from the summit of the Gap to Judge Logan's, nine miles, is
+rapid, and the road is wild and occasionally picturesque, following
+the Broad River, a small stream when we first overtook it, but roaring,
+rocky, and muddy, owing to frequent rains, and now and then tumbling
+down in rapids. The noisy stream made the ride animated, and an
+occasional cabin, a poor farmhouse, a mill, a schoolhouse, a store
+with an assemblage of lean horses tied to the hitching rails, gave the
+Professor opportunity for remarks upon the value of life under such
+circumstances.
+
+The valley which we followed down probably owes its celebrity to
+the uncommon phenomena of occasional naked rocks and precipices. The
+inclosing mountains are from 3000 to 4000 feet high, and generally
+wooded. I do not think that the ravine would be famous in a country
+where exposed ledges and buttressing walls of rock are common. It is
+only by comparison with the local scenery that this is remarkable. About
+a mile above judge Logan's we caught sight, through the trees, of the
+famous waterfall. From the top of the high ridge on the right, a nearly
+perpendicular cascade pours over the ledge of rocks and is lost in the
+forest. We could see nearly the whole of it, at a great height above us,
+on the opposite side of the river, and it would require an hour's stiff
+climb to reach its foot. From where we viewed it, it seemed a slender
+and not very important, but certainly a very beautiful cascade, a band
+of silver in the mass of green foliage. The fall is said to be 1400
+feet. Our colonel insists that it is a thousand. It may be, but the
+valley where we stood is at least at an elevation of 1300 feet; we could
+not believe that the ridge over which the water pours is much higher
+than 3000 feet, and the length of the fall certainly did not appear
+to be a quarter of the height of the mountain from our point of
+observation. But we had no desire to belittle this pretty cascade,
+especially when we found that Judge Logan would regard a foot abated
+from the 1400 as a personal grievance. Mr. Logan once performed the
+functions of local judge, a Republican appointment, and he sits around
+the premises now in the enjoyment of that past dignity and of the fact
+that his wife is postmistress. His house of entertainment is at the
+bottom of the valley, a place shut in, warm, damp, and not inviting to a
+long stay, although the region boasts a good many natural curiosities.
+
+It was here that we encountered again the political current, out of
+which we had been for a month. The Judge himself was reticent, as became
+a public man, but he had conspicuously posted up a monster prospectus,
+sent out from Augusta, of a campaign life of Blaine and Logan, in which
+the Professor read, with shaking knees, this sentence: “Sure to be the
+greatest and hottest [campaign and civil battle] ever known in this
+world. The thunder of the supreme struggle and its reverberations will
+shake the continents for months, and will be felt from Pole to Pole.”
+
+For this and other reasons this seemed a risky place to be in. There
+was something sinister about the murky atmosphere, and a suspicion of
+mosquitoes besides. Had there not been other travelers staying here, we
+should have felt still more uneasy. The house faced Bald Mountain, 4000
+feet high, a hill that had a very bad reputation some years ago, and
+was visited by newspaper reporters. This is, in fact, the famous Shaking
+Mountain. For a long time it had a habit of trembling, as if in an
+earthquake spasm, but with a shivering motion very different from that
+produced by an earthquake. The only good that came of it was that it
+frightened all the “moonshiners,” and caused them to join the church. It
+is not reported what became of the church afterwards. It is believed now
+that the trembling was caused by the cracking of a great ledge on the
+mountain, which slowly parted asunder. Bald Mountain is the scene of
+Mrs. Burnett's delightful story of “Louisiana,” and of the play of
+“Esmeralda.” A rock is pointed out toward the summit, which the beholder
+is asked to see resembles a hut, and which is called “Esmeralda's
+Cottage.” But this attractive maiden has departed, and we did
+not discover any woman in the region who remotely answers to her
+description.
+
+In the morning we rode a mile and a half through the woods and followed
+up a small stream to see the celebrated pools, one of which the Judge
+said was two hundred feet deep, and another bottomless. These pools, not
+round, but on one side circular excavations, some twenty feet across,
+worn in the rock by pebbles, are very good specimens, and perhaps
+remarkable specimens, of “pot-holes.” They are, however, regarded here
+as one of the wonders of the world. On the way to them we saw beautiful
+wild trumpet-creepers in blossom, festooning the trees.
+
+The stream that originates in Hickory Nut Gap is the westernmost
+branch of several forks of the Broad, which unite to the southeast in
+Rutherford County, flow to Columbia, and reach the Atlantic through the
+channel of the Santee. It is not to be confounded with the French Broad,
+which originates among the hills of Transylvania, runs northward past
+Asheville, and finds its way to the Tennessee through the Warm Springs
+Gap in the Bald Mountains. As the French claimed ownership of all the
+affluents of the Mississippi, this latter was called the French Broad.
+
+It was a great relief the next morning, on our return, to rise out of
+the lifeless atmosphere of the Gap into the invigorating air at the
+Widow Sherrill's, whose country-seat is three hundred feet higher than
+Asheville. It was a day of heavy showers, and apparently of leisure to
+the scattered population; at every store and mill was a congregation of
+loafers, who had hitched their scrawny horses and mules to the fences,
+and had the professional air of the idler and gossip the world over. The
+vehicles met on the road were a variety of the prairie schooner, long
+wagons with a top of hoops over which is stretched a cotton cloth. The
+wagons are without seats, and the canvas is too low to admit of sitting
+upright, if there were. The occupants crawl in at either end, sit or
+lie on the bottom of the wagon, and jolt along in shiftless
+uncomfortableness.
+
+Riding down the French Broad was one of the original objects of our
+journey. Travelers with the same intention may be warned that the route
+on horseback is impracticable. The distance to the Warm Springs is
+thirty-seven miles; to Marshall, more than halfway, the road is clear,
+as it runs on the opposite side of the river from the railway, and the
+valley is something more than river and rails. But below Marshall the
+valley contracts, and the rails are laid a good portion of the way in
+the old stage road. One can walk the track, but to ride a horse over its
+sleepers and culverts and occasional bridges, and dodge the trains,
+is neither safe nor agreeable. We sent our horses round--the messenger
+taking the risk of leading them, between trains, over the last six or
+eight miles,--and took the train.
+
+The railway, after crossing a mile or two of meadows, hugs the river
+all the way. The scenery is the reverse of bold. The hills are low,
+monotonous in form, and the stream winds through them, with many a
+pretty turn and “reach,” with scarcely a ribbon of room to spare on
+either side. The river is shallow, rapid, stony, muddy, full of rocks,
+with an occasional little island covered with low bushes. The rock seems
+to be a clay formation, rotten and colored. As we approach Warm Springs
+the scenery becomes a little bolder, and we emerge into the open space
+about the Springs through a narrower defile, guarded by rocks that are
+really picturesque in color and splintered decay, one of them being
+known, of course, as the “Lover's Leap,” a name common in every part
+of the modern or ancient world where there is a settlement near a
+precipice, with always the same legend attached to it.
+
+There is a little village at Warm Springs, but the hotel--since burned
+and rebuilt--(which may be briefly described as a palatial shanty)
+stands by itself close to the river, which is here a deep, rapid, turbid
+stream. A bridge once connected it with the road on the opposite bank,
+but it was carried away three or four years ago, and its ragged butments
+stand as a monument of procrastination, while the stream is crossed by
+means of a flatboat and a cable. In front of the hotel, on the slight
+slope to the river, is a meager grove of locusts. The famous spring,
+close to-the stream, is marked only by a rough box of wood and an
+iron pipe, and the water, which has a temperature of about one hundred
+degrees, runs to a shabby bath-house below, in which is a pool for
+bathing. The bath is very agreeable, the tepid water being singularly
+soft and pleasant. It has a slightly sulphurous taste. Its good effects
+are much certified. The grounds, which might be very pretty with care,
+are ill-kept and slatternly, strewn with debris, as if everything was
+left to the easy-going nature of the servants. The main house is
+of brick, with verandas and galleries all round, and a colonnade
+of thirteen huge brick and stucco columns, in honor of the thirteen
+States,--a relic of post-Revolutionary times, when the house was the
+resort of Southern fashion and romance. These columns have stood through
+one fire, and perhaps the recent one, which swept away the rest of
+the structure. The house is extended in a long wooden edifice, with
+galleries and outside stairs, the whole front being nearly seven hundred
+feet long. In a rear building is a vast, barrack-like dining-room, with
+a noble ball-room above, for dancing is the important occupation of
+visitors.
+
+The situation is very pretty, and the establishment has a
+picturesqueness of its own. Even the ugly little brick structure near
+the bath-house imposes upon one as Wade Hampton's cottage. No doubt
+we liked the place better than if it had been smart, and enjoyed the
+neglige condition, and the easy terms on which life is taken there.
+There was a sense of abundance in the sight of fowls tiptoeing about the
+verandas, and to meet a chicken in the parlor was a sort of guarantee
+that we should meet him later on in the dining-room. There was nothing
+incongruous in the presence of pigs, turkeys, and chickens on the
+grounds; they went along with the good-natured negro-service and the
+general hospitality; and we had a mental rest in the thought that all
+the gates would have been off the hinges, if there had been any gates.
+The guests were very well treated indeed, and were put under no sort of
+restraint by discipline. The long colonnade made an admirable promenade
+and lounging-place and point of observation. It was interesting to watch
+the groups under the locusts, to see the management of the ferry, the
+mounting and dismounting of the riding-parties, and to study the colors
+on the steep hill opposite, halfway up which was a neat cottage and
+flower-garden. The type of people was very pleasantly Southern. Colonels
+and politicians stand in groups and tell stories, which are followed by
+explosions of laughter; retire occasionally into the saloon, and come
+forth reminded of more stories, and all lift their hats elaborately and
+suspend the narratives when a lady goes past. A company of soldiers from
+Richmond had pitched its tents near the hotel, and in the evening the
+ball-room was enlivened with uniforms. Among the graceful dancers--and
+every one danced well, and with spirit was pointed out the young widow
+of a son of Andrew Johnson, whose pretty cottage overlooks the village.
+But the Professor, to whom this information was communicated, doubted
+whether here it was not a greater distinction to be the daughter of the
+owner of this region than to be connected with a President of the United
+States.
+
+A certain air of romance and tradition hangs about the French Broad and
+the Warm Springs, which the visitor must possess himself of in order to
+appreciate either. This was the great highway of trade and travel. At
+certain seasons there was an almost continuous procession of herds of
+cattle and sheep passing to the Eastern markets, and of trains of big
+wagons wending their way to the inviting lands watered by the Tennessee.
+Here came in the summer-time the Southern planters in coach and four,
+with a great retinue of household servants, and kept up for months that
+unique social life, a mixture of courtly ceremony and entire freedom,
+the civilization which had the drawing-room at one end and the
+negro-quarters at the other,--which has passed away. It was a
+continuation into our own restless era of the manners and the literature
+of George the Third, with the accompanying humor and happy-go-lucky
+decadence of the negro slaves. On our way down we saw on the river-bank,
+under the trees, the old hostelry, Alexander's, still in decay,--an
+attractive tavern, that was formerly one of the notable stopping-places
+on the river. Master, and fine lady, and obsequious, larking darky,
+and lumbering coach, and throng of pompous and gay life, have all
+disappeared. There was no room in this valley for the old institutions
+and for the iron track.
+
+  “When in the chronicle of wasted time
+   I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
+   And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
+   In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
+   We, which now behold these present days,
+   Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.”
+
+This perverted use of noble verse was all the response the Friend got
+in his attempt to drop into the sentimental vein over the past of the
+French Broad.
+
+The reader must not think there is no enterprise in this sedative and
+idle resort. The conceited Yankee has to learn that it is not he alone
+who can be accused of the thrift of craft. There is at the Warm Springs
+a thriving mill for crushing and pulverizing barites, known vulgarly as
+heavy-spar. It is the weight of this heaviest of minerals, and not
+its lovely crystals, that gives it value. The rock is crushed, washed,
+sorted out by hand, to remove the foreign substances, then ground and
+subjected to acids, and at the end of the process it is as white and
+fine as the best bolted flour. This heavy adulterant is shipped to the
+North in large quantities,--the manager said he had recently an order
+for a hundred thousand dollars' worth of it. What is the use of this
+powder? Well, it is of use to the dealer who sells white lead for paint,
+to increase the weight of the lead, and it is the belief hereabouts that
+it is mixed with powdered sugar. The industry is profitable to those
+engaged in it.
+
+It was impossible to get much information about our route into
+Tennessee, except that we should go by Paint Rock, and cross
+Paint Mountain. Late one morning,--a late start is inevitable
+here,--accompanied by a cavalcade, we crossed the river by the rope
+ferry, and trotted down the pretty road, elevated above the stream
+and tree-shaded, offering always charming glimpses of swift water and
+overhanging foliage (the railway obligingly taking the other side of the
+river), to Paint Rock,--six miles. This Paint Rock is a naked precipice
+by the roadside, perhaps sixty feet high, which has a large local
+reputation. It is said that its face shows painting done by the Indians,
+and hieroglyphics which nobody can read. On this bold, crumbling cliff,
+innumerable visitors have written their names. We stared at it a good
+while to discover the paint and hieroglyphics, but could see nothing
+except iron stains. Round the corner is a farmhouse and place of call
+for visitors, a neat cottage, with a display of shells and minerals and
+flower-pots; and here we turned north crossed the little stream called
+Paint River, the only clear water we had seen in a month, passed into
+the State of Tennessee, and by a gentle ascent climbed Paint Mountain.
+The open forest road, with the murmur of the stream below, was
+delightfully exhilarating, and as we rose the prospect opened,--the
+lovely valley below, Bald Mountains behind us, and the Butt Mountains
+rising as we came over the ridge.
+
+Nobody on the way, none of the frowzy women or unintelligent men, knew
+anything of the route, or could give us any information of the country
+beyond. But as we descended in Tennessee the country and the farms
+decidedly improved,--apple-trees and a grapevine now and then.
+
+A ride of eight miles brought us to Waddle's, hungry and disposed
+to receive hospitality. We passed by an old farm building to a new
+two-storied, gayly painted house on a hill. We were deceived by
+appearances. The new house, with a new couple in it, had nothing to
+offer us except some buttermilk. Why should anybody be obliged to feed
+roving strangers? As to our horses, the young woman with a baby in her
+arms declared,
+
+“We've got nothing for stock but roughness; perhaps you can get
+something at the other house.”
+
+“Roughness,” we found out at the other house, meant hay in this region.
+We procured for the horses a light meal of green oats, and for our own
+dinner we drank at the brook and the Professor produced a few sonnets.
+On this sustaining repast we fared on nearly twelve miles farther,
+through a rolling, good farming country, offering little for comment,
+in search of a night's lodging with one of the brothers Snap. But one
+brother declined our company on the plea that his wife was sick, and the
+other because his wife lived in Greenville, and we found ourselves
+as dusk came on without shelter in a tavernless land. Between the two
+refusals we enjoyed the most picturesque bit of scenery of the day, at
+the crossing of Camp Creek, a swift little stream, that swirled round
+under the ledge of bold rocks before the ford. This we learned was a
+favorite camp-meeting ground. Mary was calling the cattle home at the
+farm of the second Snap. It was a very peaceful scene of rural life, and
+we were inclined to tarry, but Mary, instead of calling us home with the
+cattle, advised us to ride on to Alexander's before it got dark.
+
+It is proper to say that at Alexander's we began to see what this
+pleasant and fruitful country might be, and will be, with thrift and
+intelligent farming. Mr. Alexander is a well-to-do farmer, with plenty
+of cattle and good barns (always an evidence of prosperity), who owes
+his success to industry and an open mind to new ideas. He was a Unionist
+during the war, and is a Democrat now, though his county (Greene) has
+been Republican. We had been riding all the afternoon through good land,
+and encountering a better class of farmers. Peach-trees abounded (though
+this was an off year for fruit), and apples and grapes throve. It is
+a land of honey and of milk. The persimmon flourishes; and,
+sign of abundance generally, we believe, great flocks of
+turkey-buzzards--majestic floaters in the high air--hovered about.
+This country was ravaged during the war by Unionists and Confederates
+alternately, the impartial patriots as they passed scooping in corn,
+bacon, and good horses, leaving the farmers little to live on. Mr.
+Alexander's farm cost him forty dollars an acre, and yields good crops
+of wheat and maize. This was the first house on our journey where at
+breakfast we had grace before meat, though there had been many tables
+that needed it more. From the door the noble range of the Big Bald is in
+sight and not distant; and our host said he had a shanty on it, to which
+he was accustomed to go with his family for a month or six weeks in the
+summer and enjoy a real primitive woods life.
+
+Refreshed by this little touch of civilization, and with horses well
+fed, we rode on next morning towards Jonesboro, over a rolling, rather
+unpicturesque country, but ennobled by the Big Bald and Butt ranges,
+which we had on our right all day. At noon we crossed the Nollechucky
+River at a ford where the water was up to the saddle girth, broad,
+rapid, muddy, and with a treacherous stony bottom, and came to the
+little hamlet of Boylesville, with a flour-mill, and a hospitable
+old-fashioned house, where we found shelter from the heat of the hot
+day, and where the daughters of the house, especially one pretty girl in
+a short skirt and jaunty cap, contradicted the currently received
+notion that this world is a weary pilgrimage. The big parlor, with its
+photographs and stereoscope, and bits of shell and mineral, a piano and
+a melodeon, and a coveted old sideboard of mahogany, recalled rural New
+England. Perhaps these refinements are due to the Washington College (a
+school for both sexes), which is near. We noted at the tables in this
+region a singular use of the word fruit. When we were asked, Will you
+have some of the fruit? and said Yes, we always got applesauce.
+
+Ten miles more in the late afternoon brought us to Jonesboro, the oldest
+town in the State, a pretty place, with a flavor of antiquity, set
+picturesquely on hills, with the great mountains in sight. People from
+further South find this an agreeable summering place, and a fair hotel,
+with odd galleries in front and rear, did not want company. The Warren
+Institute for negroes has been flourishing here ever since the war.
+
+A ride of twenty miles next day carried us to Union. Before noon we
+forded the Watauga, a stream not so large as the Nollechucky, and were
+entertained at the big brick house of Mr. Devault, a prosperous and
+hospitable farmer. This is a rich country. We had met in the morning
+wagon-loads of watermelons and muskmelons, on the way to Jonesboro, and
+Mr. Devault set abundance of these refreshing fruits before us as we
+lounged on the porch before dinner.
+
+It was here that we made the acquaintance of a colored woman, a
+withered, bent old pensioner of the house, whose industry (she excelled
+any modern patent apple-parer) was unabated, although she was by her own
+confession (a woman, we believe, never owns her age till she has passed
+this point) and the testimony of others a hundred years old. But age
+had not impaired the brightness of her eyes, nor the limberness of her
+tongue, nor her shrewd good sense. She talked freely about the want of
+decency and morality in the young colored folks of the present day. It
+was n't so when she was a girl. Long, long time ago, she and her husband
+had been sold at sheriff's sale and separated, and she never had another
+husband. Not that she blamed her master so much he could n't help it;
+he got in debt. And she expounded her philosophy about the rich, and the
+danger they are in. The great trouble is that when a person is rich, he
+can borrow money so easy, and he keeps drawin' it out of the bank and
+pilin' up the debt, like rails on top of one another, till it needs a
+ladder to get on to the pile, and then it all comes down in a heap, and
+the man has to begin on the bottom rail again. If she'd to live her life
+over again, she'd lay up money; never cared much about it till now. The
+thrifty, shrewd old woman still walked about a good deal, and kept her
+eye on the neighborhood. Going out that morning she had seen some fence
+up the road that needed mending, and she told Mr. Devault that she
+didn't like such shiftlessness; she didn't know as white folks was much
+better than colored folks. Slavery? Yes, slavery was pretty bad--she had
+seen five hundred niggers in handcuffs, all together in a field, sold to
+be sent South.
+
+About six miles from here is a beech grove of historical interest, worth
+a visit if we could have spared the time. In it is the large beech (six
+and a half feet around six feet from the ground) on which Daniel Boone
+shot a bear, when he was a rover in this region. He himself cut
+an inscription on the tree recording his prowess, and it is still
+distinctly legible:
+
+   D. BOONE CILT A BAR ON THIS TREE, 1760.
+
+This tree is a place of pilgrimage, and names of people from all parts
+of the country are cut on it, until there is scarcely room for any more
+records of such devotion. The grove is ancient looking, the trees are
+gnarled and moss-grown. Hundreds of people go there, and the trees are
+carved all over with their immortal names.
+
+A pleasant ride over a rich rolling country, with an occasional strip of
+forest, brought us to Union in the evening, with no other adventure than
+the meeting of a steam threshing-machine in the road, with steam
+up, clattering along. The devil himself could not invent any machine
+calculated to act on the nerves of a horse like this. Jack took one look
+and then dashed into the woods, scraping off his rider's hat but did not
+succeed in getting rid of his burden or knocking down any trees.
+
+Union, on the railway, is the forlornest of little villages, with
+some three hundred inhabitants and a forlorn hotel, kept by an
+ex-stage-driver. The village, which lies on the Holston, has no
+drinking-water in it nor enterprise enough to bring it in; not a well
+nor a spring in its limits; and for drinking-water everybody crosses the
+river to a spring on the other side. A considerable part of the labor
+of the town is fetching water over the bridge. On a hill overlooking the
+village is a big, pretentious brick house, with a tower, the furniture
+of which is an object of wonder to those who have seen it. It belonged
+to the late Mrs. Stover, daughter of Andrew Johnson. The whole family of
+the ex-President have departed this world, but his memory is still green
+in this region, where he was almost worshiped--so the people say in
+speaking of him.
+
+Forlorn as was the hotel at Union, the landlord's daughters were
+beginning to draw the lines in rural refinement. One of them had been at
+school in Abingdon. Another, a mature young lady of fifteen, who waited
+on the table, in the leisure after supper asked the Friend for a light
+for her cigarette, which she had deftly rolled.
+
+“Why do you smoke?”
+
+“So as I shan't get into the habit of dipping. Do you think dipping is
+nice?”
+
+The traveler was compelled to say that he did not, though he had seen a
+good deal of it wherever he had been.
+
+“All the girls dips round here. But me and my sisters rather smoke than
+get in a habit of dipping.”
+
+To the observation that Union seemed to be a dull place:
+
+“Well, there's gay times here in the winter--dancing. Like to dance?
+Well, I should say! Last winter I went over to Blountsville to a dance
+in the court-house; there was a trial between Union and Blountsville for
+the best dancing. You bet I brought back the cake and the blue ribbon.”
+
+The country was becoming too sophisticated, and the travelers hastened
+to the end of their journey. The next morning Bristol, at first over a
+hilly country with magnificent oak-trees,--happily not girdled, as these
+stately monarchs were often seen along the roads in North Carolina,--and
+then up Beaver Creek, a turbid stream, turning some mills. When a closed
+woolen factory was pointed out to the Professor (who was still traveling
+for Reform), as the result of the agitation in Congress, he said, Yes,
+the effect of agitation was evident in all the decayed dams and ancient
+abandoned mills we had seen in the past month.
+
+Bristol is mainly one long street, with some good stores, but generally
+shabby, and on this hot morning sleepy. One side of the street is in
+Tennessee, the other in Virginia. How handy for fighting this would have
+been in the war, if Tennessee had gone out and Virginia stayed in. At
+the hotel--may a kind Providence wake it up to its responsibilities--we
+had the pleasure of reading one of those facetious handbills which the
+great railway companies of the West scatter about, the serious humor of
+which is so pleasing to our English friends. This one was issued by the
+accredited agents of the Ohio and Mississippi Railway, and dated April
+1, 1984. One sentence will suffice:
+
+“Allow us to thank our old traveling friends for the many favors in our
+line, and if you are going on your bridal trip, or to see your girl out
+West, drop in at the general office of the Ohio and Mississippi Railway
+and we will fix you up in Queen Anne style. Passengers for Dakota,
+Montana, or the Northwest will have an overcoat and sealskin cap thrown
+in with all tickets sold on or after the above date.”
+
+The great republic cannot yet take itself seriously. Let us hope the
+humors of it will last another generation. Meditating on this, we hailed
+at sundown the spires of Abingdon, and regretted the end of a journey
+that seems to have been undertaken for no purpose.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On Horseback, by Charles Dudley Warner
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      On Horseback, by Charles Dudley Warner
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
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+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
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+    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of On Horseback, by Charles Dudley Warner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: On Horseback
+
+Author: Charles Dudley Warner
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2006 [EBook #3126]
+Last Updated: February 24, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON HORSEBACK ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <h1>
+      ON HORSEBACK
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Charles Dudley Warner
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The way to mount a horse&rdquo;&mdash;said the Professor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you have no ladder&mdash;put in the Friend of Humanity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Professor had ridden through the war for the Union on the right side,
+      enjoying a much better view of it than if he had walked, and knew as much
+      about a horse as a person ought to know for the sake of his character. The
+      man who can recite the tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims, on horseback,
+      giving the contemporary pronunciation, never missing an accent by reason
+      of the trot, and at the same time witch North Carolina and a strip of East
+      Tennessee with his noble horsemanship, is a kind of Literary Centaur of
+      whose double instruction any Friend of Humanity may be glad to avail
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The way to mount a horse is to grasp the mane with the left hand holding
+      the bridle-rein, put your left foot in the stirrup, with the right hand on
+      the back of the saddle, and&mdash;-&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then the horse stepped quickly around on his hind feet, and looked
+      the Professor in the face. The Superintendents of Affairs, who occupy the
+      flagging in front of the hotel, seated in cane-bottomed chairs tilted
+      back, smiled. These useful persons appear to have a life-lease of this
+      portion of the city pavement, and pretty effectually block it up nearly
+      all day and evening. When a lady wishes to make her way through the
+      blockade, it is the habit of these observers of life to rise and make
+      room, touching their hats, while she picks her way through, and goes down
+      the street with a pretty consciousness of the flutter she has caused. The
+      war has not changed the Southern habit of sitting out-of-doors, but has
+      added a new element of street picturesqueness in groups of colored people
+      lounging about the corners. There appears to be more leisure than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scene of this little lesson in horsemanship was the old town of
+      Abingdon, in southwest Virginia, on the Virginia and East Tennessee
+      railway; a town of ancient respectability, which gave birth to the
+      Johnstons and Floyds and other notable people; a town, that still
+      preserves the flavor of excellent tobacco and, something of the easy-going
+      habits of the days of slavery, and is a sort of educational center, where
+      the young ladies of the region add the final graces of intellectual life
+      in moral philosophy and the use of the globes to their natural gifts. The
+      mansion of the late and left Floyd is now a seminary, and not far from it
+      is the Stonewall Jackson Institute, in the midst of a grove of splendid
+      oaks, whose stately boles and wide-spreading branches give a dignity to
+      educational life. The distinction of the region is its superb oak-trees.
+      As it was vacation in these institutions of learning, the travelers did
+      not see any of the vines that traditionally cling to the oak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Professor and the Friend of Humanity were about starting on a journey,
+      across country southward, through regions about which the people of
+      Abingdon could give little useful information. If the travelers had known
+      the capacities and resources of the country, they would not have started
+      without a supply train, or the establishment of bases of provisions in
+      advance. But, as the Professor remarked, knowledge is something that one
+      acquires when he has no use for it. The horses were saddled; the riders
+      were equipped with flannel shirts and leather leggings; the saddle-bags
+      were stuffed with clean linen, and novels, and sonnets of Shakespeare, and
+      other baggage, it would have been well if they had been stuffed with
+      hard-tack, for in real life meat is more than raiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hotel, in front of which there is cultivated so much of what the
+      Germans call sitzfleisch, is a fair type of the majority of Southern
+      hotels, and differs from the same class in the North in being left a
+      little more to run itself. The only information we obtained about it was
+      from its porter at the station, who replied to the question, &ldquo;Is it the
+      best?&rdquo; &ldquo;We warrant you perfect satisfaction in every respect.&rdquo; This seems
+      to be only a formula of expression, for we found that the statement was
+      highly colored. It was left to our imagination to conjecture how the big
+      chambers of the old house, with their gaping fireplaces, might have looked
+      when furnished and filled with gay company, and we got what satisfaction
+      we could out of a bygone bustle and mint-julep hilarity. In our struggles
+      with the porter to obtain the little items of soap, water, and towels, we
+      were convinced that we had arrived too late, and that for perfect
+      satisfaction we should have been here before the war. It was not always as
+      now. In colonial days the accommodations and prices at inns were regulated
+      by law. In the old records in the court-house we read that if we had been
+      here in 1777, we could have had a gallon of good rum for sixteen
+      shillings; a quart bowl of rum toddy made with loaf sugar for two
+      shillings, or with brown sugar for one shilling and sixpence. In 1779
+      prices had risen. Good rum sold for four pounds a gallon. It was ordered
+      that a warm dinner should cost twelve shillings, a cold dinner nine
+      shillings, and a good breakfast twelve shillings. But the item that
+      pleased us most, and made us regret our late advent, was that for two
+      shillings we could have had a &ldquo;good lodging, with clean sheets.&rdquo; The
+      colonists were fastidious people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Abingdon, prettily situated on rolling hills, and a couple of thousand
+      feet above the sea, with views of mountain peaks to the south, is a
+      cheerful and not too exciting place for a brief sojourn, and hospitable
+      and helpful to the stranger. We had dined&mdash;so much, at least, the
+      public would expect of us&mdash;with a descendant of Pocahontas; we had
+      assisted on Sunday morning at the dedication of a new brick Methodist
+      church, the finest edifice in the region&mdash;a dedication that took a
+      long time, since the bishop would not proceed with it until money enough
+      was raised in open meeting to pay the balance due on it: a religious act,
+      though it did give a business aspect to the place at the time; and we had
+      been the light spots in the evening service at the most aristocratic
+      church of color. The irresponsibility of this amiable race was exhibited
+      in the tardiness with which they assembled: at the appointed time nobody
+      was there except the sexton; it was three quarters of an hour before the
+      congregation began to saunter in, and the sermon was nearly over before
+      the pews were at all filled. Perhaps the sermon was not new, but it was
+      fervid, and at times the able preacher roared so that articulate sounds
+      were lost in the general effect. It was precisely these passages of
+      cataracts of sound and hard breathing which excited the liveliest
+      responses,&mdash;&ldquo;Yes, Lord,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Glory to God.&rdquo; Most of these responses
+      came from the &ldquo;Amen corner.&rdquo; The sermon contained the usual vivid
+      description of the last judgment&mdash;ah, and I fancied that the
+      congregation did not get the ordinary satisfaction out of it. Fashion had
+      entered the fold, and the singing was mostly executed by a choir in the
+      dusky gallery, who thinly and harshly warbled the emotional hymns. It
+      occupied the minister a long time to give out the notices of the week, and
+      there was not an evening or afternoon that had not its meetings, its
+      literary or social gathering, its picnic or fair for the benefit of the
+      church, its Dorcas society, or some occasion of religious sociability. The
+      raising of funds appeared to be the burden on the preacher's mind. Two
+      collections were taken up. At the first, the boxes appeared to get no
+      supply except from the two white trash present. But the second was more
+      successful. After the sermon was over, an elder took his place at a table
+      within the rails, and the real business of the evening began. Somebody in
+      the Amen corner struck up a tune that had no end, but a mighty power of
+      setting the congregation in motion. The leader had a voice like the
+      pleasant droning of a bag-pipe, and the faculty of emitting a continuous
+      note like that instrument, without stopping to breathe. It went on and on
+      like a Bach fugue, winding and whining its way, turning the corners of the
+      lines of the catch without a break. The effect was soon visible in the
+      emotional crowd: feet began to move in a regular cadence and voices to
+      join in, with spurts of ejaculation; and soon, with an air of martyrdom,
+      the members began to leave their seats and pass before the table and
+      deposit their contributions. It was a cent contribution, and we found it
+      very difficult, under the contagious influence of the hum from the Amen
+      corner, not to rise and go forward and deposit a cent. If anything could
+      extract the pennies from a reluctant worldling, it would be the buzzing of
+      this tune. It went on and on, until the house appeared to be drained dry
+      of its cash; and we inferred by the stopping of the melody that the
+      preacher's salary was secure for the time being. On inquiring, we
+      ascertained that the pecuniary flood that evening had risen to the height
+      of a dollar and sixty cents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All was ready for the start. It should have been early in the morning, but
+      it was not; for Virginia is not only one of the blessed regions where one
+      can get a late breakfast, but where it is almost impossible to get an
+      early one. At ten A. M. the two horsemen rode away out of sight of the
+      Abingdon spectators, down the eastern turnpike. The day was warm, but the
+      air was full of vitality and the spirit of adventure. It was the 22d of
+      July. The horses were not ambitious, but went on at an easy fox-trot that
+      permits observation and encourages conversation. It had been stipulated
+      that the horses should be good walkers, the one essential thing in a
+      horseback journey. Few horses, even in a country where riding is general,
+      are trained to walk fast. We hear much of horses that can walk five miles
+      an hour, but they are as rare as white elephants. Our horses were only
+      fair walkers. We realized how necessary this accomplishment is, for
+      between the Tennessee line and Asheville, North Carolina, there is
+      scarcely a mile of trotting-ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We soon turned southward and descended into the Holston River Valley.
+      Beyond lay the Tennessee hills and conspicuous White-Top Mountain (5530
+      feet), which has a good deal of local celebrity (standing where the States
+      of Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina corner), and had been pointed
+      out to us at Abingdon. We had been urged, personally and by letter, to
+      ascend this mountain, without fail. People recommend mountains to their
+      friends as they do patent medicines. As we leisurely jogged along we
+      discussed this, and endeavored to arrive at some rule of conduct for the
+      journey. The Professor expressed at once a feeling about mountain-climbing
+      that amounted to hostility,&mdash;he would go nowhere that he could not
+      ride. Climbing was the most unsatisfactory use to which a mountain could
+      be put. As to White-Top, it was a small mountain, and not worth ascending.
+      The Friend of Humanity, who believes in mountain-climbing as a theory, and
+      for other people, and knows the value of being able to say, without
+      detection, that he has ascended any high mountain about which he is
+      questioned,&mdash;since this question is the first one asked about an
+      exploration in a new country,&mdash;saw that he should have to use a good
+      deal of diplomacy to get the Professor over any considerable elevation on
+      the trip. And he had to confess also that a view from a mountain is never
+      so satisfactory as a view of a mountain, from a moderate height. The
+      Professor, however, did not argue the matter on any such reasonable
+      ground, but took his stand on his right as a man not to ascend a mountain.
+      With this appeal to first principles,&mdash;a position that could not be
+      confuted on account of its vagueness (although it might probably be
+      demonstrated that in society man has no such right), there was no way of
+      agreement except by a compromise. It was accordingly agreed that no
+      mountain under six thousand feet is worth ascending; that disposed of
+      White-Top. It was further agreed that any mountain that is over six
+      thousand feet high is too high to ascend on foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this amicable adjustment we forded the Holston, crossing it twice
+      within a few miles. This upper branch of the Tennessee is a noble stream,
+      broad, with a rocky bed and a swift current. Fording it is ticklish
+      business except at comparatively low water, and as it is subject to sudden
+      rises, there must be times when it seriously interrupts travel. This whole
+      region, full of swift streams, is without a bridge, and, as a consequence,
+      getting over rivers and brooks and the dangers of ferries occupy a
+      prominent place in the thoughts of the inhabitants. The life necessarily
+      had the &ldquo;frontier&rdquo; quality all through, for there can be little solid
+      advance in civilization in the uncertainties of a bridgeless condition. An
+      open, pleasant valley, the Holston, but cultivation is more and more
+      negligent and houses are few and poorer as we advance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had left behind the hotels of &ldquo;perfect satisfaction,&rdquo; and expected to
+      live on the country, trusting to the infrequent but remunerated
+      hospitality of the widely scattered inhabitants. We were to dine at
+      Ramsey's. Ramsey's had been recommended to us as a royal place of
+      entertainment the best in all that region; and as the sun grew hot in the
+      sandy valley, and the weariness of noon fell upon us, we magnified
+      Ramsey's in our imagination,&mdash;the nobility of its situation, its
+      cuisine, its inviting restfulness,&mdash;and half decided to pass the
+      night there in the true abandon of plantation life. Long before we reached
+      it, the Holston River which we followed had become the Laurel, a most
+      lovely, rocky, winding stream, which we forded continually, for the valley
+      became too narrow much of the way to accommodate a road and a river.
+      Eagerly as we were looking out for it, we passed the great Ramsey's
+      without knowing it, for it was the first of a little settlement of two
+      houses and a saw-mill and barn. It was a neat log house of two lower rooms
+      and a summer kitchen, quite the best of the class that we saw, and the
+      pleasant mistress of it made us welcome. Across the road and close, to the
+      Laurel was the spring-house, the invariable adjunct to every well-to-do
+      house in the region, and on the stony margin of the stream was set up the
+      big caldron for the family washing; and here, paddling in the shallow
+      stream, while dinner was preparing, we established an intimacy with the
+      children and exchanged philosophical observations on life with the old
+      negress who was dabbling the clothes. What impressed this woman was the
+      inequality in life. She jumped to the unwarranted conclusion that the
+      Professor and the Friend were very rich, and spoke with asperity of the
+      difficulty she experienced in getting shoes and tobacco. It was useless to
+      point out to her that her alfresco life was singularly blessed and free
+      from care, and the happy lot of any one who could loiter all day by this
+      laughing stream, undisturbed by debt or ambition. Everybody about the
+      place was barefooted, except the mistress, including the comely daughter
+      of eighteen, who served our dinner in the kitchen. The dinner was
+      abundant, and though it seemed to us incongruous at the time, we were not
+      twelve hours older when we looked back upon it with longing. On the table
+      were hot biscuit, ham, pork, and green beans, apple-sauce, blackberry
+      preserves, cucumbers, coffee, plenty of milk, honey, and apple and
+      blackberry pie. Here we had our first experience, and I may say new
+      sensation, of &ldquo;honey on pie.&rdquo; It has a cloying sound as it is written, but
+      the handmaiden recommended it with enthusiasm, and we evidently fell in
+      her esteem, as persons from an uncultivated society, when we declared our
+      inexperience of &ldquo;honey on pie.&rdquo; &ldquo;Where be you from?&rdquo; It turned out to be
+      very good, and we have tried to introduce it in families since our return,
+      with indifferent success. There did not seem to be in this family much
+      curiosity about the world at large, nor much stir of social life. The
+      gayety of madame appeared to consist in an occasional visit to paw and maw
+      and grandmaw, up the river a few miles, where she was raised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Refreshed by the honey and fodder at Ramsey's, the pilgrims went gayly
+      along the musical Laurel, in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun, which
+      played upon the rapids and illumined all the woody way. Inspired by the
+      misapprehension of the colored philosopher and the dainties of the dinner,
+      the Professor soliloquized:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
+   Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
+   The which he will not every hour survey,
+   For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
+   Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
+   Since seldom coming, in the long year set,
+   Like stones of wealth they thinly placed are,
+   Or captain jewels in the carcanet.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Five miles beyond Ramsey's the Tennessee line was crossed. The Laurel
+      became more rocky, swift, full of rapids, and the valley narrowed down to
+      the riverway, with standing room, however, for stately trees along the
+      banks. The oaks, both black and white, were, as they had been all day,
+      gigantic in size and splendid in foliage. There is a certain dignity in
+      riding in such stately company, and the travelers clattered along over the
+      stony road under the impression of possible high adventure in a new world
+      of such freshness. Nor was beauty wanting. The rhododendrons had, perhaps,
+      a week ago reached their climax, and now began to strew the water and the
+      ground with their brilliant petals, dashing all the way with color; but
+      they were still matchlessly beautiful. Great banks of pink and white
+      covered the steep hillsides; the bending stems, ten to twenty feet high,
+      hung their rich clusters over the river; avenues of glory opened away in
+      the glade of the stream; and at every turn of the winding way vistas
+      glowing with the hues of romance wrenched exclamations of delight and
+      wonder from the Shakespearean sonneteer and his humble Friend. In the deep
+      recesses of the forest suddenly flamed to the view, like the splashes of
+      splendor on the somber canvas of an old Venetian, these wonders of color,&mdash;the
+      glowing summer-heart of the woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was difficult to say, meantime, whether the road was laid out in the
+      river, or the river in the road. In the few miles to Egger's (this was the
+      destination of our great expectations for the night) the stream was
+      crossed twenty-seven times,&mdash;or perhaps it would be more proper to
+      say that the road was crossed twenty-seven times. Where the road did not
+      run in the river, its bed was washed out and as stony as the bed of the
+      stream. This is a general and accurate description of all the roads in
+      this region, which wind along and in the streams, through narrow valleys,
+      shut in by low and steep hills. The country is full of springs and
+      streams, and between Abingdon and Egger's is only one (small) bridge. In a
+      region with scarcely any level land or intervale, farmers are at a
+      disadvantage. All along the road we saw nothing but mean shanties,
+      generally of logs, with now and then a decent one-story frame, and the
+      people looked miserably poor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we picked our way along up the Laurel, obliged for the most part to
+      ride single-file, or as the Professor expressed it,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Let me confess that we two must be twain,
+   Although our undivided loves are one,&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      we gathered information about Egger's from the infrequent hovels on the
+      road, which inflamed our imaginations. Egger was the thriving man of the
+      region, and lived in style in a big brick house. We began to feel a doubt
+      that Egger would take us in, and so much did his brick magnificence
+      impress us that we regretted we had not brought apparel fit for the
+      society we were about to enter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was half-past six, and we were tired and hungry, when the domain of
+      Egger towered in sight,&mdash;a gaunt, two-story structure of raw brick,
+      unfinished, standing in a narrow intervale. We rode up to the gate, and
+      asked a man who sat in the front-door porch if this was Egger's, and if we
+      could be accommodated for the night. The man, without moving, allowed that
+      it was Egger's, and that we could probably stay there. This person,
+      however, exhibited so much indifference to our company, he was such a
+      hairy, unkempt man, and carried on face, hands, and clothes so much more
+      of the soil of the region than a prudent proprietor would divert from
+      raising corn, that we set him aside as a poor relation, and asked for Mr.
+      Egger. But the man, still without the least hospitable stir, admitted that
+      that was the name he went by, and at length advised us to &ldquo;lite&rdquo; and hitch
+      our horses, and sit on the porch with him and enjoy the cool of the
+      evening. The horses would be put up by and by, and in fact things
+      generally would come round some time. This turned out to be the easy way
+      of the country. Mr. Egger was far from being inhospitable, but was in no
+      hurry, and never had been in a hurry. He was not exactly a gentleman of
+      the old school. He was better than that. He dated from the time when there
+      were no schools at all, and he lived in that placid world which is without
+      information and ideas. Mr. Egger showed his superiority by a total lack of
+      curiosity about any other world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This brick house, magnificent by comparison with other dwellings in this
+      country, seemed to us, on nearer acquaintance, only a thin, crude shell of
+      a house, half unfinished, with bare rooms, the plastering already
+      discolored. In point of furnishing it had not yet reached the &ldquo;God bless
+      our Home&rdquo; stage in crewel. In the narrow meadow, a strip of vivid green
+      south of the house, ran a little stream, fed by a copious spring, and over
+      it was built the inevitable spring-house. A post, driven into the bank by
+      the stream, supported a tin wash-basin, and here we performed our
+      ablutions. The traveler gets to like this freedom and primitive luxury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farm of Egger produces corn, wheat, grass, and sheep; it is a good
+      enough farm, but most of it lies at an angle of thirty-five to forty
+      degrees. The ridge back of the house, planted in corn, was as steep as the
+      roof of his dwelling. It seemed incredible that it ever could have been
+      plowed, but the proprietor assured us that it was plowed with mules, and I
+      judged that the harvesting must be done by squirrels. The soil is good
+      enough, if it would stay in place, but all the hillsides are seamed with
+      gullies. The discolored state of the streams was accounted for as soon as
+      we saw this cultivated land. No sooner is the land cleared of trees and
+      broken up than it begins to wash. We saw more of this later, especially in
+      North Carolina, where we encountered no stream of water that was not
+      muddy, and saw no cultivated ground that was not washed. The process of
+      denudation is going on rapidly wherever the original forests are girdled
+      (a common way of preparing for crops), or cut away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the time passed and there was no sign of supper, the question became a
+      burning one, and we went to explore the kitchen. No sign of it there. No
+      fire in the stove, nothing cooked in the house, of course. Mrs. Egger and
+      her comely young barefooted daughter had still the milking to attend to,
+      and supper must wait for the other chores. It seemed easier to be Mr.
+      Egger, in this state of existence, and sit on the front porch and meditate
+      on the price of mules and the prospect of a crop, than to be Mrs. Egger,
+      whose work was not limited from sun to sun; who had, in fact, a day's work
+      to do after the men-folks had knocked off; whose chances of neighborhood
+      gossip were scanty, whose amusements were confined to a religious meeting
+      once a fortnight. Good, honest people these, not unduly puffed up by the
+      brick house, grubbing away year in and year out. Yes, the young girl said,
+      there was a neighborhood party, now and then, in the winter. What a price
+      to pay for mere life!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long before supper was ready, nearly nine o'clock, we had almost lost
+      interest in it. Meantime two other guests had arrived, a couple of drovers
+      from North Carolina, who brought into the circle&mdash;by this time a
+      wood-fire had been kindled in the sitting-room, which contained a bed, an
+      almanac, and some old copies of a newspaper&mdash;a rich flavor of cattle,
+      and talk of the price of steers. As to politics, although a presidential
+      campaign was raging, there was scarcely an echo of it here. This was
+      Johnson County, Tennessee, a strong Republican county but dog-gone it,
+      says Mr. Egger, it's no use to vote; our votes are overborne by the rest
+      of the State. Yes, they'd got a Republican member of Congress,&mdash;he'd
+      heard his name, but he'd forgotten it. The drover said he'd heard it also,
+      but he didn't take much interest in such things, though he wasn't any
+      Republican. Parties is pretty much all for office, both agreed. Even the
+      Professor, who was traveling in the interest of Reform, couldn't wake up a
+      discussion out of such a state of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! the supper, served in a room dimly lighted with a smoky lamp, on a
+      long table covered with oilcloth, was not of the sort to arouse the
+      delayed and now gone appetite of a Reformer, and yet it did not lack
+      variety: cornpone (Indian meal stirred up with water and heated through),
+      hot biscuit, slack-baked and livid, fried salt-pork swimming in grease,
+      apple-butter, pickled beets, onions and cucumbers raw, coffee (so-called),
+      buttermilk, and sweet milk when specially asked for (the correct taste,
+      however, is for buttermilk), and pie. This was not the pie of commerce,
+      but the pie of the country,&mdash;two thick slabs of dough, with a
+      squeezing of apple between. The profusion of this supper staggered the
+      novices, but the drovers attacked it as if such cooking were a common
+      occurrence and did justice to the weary labors of Mrs. Egger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Egger is well prepared to entertain strangers, having several rooms and
+      several beds in each room. Upon consultation with the drovers, they said
+      they'd just as soon occupy an apartment by themselves, and we gave up
+      their society for the night. The beds in our chamber had each one sheet,
+      and the room otherwise gave evidence of the modern spirit; for in one
+      corner stood the fashionable aesthetic decoration of our Queen Anne
+      drawing-rooms,&mdash;the spinning-wheel. Soothed by this concession to
+      taste, we crowded in between the straw and the home-made blanket and
+      sheet, and soon ceased to hear the barking of dogs and the horned
+      encounters of the drovers' herd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We parted with Mr. Egger after breakfast (which was a close copy of the
+      supper) with more respect than regret. His total charge for the
+      entertainment of two men and two horses&mdash;supper, lodging, and
+      breakfast&mdash;was high or low, as the traveler chose to estimate it. It
+      was $1.20: that is, thirty cents for each individual, or ten cents for
+      each meal and lodging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our road was a sort of by-way up Gentry Creek and over the Cut Laurel Gap
+      to Worth's, at Creston Post Office, in North Carolina,&mdash;the next
+      available halting place, said to be fifteen miles distant, and turning out
+      to be twenty-two, and a rough road. There is a little settlement about
+      Egger's, and the first half mile of our way we had the company of the
+      schoolmistress, a modest, pleasant-spoken girl. Neither she nor any other
+      people we encountered had any dialect or local peculiarity of speech.
+      Indeed, those we encountered that morning had nothing in manner or accent
+      to distinguish them. The novelists had led us to expect something
+      different; and the modest and pretty young lady with frank and open blue
+      eyes, who wore gloves and used the common English speech, had never
+      figured in the fiction of the region. Cherished illusions vanish often on
+      near approach. The day gave no peculiarity of speech to note, except the
+      occasional use of &ldquo;hit&rdquo; for &ldquo;it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The road over Cut Laurel Gap was very steep and stony, the thermometer
+      mounted up to 80 deg., and, notwithstanding the beauty of the way, the
+      ride became tedious before we reached the summit. On the summit is the
+      dwelling and distillery of a colonel famous in these parts. We stopped at
+      the house for a glass of milk; the colonel was absent, and while the woman
+      in charge went after it, we sat on the veranda and conversed with a young
+      lady, tall, gent, well favored, and communicative, who leaned in the
+      doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, this house stands on the line. Where you sit, you are in Tennessee;
+      I'm in North Carolina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you live here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Law, no; I'm just staying a little while at the colonel's. I live over
+      the mountain here, three miles from Taylorsville. I thought I'd be where I
+      could step into North Carolina easy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How's that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they wanted me to go before the grand jury and testify about some
+      pistol-shooting down by our house, some friends of mine got into a little
+      difficulty,&mdash;and I did n't want to. I never has no difficulty with
+      nobody, never says nothing about nobody, has nothing against nobody, and I
+      reckon nobody has nothing against me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you come alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course. I come across the mountain by a path through the woods.
+      That's nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A discreet, pleasant, pretty girl. This surely must be the Esmeralda who
+      lives in these mountains, and adorns low life by her virgin purity and
+      sentiment. As she talked on, she turned from time to time to the fireplace
+      behind her, and discharged a dark fluid from her pretty lips, with
+      accuracy of aim, and with a nonchalance that was not assumed, but belongs
+      to our free-born American girls. I cannot tell why this habit of hers
+      (which is no worse than the sister habit of &ldquo;dipping&rdquo;) should take her out
+      of the romantic setting that her face and figure had placed her in; but
+      somehow we felt inclined to ride on farther for our heroine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; said the Professor, as we left the site of the colonel's
+      thriving distillery, and by a winding, picturesque road through a rough
+      farming country descended into the valley,&mdash;&ldquo;and yet, why fling aside
+      so readily a character and situation so full of romance, on account of a
+      habit of this mountain Helen, which one of our best poets has almost made
+      poetical, in the case of the pioneer taking his westward way, with ox-goad
+      pointing to the sky:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;'He's leaving on the pictured rock
+   His fresh tobacco stain.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To my mind the incident has Homeric elements. The Greeks would have
+      looked at it in a large, legendary way. Here is Helen, strong and lithe of
+      limb, ox-eyed, courageous, but woman-hearted and love-inspiring, contended
+      for by all the braves and daring moonshiners of Cut Laurel Gap, pursued by
+      the gallants of two States, the prize of a border warfare of bowie knives
+      and revolvers. This Helen, magnanimous as attractive, is the witness of a
+      pistol difficulty on her behalf, and when wanted by the areopagus, that
+      she may neither implicate a lover nor punish an enemy (having nothing,
+      this noble type of her sex against nobody), skips away to Mount Ida, and
+      there, under the aegis of the flag of her country, in a Licensed
+      Distillery, stands with one slender foot in Tennessee and the other in
+      North Carolina...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like the figure of the Republic itself, superior to state sovereignty,&rdquo;
+       interposed the Friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; said the Professor, urging up Laura Matilda (for so
+      he called the nervous mare, who fretted herself into a fever in the stony
+      path), &ldquo;I was quite able to get the woman out of that position without the
+      aid of a metaphor. It is a large and Greek idea, that of standing in two
+      mighty States, superior to the law, looking east and looking west, ready
+      to transfer her agile body to either State on the approach of messengers
+      of the court; and I'll be hanged if I didn't think that her nonchalant
+      rumination of the weed, combined with her lofty moral attitude, added
+      something to the picture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Friend said that he was quite willing to join in the extremest defense
+      of the privileges of beauty,&mdash;that he even held in abeyance judgment
+      on the practice of dipping; but when it came to chewing, gum was as far as
+      he could go as an allowance for the fair sex.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;When I consider everything that grows
+   Holds in perfection but a little moment...&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The rest of the stanza was lost, for the Professor was splashing through
+      the stream. No sooner had we descended than the fording of streams began
+      again. The Friend had been obliged to stipulate that the Professor should
+      go ahead at these crossings, to keep the impetuous nag of the latter from
+      throwing half the contents of the stream upon his slower and uncomplaining
+      companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a lovely country, but for the heat of noon and the long wearisomeness
+      of the way!&mdash;not that the distance was great, but miles and miles
+      more than expected. How charming the open glades of the river, how
+      refreshing the great forests of oak and chestnut, and what a panorama of
+      beauty the banks of rhododendrons, now intermingled with the lighter pink
+      and white of the laurel! In this region the rhododendron is called laurel
+      and the laurel (the sheep-laurel of New England) is called ivy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Worth's, well on in the afternoon, we emerged into a wide, open farming
+      intervale, a pleasant place of meadows and streams and decent dwellings.
+      Worth's is the trading center of the region, has a post office and a
+      saw-mill and a big country store; and the dwelling of the proprietor is
+      not unlike a roomy New England country house. Worth's has been
+      immemorially a stopping-place in a region where places of accommodation
+      are few. The proprietor, now an elderly man, whose reminiscences are long
+      ante bellum, has seen the world grow up about him, he the honored, just
+      center of it, and a family come up into the modern notions of life, with a
+      boarding-school education and glimpses of city life and foreign travel. I
+      fancy that nothing but tradition and a remaining Southern hospitality
+      could induce this private family to suffer the incursions of this
+      wayfaring man. Our travelers are not apt to be surprised at anything in
+      American life, but they did not expect to find a house in this region with
+      two pianos and a bevy of young ladies, whose clothes were certainly not
+      made on Cut Laurel Gap, and to read in the books scattered about the house
+      the evidences of the finishing schools with which our country is blessed,
+      nor to find here pupils of the Stonewall Jackson Institute at Abingdon.
+      With a flush of local pride, the Professor took up, in the roomy, pleasant
+      chamber set apart for the guests, a copy of Porter's &ldquo;Elements of Moral
+      Science.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where you see the 'Elements of Moral Science,'&rdquo; the Friend generalized,
+      &ldquo;there'll be plenty of water and towels;&rdquo; and the sign did not fail. The
+      friends intended to read this book in the cool of the day; but as they sat
+      on the long veranda, the voice of a maiden reading the latest novel to a
+      sewing group behind the blinds in the drawing-room; and the antics of a
+      mule and a boy in front of the store opposite; and the arrival of a spruce
+      young man, who had just ridden over from somewhere, a matter of ten miles'
+      gallop, to get a medicinal potion for his sick mother, and lingered
+      chatting with the young ladies until we began to fear that his mother
+      would recover before his return; the coming and going of lean women in
+      shackly wagons to trade at the store; the coming home of the cows,
+      splashing through the stream, hooking right and left, and lowing for the
+      hand of the milker,&mdash;all these interruptions, together with the
+      generally drowsy quiet of the approach of evening, interfered with the
+      study of the Elements. And when the travelers, after a refreshing rest,
+      went on their way next morning, considering the Elements and the pianos
+      and the refinement, to say nothing of the cuisine, which is not treated of
+      in the text-book referred to, they were content with a bill double that of
+      brother Egger, in his brick magnificence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The simple truth is, that the traveler in this region must be content to
+      feed on natural beauties. And it is an unfortunate truth in natural
+      history that the appetite for this sort of diet fails after a time, if the
+      inner man is not supplied with other sort of food. There is no landscape
+      in the world that is agreeable after two days of rusty-bacon and slack
+      biscuit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How lovely this would be,&rdquo; exclaimed the Professor, if it had a
+      background of beefsteak and coffee!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were riding along the west fork of the Laurel, distinguished locally as
+      Three Top Creek,&mdash;or, rather, we were riding in it, crossing it
+      thirty-one times within six miles; a charming wood (and water) road, under
+      the shade of fine trees with the rhododendron illuminating the way,
+      gleaming in the forest and reflected in the stream, all the ten miles to
+      Elk Cross Roads, our next destination. We had heard a great deal about Elk
+      Cross Roads; it was on the map, it was down in the itinerary furnished by
+      a member of the Coast Survey. We looked forward to it as a sweet place of
+      repose from the noontide heat. Alas! Elk Cross Roads is a dirty grocery
+      store, encumbered with dry-goods boxes, fly-blown goods, flies, loafers.
+      In reply to our inquiry we were told that they had nothing to eat, for us,
+      and not a grain of feed for the horses. But there was a man a mile farther
+      on, who was well to do and had stores of food,&mdash;old man Tatern would
+      treat us in bang-up style. The difficulty of getting feed for the horses
+      was chronic all through the journey. The last corn crop had failed, the
+      new oats and corn had not come in, and the country was literally barren.
+      We had noticed all along that the hens were taking a vacation, and that
+      chickens were not put forward as an article of diet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were unable, when we reached the residence of old man Tatem, to imagine
+      how the local superstition of his wealth arose. His house is of logs, with
+      two rooms, a kitchen and a spare room, with a low loft accessible by a
+      ladder at the side of the chimney. The chimney is a huge construction of
+      stone, separating the two parts of the house; in fact, the chimney was
+      built first, apparently, and the two rooms were then built against it. The
+      proprietor sat in a little railed veranda. These Southern verandas give an
+      air to the meanest dwelling, and they are much used; the family sit here,
+      and here are the washbasin and pail (which is filled from the neighboring
+      spring-house), and the row of milk-pans. The old man Tatern did not
+      welcome us with enthusiasm; he had no corn,&mdash;these were hard times.
+      He looked like hard times, grizzled times, dirty times. It seemed time out
+      of mind since he had seen comb or razor, and although the lovely New
+      River, along which we had ridden to his house,&mdash;a broad, inviting
+      stream,&mdash;was in sight across the meadow, there was no evidence that
+      he had ever made acquaintance with its cleansing waters. As to corn, the
+      necessities of the case and pay being dwelt on, perhaps he could find a
+      dozen ears. A dozen small cars he did find, and we trust that the horses
+      found them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took a family dinner with old man Tatern in the kitchen, where there
+      was a bed and a stove,&mdash;a meal that the host seemed to enjoy, but
+      which we could not make much of, except the milk; that was good. A painful
+      meal, on the whole, owing to the presence in the room of a grown-up
+      daughter with a graveyard cough, without physician or medicine, or
+      comforts. Poor girl! just dying of &ldquo;a misery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the spare room were two beds; the walls were decorated with the
+      gay-colored pictures of patent-medicine advertisements&mdash;a favorite
+      art adornment of the region; and a pile of ancient illustrated papers with
+      the usual patent-office report, the thoughtful gift of the member for the
+      district. The old man takes in the &ldquo;Blue Ridge Baptist,&rdquo; a journal which
+      we found largely taken up with the experiences of its editor on his
+      journeys roundabout in search of subscribers. This newspaper was the sole
+      communication of the family with the world at large, but the old man
+      thought he should stop it,&mdash;he did n't seem to get the worth of his
+      money out of it. And old man Tatem was a thrifty and provident man. On the
+      hearth in this best room&mdash;as ornaments or memento mori were a couple
+      of marble gravestones, a short headstone and foot-stone, mounted on bases
+      and ready for use, except the lettering. These may not have been so
+      mournful and significant as they looked, nor the evidence of simple,
+      humble faith; they may have been taken for debt. But as parlor ornaments
+      they had a fascination which we could not escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was while we were bathing in the New River, that afternoon, and
+      meditating on the grim, unrelieved sort of life of our host, that the
+      Professor said, &ldquo;judging by the face of the 'Blue Ridge Baptist,' he will
+      charge us smartly for the few nubbins of corn and the milk.&rdquo; The face did
+      not deceive us; the charge was one dollar. At this rate it would have
+      broken us to have tarried with old man Tatem (perhaps he is not old, but
+      that is the name he goes by) over night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a hot afternoon, and it needed some courage to mount and climb the
+      sandy hill leading us away from the corn-crib of Tatem. But we entered
+      almost immediately into fine stretches of forest, and rode under the shade
+      of great oaks. The way, which began by the New River, soon led us over the
+      hills to the higher levels of Watauga County. So far on our journey we had
+      been hemmed in by low hills, and without any distant or mountain outlooks.
+      The excessive heat seemed out of place at the elevation of over two
+      thousand feet, on which we were traveling. Boone, the county seat of
+      Watauga County, was our destination, and, ever since morning, the
+      guideboards and the trend of the roads had notified us that everything in
+      this region tends towards Boone as a center of interest. The simple
+      ingenuity of some of the guide-boards impressed us. If, on coming to a
+      fork, the traveler was to turn to the right, the sign read,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To BOONE 10 M.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If he was to go to the left, it read, .M 01 ENOOB oT
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A short ride of nine miles, on an ascending road, through an open,
+      unfenced forest region, brought us long before sundown to this capital.
+      When we had ridden into its single street, which wanders over gentle
+      hills, and landed at the most promising of the taverns, the Friend
+      informed his comrade that Boone was 3250 feet above Albemarle Sound, and
+      believed by its inhabitants to be the highest village east of the Rocky
+      Mountains. The Professor said that it might be so, but it was a
+      God-forsaken place. Its inhabitants numbered perhaps two hundred and
+      fifty, a few of them colored. It had a gaunt, shaky court-house and jail,
+      a store or two, and two taverns. The two taverns are needed to accommodate
+      the judges and lawyers and their clients during the session of the court.
+      The court is the only excitement and the only amusement. It is the event
+      from which other events date. Everybody in the county knows exactly when
+      court sits, and when court breaks. During the session the whole county is
+      practically in Boone, men, women, and children. They camp there, they
+      attend the trials, they take sides; half of them, perhaps, are witnesses,
+      for the region is litigious, and the neighborhood quarrels are entered
+      into with spirit. To be fond of lawsuits seems a characteristic of an
+      isolated people in new conditions. The early settlers of New England were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding the elevation of Boone, which insured a pure air, the
+      thermometer that afternoon stood at from 85 to 89 deg. The flies enjoyed
+      it. How they swarmed in this tavern! They would have carried off all the
+      food from the dining-room table (for flies do not mind eating off
+      oilcloth, and are not particular how food is cooked), but for the machine
+      with hanging flappers that swept the length of it; and they destroy all
+      possibility of sleep except in the dark. The mountain regions of North
+      Carolina are free from mosquitoes, but the fly has settled there, and is
+      the universal scourge. This tavern, one end of which was a store, had a
+      veranda in front, and a back gallery, where there were evidences of female
+      refinement in pots of plants and flowers. The landlord himself kept tavern
+      very much as a hostler would, but we had to make a note in his favor that
+      he had never heard of a milk punch. And it might as well be said here, for
+      it will have to be insisted on later, that the traveler, who has read
+      about the illicit stills till his imagination dwells upon the indulgence
+      of his vitiated tastes in the mountains of North Carolina, is doomed to
+      disappointment. If he wants to make himself an exception to the sober
+      people whose cooking will make him long for the maddening bowl, he must
+      bring his poison with him. We had found no bread since we left Virginia;
+      we had seen cornmeal and water, slack-baked; we had seen potatoes fried in
+      grease, and bacon incrusted with salt (all thirst-provokers), but nothing
+      to drink stronger than buttermilk. And we can say that, so far as our
+      example is concerned, we left the country as temperate as we found it. How
+      can there be mint juleps (to go into details) without ice? and in the
+      summer there is probably not a pound of ice in all the State north of
+      Buncombe County.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is nothing special to be said about Boone. We were anxious to reach
+      it, we were glad to leave it; we note as to all these places that our joy
+      at departing always exceeds that on arriving, which is a merciful
+      provision of nature for people who must keep moving. This country is
+      settled by genuine Americans, who have the aboriginal primitive traits of
+      the universal Yankee nation. The front porch in the morning resembled a
+      carpenter's shop; it was literally covered with the whittlings of the row
+      of natives who had spent the evening there in the sedative occupation of
+      whittling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took that morning a forest road to Valle Crusis, seven miles, through
+      noble growths of oaks, chestnuts, hemlocks, rhododendrons,&mdash;a
+      charming wood road, leading to a place that, as usual, did not keep the
+      promise of its name. Valle Crusis has a blacksmith shop and a dirty,
+      flyblown store. While the Professor consulted the blacksmith about a loose
+      shoe, the Friend carried his weariness of life without provisions up to a
+      white house on the hill, and negotiated for boiled milk. This house was
+      occupied by flies. They must have numbered millions, settled in black
+      swarms, covering tables, beds, walls, the veranda; the kitchen was simply
+      a hive of them. The only book in sight, Whewell's&mdash;&ldquo;Elements of
+      Morality,&rdquo; seemed to attract flies. Query, Why should this have such a
+      different effect from Porter's? A white house,&mdash;a pleasant-looking
+      house at a distance,&mdash;amiable, kindly people in it,&mdash;why should
+      we have arrived there on its dirty day? Alas! if we had been starving,
+      Valle Crusis had nothing to offer us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we rode away, in the blazing heat, no poetry exuding from the
+      Professor, eight miles to Banner's Elk, crossing a mountain and passing
+      under Hanging Rock, a conspicuous feature in the landscape, and the only
+      outcropping of rock we had seen: the face of a ledge, rounded up into the
+      sky, with a green hood on it. From the summit we had the first extensive
+      prospect during our journey. The road can be described as awful,&mdash;steep,
+      stony, the horses unable to make two miles an hour on it. Now and then we
+      encountered a rude log cabin without barns or outhouses, and a little
+      patch of feeble corn. The women who regarded the passers from their cabin
+      doors were frowzy and looked tired. What with the heat and the road and
+      this discouraged appearance of humanity, we reached the residence of
+      Dugger, at Banner's Elk, to which we had been directed, nearly exhausted.
+      It is no use to represent this as a dash across country on impatient
+      steeds. It was not so. The love of truth is stronger than the desire of
+      display. And for this reason it is impossible to say that Mr. Dugger, who
+      is an excellent man, lives in a clean and attractive house, or that he
+      offers much that the pampered child of civilization can eat. But we shall
+      not forget the two eggs, fresh from the hens, whose temperature must have
+      been above the normal, nor the spring-house in the glen, where we found a
+      refuge from the flies and the heat. The higher we go, the hotter it is.
+      Banner's Elk boasts an elevation of thirty-five to thirty-seven hundred
+      feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were not sorry, towards sunset, to descend along the Elk River towards
+      Cranberry Forge. The Elk is a lovely stream, and, though not very clear,
+      has a reputation for trout; but all this region was under operation of a
+      three-years game law, to give the trout a chance to multiply, and we had
+      no opportunity to test the value of its reputation. Yet a boy whom we
+      encountered had a good string of quarter-pound trout, which he had taken
+      out with a hook and a feather rudely tied on it, to resemble a fly. The
+      road, though not to be commended, was much better than that of the
+      morning, the forests grew charming in the cool of the evening, the
+      whippoorwill sang, and as night fell the wanderers, in want of nearly
+      everything that makes life desirable, stopped at the Iron Company's hotel,
+      under the impression that it was the only comfortable hotel in North
+      Carolina.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Cranberry Forge is the first wedge of civilization fairly driven into the
+      northwest mountains of North Carolina. A narrow-gauge railway, starting
+      from Johnson City, follows up the narrow gorge of the Doe River, and
+      pushes into the heart of the iron mines at Cranberry, where there is a
+      blast furnace; and where a big company store, rows of tenement houses,
+      heaps of slag and refuse ore, interlacing tracks, raw embankments, denuded
+      hillsides, and a blackened landscape, are the signs of a great devastating
+      American enterprise. The Cranberry iron is in great esteem, as it has the
+      peculiar quality of the Swedish iron. There are remains of old furnaces
+      lower down the stream, which we passed on our way. The present &ldquo;plant&rdquo; is
+      that of a Philadelphia company, whose enterprise has infused new life into
+      all this region, made it accessible, and spoiled some pretty scenery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we alighted, weary, at the gate of the pretty hotel, which crowns a
+      gentle hill and commands a pleasing, evergreen prospect of many gentle
+      hills, a mile or so below the works, and wholly removed from all sordid
+      associations, we were at the point of willingness that the whole country
+      should be devastated by civilization. In the local imagination this hotel
+      of the company is a palace of unequaled magnificence, but probably its
+      good taste, comfort, and quiet elegance are not appreciated after all.
+      There is this to be said about Philadelphia,&mdash;and it will go far in
+      pleading for it in the Last Day against its monotonous rectangularity and
+      the babel-like ambition of its Public Building,&mdash;that wherever its
+      influence extends, there will be found comfortable lodgings and the luxury
+      of an undeniably excellent cuisine. The visible seal that Philadelphia
+      sets on its enterprise all through the South is a good hotel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Cottage Beautiful has on two sides a wide veranda, set about with
+      easy chairs; cheerful parlors and pretty chambers, finished in native
+      woods, among which are conspicuous the satin stripes of the cucumber-tree;
+      luxurious beds, and an inviting table ordered by a Philadelphia landlady,
+      who knows a beefsteak from a boot-tap. Is it &ldquo;low&rdquo; to dwell upon these
+      things of the senses, when one is on a tour in search of the picturesque?
+      Let the reader ride from Abingdon through a wilderness of cornpone and
+      rusty bacon, and then judge. There were, to be sure, novels lying about,
+      and newspapers, and fragments of information to be picked up about a world
+      into which the travelers seemed to emerge. They, at least, were satisfied,
+      and went off to their rooms with the restful feeling that they had arrived
+      somewhere and no unquiet spirit at morn would say &ldquo;to horse.&rdquo; To sleep,
+      perchance to dream of Tatem and his household cemetery; and the Professor
+      was heard muttering in his chamber,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
+   The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
+   But then begins a journey in my head,
+   To work my mind, when body's work's expir'd.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The morning was warm (the elevation of the hotel must be between
+      twenty-five hundred and three thousand feet), rainy, mildly rainy; and the
+      travelers had nothing better to do than lounge upon the veranda, read
+      feeble ten-cent fictions, and admire the stems of the white birches,
+      glistening in the moisture, and the rhododendron&mdash;trees, twenty feet
+      high, which were shaking off their last pink blossoms, and look down into
+      the valley of the Doe. It is not an exciting landscape, nothing bold or
+      specially wild in it, but restful with the monotony of some of the wooded
+      Pennsylvania hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sunday came up smiling, a lovely day, but offering no church privileges,
+      for the ordinance of preaching is only occasional in this region. The
+      ladies of the hotel have, however, gathered in the valley a Sunday-school
+      of fifty children from the mountain cabins. A couple of rainy days, with
+      the thermometer rising to 80 deg., combined with natural laziness to
+      detain the travelers in this cottage of ease. They enjoyed this the more
+      because it was on their consciences that they should visit Linville Falls,
+      some twenty-five miles eastward, long held up before them as the most
+      magnificent feature of this region, and on no account to be omitted.
+      Hence, naturally, a strong desire to omit it. The Professor takes bold
+      ground against these abnormal freaks of nature, and it was nothing to him
+      that the public would demand that we should see Linville Falls. In the
+      first place, we could find no one who had ever seen them, and we spent two
+      days in catechizing natives and strangers. The nearest we came to
+      information was from a workman at the furnace, who was born and raised
+      within three miles of the Falls. He had heard of people going there. He
+      had never seen them himself. It was a good twenty-five miles there, over
+      the worst road in the State we'd think it thirty before we got there.
+      Fifty miles of such travel to see a little water run down-hill! The
+      travelers reflected. Every country has a local waterfall of which it
+      boasts; they had seen a great many. One more would add little to the
+      experience of life. The vagueness of information, to be sure, lured the
+      travelers to undertake the journey; but the temptation was resisted&mdash;something
+      ought to be left for the next explorer&mdash;and so Linville remains a
+      thing of the imagination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards evening, July 29, between showers, the Professor and the Friend
+      rode along the narrow-gauge road, down Johnson's Creek, to Roan Station,
+      the point of departure for ascending Roan Mountain. It was a ride of an
+      hour and a half over a fair road, fringed with rhododendrons, nearly
+      blossomless; but at a point on the stream this sturdy shrub had formed a
+      long bower where under a table might have been set for a temperance
+      picnic, completely overgrown with wild grape, and still gay with bloom.
+      The habitations on the way are mostly board shanties and mean frame
+      cabins, but the railway is introducing ambitious architecture here and
+      there in the form of ornamental filigree work on flimsy houses;
+      ornamentation is apt to precede comfort in our civilization.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Roan Station is on the Doe River (which flows down from Roan Mountain),
+      and is marked at 1265 feet above the sea. The visitor will find here a
+      good hotel, with open wood fires (not ungrateful in a July evening), and
+      obliging people. This railway from Johnson City, hanging on the edge of
+      the precipices that wall the gorge of the Doe, is counted in this region
+      by the inhabitants one of the engineering wonders of the world. The
+      tourist is urged by all means to see both it and Linville Falls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tourist on horseback, in search of exercise and recreation, is not
+      probably expected to take stock of moral conditions. But this Mitchell
+      County, although it was a Union county during the war and is Republican in
+      politics (the Southern reader will perhaps prefer another adverb to
+      &ldquo;although&rdquo;), has had the worst possible reputation. The mountains were
+      hiding-places of illicit distilleries; the woods were full of
+      grog-shanties, where the inflaming fluid was sold as &ldquo;native brandy,&rdquo;
+       quarrels and neighborhood difficulties were frequent, and the knife and
+      pistol were used on the slightest provocation. Fights arose about
+      boundaries and the title to mica mines, and with the revenue officers; and
+      force was the arbiter of all disputes. Within the year four murders were
+      committed in the sparsely settled county. Travel on any of the roads was
+      unsafe. The tone of morals was what might be expected with such
+      lawlessness. A lady who came up on the road on the 4th of July, when an
+      excursion party of country people took possession of the cars, witnessed a
+      scene and heard language past belief. Men, women, and children drank from
+      whisky bottles that continually circulated, and a wild orgy resulted.
+      Profanity, indecent talk on topics that even the license of the sixteenth
+      century would not have tolerated, and freedom of manners that even Teniers
+      would have shrunk from putting on canvas, made the journey horrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unrestrained license of whisky and assault and murder had produced a
+      reaction a few months previous to our visit. The people had risen up in
+      their indignation and broken up the groggeries. So far as we observed
+      temperance prevailed, backed by public-opinion. In our whole ride through
+      the mountain region we saw only one or two places where liquor was sold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is called twelve miles from Roan Station to Roan Summit. The distance
+      is probably nearer fourteen, and our horses were five hours in walking it.
+      For six miles the road runs by Doe River, here a pretty brook shaded with
+      laurel and rhododendron, and a few cultivated patches of ground, and
+      infrequent houses. It was a blithe morning, and the horsemen would have
+      given full indulgence to the spirit of adventure but for the attitude of
+      the Professor towards mountains. It was not with him a matter of feeling,
+      but of principle, not to ascend them. But here lay Roan, a long, sprawling
+      ridge, lifting itself 6250 feet up into the sky. Impossible to go around
+      it, and the other side must be reached. The Professor was obliged to
+      surrender, and surmount a difficulty which he could not philosophize out
+      of his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the base of the mountain a road is very well engineered, in easy
+      grades for carriages, to the top; but it was in poor repair and stony. We
+      mounted slowly through splendid forests, specially of fine chestnuts and
+      hemlocks. This big timber continues till within a mile and a half of the
+      summit by the winding road, really within a short distance of the top.
+      Then there is a narrow belt of scrubby hardwood, moss-grown, and then
+      large balsams, which crown the mountain. As soon as we came out upon the
+      southern slope we found great open spaces, covered with succulent grass,
+      and giving excellent pasturage to cattle. These rich mountain meadows are
+      found on all the heights of this region. The surface of Roan is uneven,
+      and has no one culminating peak that commands the country, like the peak
+      of Mount Washington, but several eminences within its range of probably a
+      mile and a half, where various views can be had. Near the highest point,
+      sheltered from the north by balsams, stands a house of entertainment, with
+      a detached cottage, looking across the great valley to the Black Mountain
+      range. The surface of the mountain is pebbly, but few rocks crop out; no
+      ledges of any size are seen except at a distance from the hotel, on the
+      north side, and the mountain consequently lacks that savage, unsubduable
+      aspect which the White Hills of New Hampshire have. It would, in fact,
+      have been difficult to realize that we were over six thousand feet above
+      the sea, except for that pallor in the sunlight, that atmospheric thinness
+      and want of color which is an unpleasant characteristic of high altitudes.
+      To be sure, there is a certain brilliancy in the high air,&mdash;it is apt
+      to be foggy on Roan,&mdash;and objects appear in sharp outline, but I have
+      often experienced on such places that feeling of melancholy, which would,
+      of course, deepen upon us all if we were sensible that the sun was
+      gradually withdrawing its power of warmth and light. The black balsam is
+      neither a cheerful nor a picturesque tree; the frequent rains and mists on
+      Roan keep the grass and mosses green, but the ground damp. Doubtless a
+      high mountain covered with vegetation has its compensation, but for me the
+      naked granite rocks in sun and shower are more cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The advantage of Roan is that one can live there and be occupied for a
+      long time in mineral and botanical study. Its mild climate, moisture, and
+      great elevation make it unique in this country for the botanist. The
+      variety of plants assembled there is very large, and there are many, we
+      were told, never or rarely found elsewhere in the United States. At any
+      rate, the botanists rave about Roan Mountain, and spend weeks at a time on
+      it. We found there ladies who could draw for us Grey's lily (then passed),
+      and had kept specimens of the rhododendron (not growing elsewhere in this
+      region) which has a deep red, almost purple color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hotel (since replaced by a good house) was a rude mountain structure,
+      with a couple of comfortable rooms for office and sitting-room, in which
+      big wood fires were blazing; for though the thermometer might record 60
+      deg., as it did when we arrived, fire was welcome. Sleeping-places
+      partitioned off in the loft above gave the occupants a feeling of camping
+      out, all the conveniences being primitive; and when the wind rose in the
+      night and darkness, and the loose boards rattled and the timbers creaked,
+      the sensation was not unlike that of being at sea. The hotel was
+      satisfactorily kept, and Southern guests, from as far south as New
+      Orleans, were spending the season there, and not finding time hang heavy
+      on their hands. This statement is perhaps worth more than pages of
+      description as to the character of Roan, and its contrast to Mount
+      Washington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The summer weather is exceedingly uncertain on all these North Carolina
+      mountains; they are apt at any moment to be enveloped in mist; and it
+      would rather rain on them than not. On the afternoon of our arrival there
+      was fine air and fair weather, but not a clear sky. The distance was hazy,
+      but the outlines were preserved. We could see White Top, in Virginia;
+      Grandfather Mountain, a long serrated range; the twin towers of Linville;
+      and the entire range of the Black Mountains, rising from the valley, and
+      apparently lower than we were. They get the name of Black from the balsams
+      which cover the summits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain on Roan was of less annoyance by reason of the delightful company
+      assembled at the hotel, which was in a manner at home there, and, thrown
+      upon its own resources, came out uncommonly strong in agreeableness. There
+      was a fiddle in the house, which had some of the virtues of that
+      celebrated in the history of old Mark Langston; the Professor was enabled
+      to produce anything desired out of the literature of the eighteenth
+      century; and what with the repartee of bright women, big wood fires,
+      reading, and chat, there was no dull day or evening on Roan. I can fancy,
+      however, that it might tire in time, if one were not a botanist, without
+      the resource of women's society. The ladies staying here were probably all
+      accomplished botanists, and the writer is indebted to one of them for a
+      list of plants found on Roan, among which is an interesting weed,
+      catalogued as Humana, perplexia negligens. The species is, however, common
+      elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second morning opened, after a night of high wind, with a
+      thunder-shower. After it passed, the visitors tried to reach Eagle Cliff,
+      two miles off, whence an extensive western prospect is had, but were
+      driven back by a tempest, and rain practically occupied the day. Now and
+      then through the parted clouds we got a glimpse of a mountain-side, or the
+      gleam of a valley. On the lower mountains, at wide intervals apart, were
+      isolated settlements, commonly a wretched cabin and a spot of girdled
+      trees. A clergyman here, not long ago, undertook to visit some of these
+      cabins and carry his message to them. In one wretched hut of logs he found
+      a poor woman, with whom, after conversation on serious subjects, he
+      desired to pray. She offered no objection, and he kneeled down and prayed.
+      The woman heard him, and watched him for some moments with curiosity, in
+      an effort to ascertain what he was doing, and then said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, a man did that when he put my girl in a hole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards night the wind hauled round from the south to the northwest, and
+      we went to High Bluff, a point on the north edge, where some rocks are
+      piled up above the evergreens, to get a view of the sunset. In every
+      direction the mountains were clear, and a view was obtained of the vast
+      horizon and the hills and lowlands of several States&mdash;a continental
+      prospect, scarcely anywhere else equaled for variety or distance. The
+      grandeur of mountains depends mostly on the state of the atmosphere.
+      Grandfather loomed up much more loftily than the day before, the giant
+      range of the Blacks asserted itself in grim inaccessibility, and we could
+      see, a small pyramid on the southwest horizon, King's Mountain in South
+      Carolina, estimated to be distant one hundred and fifty miles. To the
+      north Roan falls from this point abruptly, and we had, like a map below
+      us, the low country all the way into Virginia. The clouds lay like lakes
+      in the valleys of the lower hills, and in every direction were ranges of
+      mountains wooded to the summits. Off to the west by south lay the Great
+      Smoky Mountains, disputing eminence with the Blacks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Magnificent and impressive as the spectacle was, we were obliged to
+      contrast it unfavorably with that of the White Hills. The rock here is a
+      sort of sand or pudding stone; there is no limestone or granite. And all
+      the hills are tree-covered. To many this clothing of verdure is most
+      restful and pleasing. I missed the sharp outlines, the delicate artistic
+      sky lines, sharply defined in uplifted bare granite peaks and ridges, with
+      the purple and violet color of the northern mountains, and which it seems
+      to me that limestone and granite formations give. There are none of the
+      great gorges and awful abysses of the White Mountains, both valleys and
+      mountains here being more uniform in outline. There are few precipices and
+      jutting crags, and less is visible of the giant ribs and bones of the
+      planet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet Roan is a noble mountain. A lady from Tennessee asked me if I had ever
+      seen anything to compare with it&mdash;she thought there could be nothing
+      in the world. One has to dodge this sort of question in the South
+      occasionally, not to offend a just local pride. It is certainly one of the
+      most habitable of big mountains. It is roomy on top, there is space to
+      move about without too great fatigue, and one might pleasantly spend a
+      season there, if he had agreeable company and natural tastes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Getting down from Roan on the south side is not as easy as ascending on
+      the north; the road for five miles to the foot of the mountain is merely a
+      river of pebbles, gullied by the heavy rains, down which the horses picked
+      their way painfully. The travelers endeavored to present a dashing and
+      cavalier appearance to the group of ladies who waved good-by from the
+      hotel, as they took their way over the waste and wind-blown declivities,
+      but it was only a show, for the horses would neither caracole nor champ
+      the bit (at a dollar a day) down-hill over the slippery stones, and, truth
+      to tell, the wanderers turned with regret from the society of leisure and
+      persiflage to face the wilderness of Mitchell County.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How heavy,&rdquo; exclaimed the Professor, pricking Laura Matilda to call her
+      attention sharply to her footing&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;How heavy do I journey on the way,
+   When what I seek&mdash;my weary travel's end
+   Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
+   Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend!
+   The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
+   Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
+   As if by some instinct the wretch did know
+   His rider loved not speed, being made from thee:
+   The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
+   That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
+   Which heavily he answers with a groan,
+   More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
+   For that same groan doth put this in my mind;
+   My grief lies onward and my joy behind.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      This was not spoken to the group who fluttered their farewells, but poured
+      out to the uncomplaining forest, which rose up in ever statelier&mdash;and
+      grander ranks to greet the travelers as they descended&mdash;the silent,
+      vast forest, without note of bird or chip of squirrel, only the wind
+      tossing the great branches high overhead in response to the sonnet. Is
+      there any region or circumstance of life that the poet did not forecast
+      and provide for? But what would have been his feelings if he could have
+      known that almost three centuries after these lines were penned, they
+      would be used to express the emotion of an unsentimental traveler in the
+      primeval forests of the New World? At any rate, he peopled the New World
+      with the children of his imagination. And, thought the Friend, whose
+      attention to his horse did not permit him to drop into poetry, Shakespeare
+      might have had a vision of this vast continent, though he did not refer to
+      it, when he exclaimed:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;What is your substance, whereof are you made,
+   That millions of strange shadows on you tend?&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Bakersville, the capital of Mitchell County, is eight miles from the top
+      of Roan, and the last three miles of the way the horsemen found tolerable
+      going, over which the horses could show their paces. The valley looked
+      fairly thrifty and bright, and was a pleasing introduction to Bakersville,
+      a pretty place in the hills, of some six hundred inhabitants, with two
+      churches, three indifferent hotels, and a court-house. This mountain town,
+      2550 feet above the sea, is said to have a decent winter climate, with
+      little snow, favorable to fruit-growing, and, by contrast with New
+      England, encouraging to people with weak lungs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the center of the mica mining, and of considerable excitement
+      about minerals. All around, the hills are spotted with &ldquo;diggings.&rdquo; Most of
+      the mines which yield well show signs of having been worked before, a very
+      long time ago, no doubt by the occupants before the Indians. The mica is
+      of excellent quality and easily mined. It is got out in large
+      irregular-shaped blocks and transported to the factories, where it is
+      carefully split by hand, and the laminae, of as large size as can be
+      obtained, are trimmed with shears and tied up in packages for market. The
+      quantity of refuse, broken, and rotten mica piled up about the factories
+      is immense, and all the roads round about glisten with its scales. Garnets
+      are often found imbedded in the laminae, flattened by the extreme pressure
+      to which the mass was subjected. It is fascinating material, this mica, to
+      handle, and we amused ourselves by experimenting on the thinness to which
+      its scales could be reduced by splitting. It was at Bakersville that we
+      saw specimens of mica that resembled the delicate tracery in the
+      moss-agate and had the iridescent sheen of the rainbow colors&mdash;the
+      most delicate greens, reds, blues, purples, and gold, changing from one to
+      the other in the reflected light. In the texture were the tracings of
+      fossil forms of ferns and the most exquisite and delicate vegetable beauty
+      of the coal age. But the magnet shows this tracery to be iron. We were
+      shown also emeralds and &ldquo;diamonds,&rdquo; picked up in this region, and there is
+      a mild expectation in all the inhabitants of great mineral treasure. A
+      singular product of the region is the flexible sandstone. It is a most
+      uncanny stone. A slip of it a couple of feet long and an inch in diameter
+      each way bends in the hand like a half-frozen snake. This conduct of a
+      substance that we have been taught to regard as inflexible impairs one's
+      confidence in the stability of nature and affects him as an earthquake
+      does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This excitement over mica and other minerals has the usual effect of
+      starting up business and creating bad blood. Fortunes have been made, and
+      lost in riotous living; scores of visionary men have been disappointed;
+      lawsuits about titles and claims have multiplied, and quarrels ending in
+      murder have been frequent in the past few years. The mica and the illicit
+      whisky have worked together to make this region one of lawlessness and
+      violence. The travelers were told stories of the lack of common morality
+      and decency in the region, but they made no note of them. And, perhaps
+      fortunately, they were not there during court week to witness the scenes
+      of license that were described. This court week, which draws hither the
+      whole population, is a sort of Saturnalia. Perhaps the worst of this is
+      already a thing of the past; for the outrages a year before had reached
+      such a pass that by a common movement the sale of whisky was stopped (not
+      interdicted, but stopped), and not a drop of liquor could be bought in
+      Bakersville nor within three miles of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jail at Bakersville is a very simple residence. The main building is
+      brick, two stories high and about twelve feet square. The walls are so
+      loosely laid up that it seems as if a colored prisoner might butt his head
+      through. Attached to this is a room for the jailer. In the lower room is a
+      wooden cage, made of logs bolted together and filled with spikes, nine
+      feet by ten feet square and perhaps seven or eight feet high. Between this
+      cage and the wall is a space of eighteen inches in width. It has a narrow
+      door, and an opening through which the food is passed to the prisoners,
+      and a conduit leading out of it. Of course it soon becomes foul, and in
+      warm weather somewhat warm. A recent prisoner, who wanted more ventilation
+      than the State allowed him, found some means, by a loose plank, I think,
+      to batter a hole in the outer wall opposite the window in the cage, and
+      this ragged opening, seeming to the jailer a good sanitary arrangement,
+      remains. Two murderers occupied this apartment at the time of our visit.
+      During the recent session of court, ten men had been confined in this
+      narrow space, without room enough for them to lie down together. The cage
+      in the room above, a little larger, had for tenant a person who was jailed
+      for some misunderstanding about an account, and who was probably innocent&mdash;from
+      the jailer's statement. This box is a wretched residence, month after
+      month, while awaiting trial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We learned on inquiry that it is practically impossible to get a jury to
+      convict of murder in this region, and that these admitted felons would
+      undoubtedly escape. We even heard that juries were purchasable here, and
+      that a man's success in court depended upon the length of his purse. This
+      is such an unheard-of thing that we refused to credit it. When the Friend
+      attempted to arouse the indignation of the Professor about the barbarity
+      of this jail, the latter defended it on the ground that as confinement was
+      the only punishment that murderers were likely to receive in this region,
+      it was well to make their detention disagreeable to them. But the Friend
+      did not like this wild-beast cage for men, and could only exclaim,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, murder! what crimes are done in thy name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If the comrades wished an adventure, they had a small one, more
+      interesting to them than to the public, the morning they left Bakersville
+      to ride to Burnsville, which sets itself up as the capital of Yancey. The
+      way for the first three miles lay down a small creek and in a valley
+      fairly settled, the houses, a store, and a grist-mill giving evidence of
+      the new enterprise of the region. When Toe River was reached, there was a
+      choice of routes. We might ford the Toe at that point, where the river was
+      wide, but shallow, and the crossing safe, and climb over the mountain by a
+      rough but sightly road, or descend the stream by a better road and ford
+      the river at a place rather dangerous to those unfamiliar with it. The
+      danger attracted us, but we promptly chose the hill road on account of the
+      views, for we were weary of the limited valley prospects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Toe River, even here, where it bears westward, is a very respectable
+      stream in size, and not to be trifled with after a shower. It gradually
+      turns northward, and, joining the Nollechucky, becomes part of the
+      Tennessee system. We crossed it by a long, diagonal ford, slipping and
+      sliding about on the round stones, and began the ascent of a steep hill.
+      The sun beat down unmercifully, the way was stony, and the horses did not
+      relish the weary climbing. The Professor, who led the way, not for the
+      sake of leadership, but to be the discoverer of laden blackberry bushes,
+      which began to offer occasional refreshment, discouraged by the
+      inhospitable road and perhaps oppressed by the moral backwardness of
+      things in general, cried out:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,&mdash;
+   As, to behold desert a beggar born,
+   And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
+   And purest faith unhappily foresworn,
+   And gilded honor shamefully misplaced,
+   And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
+   And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
+   And strength by limping sway disabled,
+   And art made tongue-tied by authority,
+   And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
+   And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
+   And captive good attending captain ill:
+   Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
+   Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of a lively discussion of this pessimistic view of the
+      inequalities of life, in which desert and capacity are so often put at
+      disadvantage by birth in beggarly conditions, and brazen assumption raises
+      the dust from its chariot wheels for modest merit to plod along in, the
+      Professor swung himself off his horse to attack a blackberry bush, and the
+      Friend, representing simple truth, and desirous of getting a wider
+      prospect, urged his horse up the hill. At the top he encountered a
+      stranger, on a sorrel horse, with whom he entered into conversation and
+      extracted all the discouragement the man had as to the road to Burnsville.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the view opened finely and extensively. There are few
+      exhilarations comparable to that of riding or walking along a high ridge,
+      and the spirits of the traveler rose many degrees above the point of
+      restful death, for which the Professor was crying when he encountered the
+      blackberry bushes. Luckily the Friend soon fell in with a like temptation,
+      and dismounted. He discovered something that spoiled his appetite for
+      berries. His coat, strapped on behind the saddle, had worked loose, the
+      pocket was open, and the pocket-book was gone. This was serious business.
+      For while the Professor was the cashier, and traveled like a Rothschild,
+      with large drafts, the Friend represented the sub-treasury. That very
+      morning, in response to inquiry as to the sinews of travel, the Friend had
+      displayed, without counting, a roll of bills. These bills had now
+      disappeared, and when the Friend turned back to communicate his loss, in
+      the character of needy nothing not trimm'd in jollity, he had a
+      sympathetic listener to the tale of woe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Going back on such a journey is the woefulest experience, but retrace our
+      steps we must. Perhaps the pocket-book lay in the road not half a mile
+      back. But not in half a mile, or a mile, was it found. Probably, then, the
+      man on the sorrel horse had picked it up. But who was the man on the
+      sorrel horse, and where had he gone? Probably the coat worked loose in
+      crossing Toe River and the pocket-book had gone down-stream. The number of
+      probabilities was infinite, and each more plausible than the others as it
+      occurred to us. We inquired at every house we had passed on the way, we
+      questioned every one we met. At length it began to seem improbable that
+      any one would remember if he had picked up a pocketbook that morning. This
+      is just the sort of thing that slips an untrained memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a post office or doctor's shop, or inn for drovers, it might be either
+      or neither, where several horses were tied to the fence, and a group of
+      men were tilted back in cane chairs on the veranda, we unfolded our
+      misfortune and made particular inquiries for a man on a sorrel horse. Yes,
+      such a man, David Thomas by name, had just ridden towards Bakersville. If
+      he had found the pocket-book, we would recover it. He was an honest man.
+      It might, however, fall into hands that would freeze to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon consultation, it was the general verdict that there were men in the
+      county who would keep it if they had picked it up. But the assembly
+      manifested the liveliest interest in the incident. One suggested Toe
+      River. Another thought it risky to drop a purse on any road. But there was
+      a chorus of desire expressed that we should find it, and in this anxiety
+      was exhibited a decided sensitiveness about the honor of Mitchell County.
+      It seemed too bad that a stranger should go away with the impression that
+      it was not safe to leave money anywhere in it. We felt very much obliged
+      for this genuine sympathy, and we told them that if a pocket-book were
+      lost in this way on a Connecticut road, there would be felt no
+      neighborhood responsibility for it, and that nobody would take any
+      interest in the incident except the man who lost, and the man who found.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the time the travelers pulled up at a store in Bakersville they had
+      lost all expectation of recovering the missing article, and were
+      discussing the investment of more money in an advertisement in the weekly
+      newspaper of the capital. The Professor, whose reform sentiments agreed
+      with those of the newspaper, advised it. There was a group of idlers, mica
+      acquaintances of the morning, and philosophers in front of the store, and
+      the Friend opened the colloquy by asking if a man named David Thomas had
+      been seen in town. He was in town, had ridden in within an hour, and his
+      brother, who was in the group, would go in search of him. The information
+      was then given of the loss, and that the rider had met David Thomas just
+      before it was discovered, on the mountain beyond the Toe. The news made a
+      sensation, and by the time David Thomas appeared a crowd of a hundred had
+      drawn around the horsemen eager for further developments. Mr. Thomas was
+      the least excited of the group as he took his position on the sidewalk,
+      conscious of the dignity of the occasion and that he was about to begin a
+      duel in which both reputation and profit were concerned. He recollected
+      meeting the travelers in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Friend said, &ldquo;I discovered that I had lost my purse just after meeting
+      you; it may have been dropped in Toe River, but I was told back here that
+      if David Thomas had picked it up, it was as safe as if it were in the
+      bank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of a pocket-book was it?&rdquo; asked Mr. Thomas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was of crocodile skin, or what is sold for that, very likely it is an
+      imitation, and about so large indicating the size.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What had it in it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Various things. Some specimens of mica; some bank checks, some money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, a photograph. And, oh, something that I presume is not in another
+      pocket-book in North Carolina,&mdash;in an envelope, a lock of the hair of
+      George Washington, the Father of his Country.&rdquo; Sensation mixed with
+      incredulity. Washington's hair did seem such an odd part of an outfit for
+      a journey of this kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much money was in it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I cannot say, exactly. I happen to remember four twenty-dollar
+      United States notes, and a roll of small bills, perhaps something over a
+      hundred dollars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that the pocket-book?&rdquo; asked David Thomas, slowly pulling the loved
+      and lost out of his trousers pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd be willing to take your oath on it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be delighted to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I guess there ain't so much money in it. You can count it [handing
+      it over]; there hain't been nothing taken out. I can't read, but my friend
+      here counted it over, and he says there ain't as much as that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Intense interest in the result of the counting. One hundred and ten
+      dollars! The Friend selected one of the best engraved of the notes, and
+      appealed to the crowd if they thought that was the square thing to do.
+      They did so think, and David Thomas said it was abundant. And then said
+      the Friend:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm exceedingly grateful to you besides. Washington's hair is getting
+      scarce, and I did not want to lose these few hairs, gray as they are.
+      You've done the honest thing, Mr. Thomas, as was expected of you. You
+      might have kept the whole. But I reckon if there had been five hundred
+      dollars in the book and you had kept it, it wouldn't have done you half as
+      much good as giving it up has done; and your reputation as an honest man
+      is worth a good deal more than this pocket-book. [The Professor was
+      delighted with this sentiment, because it reminded him of a
+      Sunday-school.] I shall go away with a high opinion of the honesty of
+      Mitchell County.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he lives in Yancey,&rdquo; cried two or three voices. At which there was a
+      great laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I wondered where he came from.&rdquo; And the Mitchell County people
+      laughed again at their own expense, and the levee broke up. It was
+      exceedingly gratifying, as we spread the news of the recovered property
+      that afternoon at every house on our way to the Toe, to see what pleasure
+      it gave. Every man appeared to feel that the honor of the region had been
+      on trial&mdash;and had stood the test.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The eighteen miles to Burnsville had now to be added to the morning
+      excursion, but the travelers were in high spirits, feeling the truth of
+      the adage that it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have
+      lost at all. They decided, on reflection, to join company with the
+      mail-rider, who was going to Burnsville by the shorter route, and could
+      pilot them over the dangerous ford of the Toe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mail-rider was a lean, sallow, sinewy man, mounted on a sorry sorrel
+      nag, who proved, however, to have blood in her, and to be a fast walker
+      and full of endurance. The mail-rider was taciturn, a natural habit for a
+      man who rides alone the year round, over a lonely road, and has nothing
+      whatever to think of. He had been in the war sixteen months, in Hugh
+      White's regiment,&mdash;reckon you've heerd of him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confederate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was he on the Union or Confederate side?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Union.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you in any engagements?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you have any fighting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not reg'lar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do in Hugh White's regiment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, just cavorted round the mountains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You lived on the country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Picked up what you could find, corn, bacon, horses?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's about so. Did n't make much difference which side was round, the
+      country got cleaned out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plunder seems to have been the object?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You got a living out of the farmers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our friend and guide seemed to have been a jayhawker and mountain marauder&mdash;on
+      the right side. His attachment to the word &ldquo;which&rdquo; prevented any lively
+      flow of conversation, and there seemed to be only two trains of ideas
+      running in his mind: one was the subject of horses and saddles, and the
+      other was the danger of the ford we were coming to, and he exhibited a
+      good deal of ingenuity in endeavoring to excite our alarm. He returned to
+      the ford from every other conversational excursion, and after every
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do' know's there 's any great danger; not if you know the ford. Folks
+      is carried away there. The Toe gits up sudden. There's been right smart
+      rain lately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're afraid, you can git set over in a dugout, and I'll take your
+      horses across. Mebbe you're used to fording? It's a pretty bad ford for
+      them as don't know it. But you'll get along if you mind your eye. There's
+      some rocks you'll have to look out for. But you'll be all right if you
+      follow me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Not being very successful in raising an interest in the dangers of his
+      ford, although he could not forego indulging a malicious pleasure in
+      trying to make the strangers uncomfortable, he finally turned his
+      attention to a trade. &ldquo;This hoss of mine,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is just the kind of
+      brute-beast you want for this country. Your hosses is too heavy. How'll
+      you swap for that one o' yourn?&rdquo; The reiterated assertion that the horses
+      were not ours, that they were hired, made little impression on him. All
+      the way to Burnsville he kept referring to the subject of a trade. The
+      instinct of &ldquo;swap&rdquo; was strong in him. When we met a yoke of steers, he
+      turned round and bantered the owner for a trade. Our saddles took his
+      fancy. They were of the army pattern, and he allowed that one of them
+      would just suit him. He rode a small flat English pad, across which was
+      flung the United States mail pouch, apparently empty. He dwelt upon the
+      fact that his saddle was new and ours were old, and the advantages that
+      would accrue to us from the exchange. He did n't care if they had been
+      through the war, as they had, for he fancied an army saddle. The Friend
+      answered for himself that the saddle he rode belonged to a distinguished
+      Union general, and had a bullet in it that was put there by a careless
+      Confederate in the first battle of Bull Run, and the owner would not part
+      with it for money. But the mail-rider said he did n't mind that. He would
+      n't mind swapping his new saddle for my old one and the rubber coat and
+      leggings. Long before we reached the ford we thought we would like to swap
+      the guide, even at the risk of drowning. The ford was passed, in due time,
+      with no inconvenience save that of wet feet, for the stream was breast
+      high to the horses; but being broad and swift and full of sunken rocks and
+      slippery stones, and the crossing tortuous, it is not a ford to be
+      commended. There is a curious delusion that a rider has in crossing a
+      swift broad stream. It is that he is rapidly drifting up-stream, while in
+      fact the tendency of the horse is to go with the current.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road in the afternoon was not unpicturesque, owing to the streams and
+      the ever noble forests, but the prospect was always very limited.
+      Agriculturally, the country was mostly undeveloped. The travelers
+      endeavored to get from the rider an estimate of the price of land. Not
+      much sold, he said. &ldquo;There was one sale of a big piece last year; the
+      owner enthorited Big Tom Wilson to sell it, but I d'know what he got for
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All the way along, the habitations were small log cabins, with one room,
+      chinked with mud, and these were far between; and only occasionally
+      thereby a similar log structure, unchinked, laid up like a cob house, that
+      served for a stable. Not much cultivation, except now and then a little
+      patch of poor corn on a steep hillside, occasionally a few apple-trees,
+      and a peach-tree without fruit. Here and there was a house that had been
+      half finished and then abandoned, or a shanty in which a couple of young
+      married people were just beginning life. Generally the cabins (confirming
+      the accuracy of the census of 1880) swarmed with children, and nearly all
+      the women were thin and sickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the day's ride we did not see a wheeled vehicle, and only now and then
+      a horse. We met on the road small sleds, drawn by a steer, sometimes by a
+      cow, on which a bag of grist was being hauled to the mill, and boys
+      mounted on steers gave us good-evening with as much pride as if they were
+      bestriding fiery horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a house of the better class, which was a post-house, and where the
+      rider and the woman of the house had a long consultation over a letter to
+      be registered, we found the rooms decorated with patent-medicine pictures,
+      which were often framed in strips of mica, an evidence of culture that was
+      worth noting. Mica was the rage. Every one with whom we talked, except the
+      rider, had more or less the mineral fever. The impression was general that
+      the mountain region of North Carolina was entering upon a career of
+      wonderful mineral development, and the most extravagant expectations were
+      entertained. Mica was the shining object of most &ldquo;prospecting,&rdquo; but gold
+      was also on the cards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The country about Burnsville is not only mildly picturesque, but very
+      pleasing. Burnsville, the county-seat of Yancey, at an elevation of 2840
+      feet, is more like a New England village than any hitherto seen. Most of
+      the houses stand about a square, which contains the shabby court-house;
+      around it are two small churches, a jail, an inviting tavern with a long
+      veranda, and a couple of stores. On an overlooking hill is the seminary.
+      Mica mining is the exciting industry, but it is agriculturally a good
+      country. The tavern had recently been enlarged to meet the new demands for
+      entertainment and is a roomy structure, fresh with paint and only
+      partially organized. The travelers were much impressed with the brilliant
+      chambers, the floors of which were painted in alternate stripes of vivid
+      green and red. The proprietor, a very intelligent and enterprising man,
+      who had traveled often in the North, was full of projects for the
+      development of his region and foremost in its enterprises, and had formed
+      a considerable collection of minerals. Besides, more than any one else we
+      met, he appreciated the beauty of his country, and took us to a
+      neighboring hill, where we had a view of Table Mountain to the east and
+      the nearer giant Blacks. The elevation of Burnsville gives it a delightful
+      summer climate, the gentle undulations of the country are agreeable, the
+      views noble, the air is good, and it is altogether a &ldquo;livable&rdquo; and
+      attractive place. With facilities of communication, it would be a favorite
+      summer resort. Its nearness to the great mountains (the whole Black range
+      is in Yancey County), its fine pure air, its opportunity for fishing and
+      hunting, commend it to those in search of an interesting and restful
+      retreat in summer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it should be said that before the country can attract and retain
+      travelers, its inhabitants must learn something about the preparation of
+      food. If, for instance, the landlord's wife at Burnsville had traveled
+      with her husband, her table would probably have been more on a level with
+      his knowledge of the world, and it would have contained something that the
+      wayfaring man, though a Northerner, could eat. We have been on the point
+      several times in this journey of making the observation, but have been
+      restrained by a reluctance to touch upon politics, that it was no wonder
+      that a people with such a cuisine should have rebelled. The travelers were
+      in a rebellious mood most of the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The evidences of enterprise in this region were pleasant to see, but the
+      observers could not but regret, after all, the intrusion of the
+      money-making spirit, which is certain to destroy much of the present
+      simplicity. It is as yet, to a degree, tempered by a philosophic spirit.
+      The other guest of the house was a sedate, long-bearded traveler for some
+      Philadelphia house, and in the evening he and the landlord fell into a
+      conversation upon what Socrates calls the disadvantage of the pursuit of
+      wealth to the exclusion of all noble objects, and they let their fancy
+      play about Vanderbilt, who was agreed to be the richest man in the world,
+      or that ever lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All I want,&rdquo; said the long-bearded man, &ldquo;is enough to be comfortable. I
+      would n't have Vanderbilt's wealth if he'd give it to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor I,&rdquo; said the landlord. &ldquo;Give me just enough to be comfortable.&rdquo; [The
+      tourist couldn't but note that his ideas of enough to be comfortable had
+      changed a good deal since he had left his little farm and gone into the
+      mica business, and visited New York, and enlarged and painted his tavern.]
+      &ldquo;I should like to know what more Vanderbilt gets out of his money than I
+      get out of mine. I heard tell of a young man who went to Vanderbilt to get
+      employment. Vanderbilt finally offered to give the young man, if he would
+      work for him, just what he got himself. The young man jumped at that&mdash;he'd
+      be perfectly satisfied with that pay. And Vanderbilt said that all he got
+      was what he could eat and wear, and offered to give the young man his
+      board and clothes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I declare&rdquo; said the long-bearded man. &ldquo;That's just it. Did you ever see
+      Vanderbilt's house? Neither did I, but I heard he had a vault built in it
+      five feet thick, solid. He put in it two hundred millions of dollars, in
+      gold. After a year, he opened it and put in twelve millions more, and
+      called that a poor year. They say his house has gold shutters to the
+      windows, so I've heard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn't wonder,&rdquo; said the landlord. &ldquo;I heard he had one door in his
+      house cost forty thousand dollars. I don't know what it is made of, unless
+      it's made of gold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sunday was a hot and quiet day. The stores were closed and the two
+      churches also, this not being the Sunday for the itinerant preacher. The
+      jail also showed no sign of life, and when we asked about it, we learned
+      that it was empty, and had been for some time. No liquor is sold in the
+      place, nor within at least three miles of it. It is not much use to try to
+      run a jail without liquor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the course of the morning a couple of stout fellows arrived, leading
+      between them a young man whom they had arrested,&mdash;it didn't appear on
+      any warrant, but they wanted to get him committed and locked up. The
+      offense charged was carrying a pistol; the boy had not used it against
+      anybody, but he had flourished it about and threatened, and the neighbors
+      wouldn't stand that; they were bound to enforce the law against carrying
+      concealed weapons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captors were perfectly good-natured and on friendly enough terms with
+      the young man, who offered no resistance, and seemed not unwilling to go
+      to jail. But a practical difficulty arose. The jail was locked up, the
+      sheriff had gone away into the country with the key, and no one could get
+      in. It did not appear that there was any provision for boarding the man in
+      jail; no one in fact kept it. The sheriff was sent for, but was not to be
+      found, and the prisoner and his captors loafed about the square all day,
+      sitting on the fence, rolling on the grass, all of them sustained by a
+      simple trust that the jail would be open some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Late in the afternoon we left them there, trying to get into the jail. But
+      we took a personal leaf out of this experience. Our Virginia friends,
+      solicitous for our safety in this wild country, had urged us not to
+      venture into it without arms&mdash;take at least, they insisted, a
+      revolver each. And now we had to congratulate ourselves that we had not
+      done so. If we had, we should doubtless on that Sunday have been waiting,
+      with the other law-breaker, for admission into the Yancey County jail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      From Burnsville the next point in our route was Asheville, the most
+      considerable city in western North Carolina, a resort of fashion, and the
+      capital of Buncombe County. It is distant some forty to forty-five miles,
+      too long a journey for one day over such roads. The easier and common
+      route is by the Ford of Big Ivy, eighteen miles, the first stopping-place;
+      and that was a long ride for the late afternoon when we were in condition
+      to move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlord suggested that we take another route, stay that night on
+      Caney River with Big Tom Wilson, only eight miles from Burnsville, cross
+      Mount Mitchell, and go down the valley of the Swannanoa to Asheville. He
+      represented this route as shorter and infinitely more picturesque. There
+      was nothing worth seeing on the Big Ivy way. With scarcely a moment's
+      reflection and while the horses were saddling, we decided to ride to Big
+      Tom Wilson's. I could not at the time understand, and I cannot now, why
+      the Professor consented. I should hardly dare yet confess to my fixed
+      purpose to ascend Mount Mitchell. It was equally fixed in the Professor's
+      mind not to do it. We had not discussed it much. But it is safe to say
+      that if he had one well-defined purpose on this trip, it was not to climb
+      Mitchell. &ldquo;Not,&rdquo; as he put it,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
+   Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      had suggested the possibility that he could do it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at the moment the easiest thing to do seemed to be to ride down to
+      Wilson's. When there we could turn across country to the Big Ivy,
+      although, said the landlord, you can ride over Mitchell just as easy as
+      anywhere&mdash;a lady rode plump over the peak of it last week, and never
+      got off her horse. You are not obliged to go; at Big Tom's, you can go any
+      way you please.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides, Big Tom himself weighed in the scale more than Mount Mitchell,
+      and not to see him was to miss one of the most characteristic productions
+      of the country, the typical backwoodsman, hunter, guide. So we rode down
+      Bolling Creek, through a pretty, broken country, crossed the Caney River,
+      and followed it up a few miles to Wilson's plantation. There are little
+      intervales along the river, where hay is cut and corn grown, but the
+      region is not much cleared, and the stock browse about in the forest.
+      Wilson is the agent of the New York owner of a tract of some thirteen
+      thousand acres of forest, including the greater portion of Mount Mitchell,
+      a wilderness well stocked with bears and deer, and full of streams
+      abounding in trout. It is also the playground of the rattlesnake. With all
+      these attractions Big Tom's life is made lively in watching game poachers,
+      and endeavoring to keep out the foraging cattle of the few neighbors. It
+      is not that the cattle do much injury in the forest, but the looking after
+      them is made a pretense for roaming around, and the roamers are liable to
+      have to defend themselves against the deer, or their curiosity is excited
+      about the bears, and lately they have taken to exploding powder in the
+      streams to kill the fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Big Tom's plantation has an openwork stable, an ill-put-together frame
+      house, with two rooms and a kitchen, and a veranda in front, a loft, and a
+      spring-house in the rear. Chickens and other animals have free run of the
+      premises. Some fish-rods hung in the porch, and hunter's gear depended on
+      hooks in the passage-way to the kitchen. In one room were three beds, in
+      the other two, only one in the kitchen. On the porch was a loom, with a
+      piece of cloth in process. The establishment had the air of taking care of
+      itself. Neither Big Tom nor his wife was at home. Sunday seemed to be a
+      visiting day, and the travelers had met many parties on horseback. Mrs.
+      Wilson was away for a visit of a day or two. One of the sons, who was
+      lounging on the veranda, was at last induced to put up the horses; a very
+      old woman, who mumbled and glared at the visitors, was found in the
+      kitchen, but no intelligible response could be got out of her. Presently a
+      bright little girl, the housekeeper in charge, appeared. She said that her
+      paw had gone up to her brother's (her brother was just married and lived
+      up the river in the house where Mr. Murchison stayed when he was here) to
+      see if he could ketch a bear that had been rootin' round in the corn-field
+      the night before. She expected him back by sundown&mdash;by dark anyway.
+      'Les he'd gone after the bear, and then you could n't tell when he would
+      come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It appeared that Big Tom was a thriving man in the matter of family. More
+      boys appeared. Only one was married, but four had &ldquo;got their time.&rdquo; As
+      night approached, and no Wilson, there was a good deal of lively and loud
+      conversation about the stock and the chores, in all of which the girl took
+      a leading and intelligent part, showing a willingness to do her share, but
+      not to have all the work put upon her. It was time to go down the road and
+      hunt up the cows; the mule had disappeared and must be found before dark;
+      a couple of steers hadn't turned up since the day before yesterday, and in
+      the midst of the gentle contention as to whose business all this was,
+      there was an alarm of cattle in the corn-patch, and the girl started off
+      on a run in that direction. It was due to the executive ability of this
+      small girl, after the cows had been milked and the mule chased and the
+      boys properly stirred up, that we had supper. It was of the oilcloth, iron
+      fork, tin spoon, bacon, hot bread and honey variety, distinguished,
+      however, from all meals we had endured or enjoyed before by the
+      introduction of fried eggs (as the breakfast next morning was by the
+      presence of chicken), and it was served by the active maid with right
+      hearty good-will and genuine hospitable intent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While it was in progress, after nine o'clock, Big Tom arrived, and, with a
+      simple greeting, sat down and attacked the supper and began to tell about
+      the bear. There was not much to tell except that he hadn't seen the bear,
+      and that, judged by his tracks and his sloshing around, he must be a big
+      one. But a trap had been set for him, and he judged it wouldn't be long
+      before we had some bear meat. Big Tom Wilson, as he is known all over this
+      part of the State, would not attract attention from his size. He is six
+      feet and two inches tall, very spare and muscular, with sandy hair, long
+      gray beard, and honest blue eyes. He has a reputation for great strength
+      and endurance; a man of native simplicity and mild manners. He had been
+      rather expecting us from what Mr. Murchison wrote; he wrote (his son had
+      read out the letter) that Big Tom was to take good care of us, and anybody
+      that Mr. Murchison sent could have the best he'd got.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Big Tom joined us in our room after supper. This apartment, with two
+      mighty feather-beds, was hung about with all manner of stuffy family
+      clothes, and had in one end a vast cavern for a fire. The floor was
+      uneven, and the hearthstones billowy. When the fire was lighted, the
+      effect of the bright light in the cavern and the heavy shadows in the room
+      was Rembrandtish. Big Tom sat with us before the fire and told bear
+      stories. Talk? Why, it was not the least effort. The stream flowed on
+      without a ripple. &ldquo;Why, the old man,&rdquo; one of the sons confided to us next
+      morning, &ldquo;can begin and talk right over Mount Mitchell and all the way
+      back, and never make a break.&rdquo; Though Big Tom had waged a lifelong warfare
+      with the bears, and taken the hide off at least a hundred of them, I could
+      not see that he had any vindictive feeling towards the varmint, but simply
+      an insatiable love of killing him, and he regarded him in that
+      half-humorous light in which the bear always appears to those who study
+      him. As to deer&mdash;he couldn't tell how many of them he had slain. But
+      Big Tom was a gentleman: he never killed deer for mere sport. With
+      rattlesnakes, now, it was different. There was the skin of one hanging
+      upon a tree by the route we would take in the morning, a buster, he
+      skinned him yesterday. There was an entire absence, of braggadocio in Big
+      Tom's talk, but somehow, as he went on, his backwoods figure loomed larger
+      and larger in our imagination, and he seemed strangely familiar. At length
+      it came over us where we had met him before. It was in Cooper's novels. He
+      was the Leather-Stocking exactly. And yet he was an original; for he
+      assured us that he had never read the Leather-Stocking Tales. What a
+      figure, I was thinking, he must have made in the late war! Such a shot,
+      such a splendid physique, such iron endurance! I almost dreaded to hear
+      his tales of the havoc he had wrought on the Union army. Yes, he was in
+      the war, he was sixteen months in the Confederate army, this Homeric man.
+      In what rank? &ldquo;Oh, I was a fifer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But hunting and war did not by any means occupy the whole of Big Tom's
+      life. He was also engaged in &ldquo;lawin'.&rdquo; He had a long-time feud with a
+      neighbor about a piece of land and alleged trespass, and they'd been
+      &ldquo;lawin'&rdquo; for years, with no definite result; but as a topic of
+      conversation it was as fully illustrative of frontier life as the
+      bear-fighting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long after we had all gone to bed, we heard Big Tom's continuous voice,
+      through the thin partition that separated us from the kitchen, going on to
+      his little boy about the bear; every circumstance of how he tracked him,
+      and what corner of the field he entered, and where he went out, and his
+      probable size and age, and the prospect of his coming again; these were
+      the details of real everyday life, and worthy to be dwelt on by the hour.
+      The boy was never tired of pursuing them. And Big Tom was just a big boy,
+      also, in his delight in it all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps it was the fascination of Big Tom, perhaps the representation that
+      we were already way off the Big Ivy route, and that it would, in fact,
+      save time to go over the mountain and we could ride all the way, that made
+      the Professor acquiesce, with no protest worth noticing, in the
+      preparations that went on, as by a natural assumption, for going over
+      Mitchell. At any rate, there was an early breakfast, luncheon was put up,
+      and by half-past seven we were riding up the Caney,&mdash;a half-cloudy
+      day,&mdash;Big Tom swinging along on foot ahead, talking nineteen to the
+      dozen. There was a delightful freshness in the air, the dew-laden bushes,
+      and the smell of the forest. In half an hour we called at the hunting
+      shanty of Mr. Murchison, wrote our names on the wall, according to custom,
+      and regretted that we could not stay for a day in that retreat and try the
+      speckled trout. Making our way through the low growth and bushes of the
+      valley, we came into a fine open forest, watered by a noisy brook, and
+      after an hour's easy going reached the serious ascent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Wilson's to the peak of Mitchell it is seven and a half miles; we
+      made it in five and a half hours. A bridle path was cut years ago, but it
+      has been entirely neglected. It is badly washed, it is stony, muddy, and
+      great trees have fallen across it which wholly block the way for horses.
+      At these places long detours were necessary, on steep hillsides and
+      through gullies, over treacherous sink-holes in the rocks, through quaggy
+      places, heaps of brush, and rotten logs. Those who have ever attempted to
+      get horses over such ground will not wonder at the slow progress we made.
+      Before we were halfway up the ascent, we realized the folly of attempting
+      it on horseback; but then to go on seemed as easy as to go back. The way
+      was also exceedingly steep in places, and what with roots, and logs, and
+      slippery rocks and stones, it was a desperate climb for the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a magnificent forest! Oaks, chestnuts, Poplars, hemlocks, the
+      cucumber (a species of magnolia, with a pinkish, cucumber-like cone), and
+      all sorts of northern and southern growths meeting here in splendid array.
+      And this gigantic forest, with little diminution in size of trees,
+      continued two thirds of the way up. We marked, as we went on, the maple,
+      the black walnut, the buckeye, the hickory, the locust, and the guide
+      pointed out in one section the largest cherry-trees we had ever seen;
+      splendid trunks, each worth a large sum if it could be got to market.
+      After the great trees were left behind, we entered a garden of white
+      birches, and then a plateau of swamp, thick with raspberry bushes, and
+      finally the ridges, densely crowded with the funereal black balsam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Halfway up, Big Tom showed us his favorite, the biggest tree he knew. It
+      was a poplar, or tulip. It stands more like a column than a tree, rising
+      high into the air, with scarcely a perceptible taper, perhaps sixty, more
+      likely a hundred, feet before it puts out a limb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Its girth six feet from the ground is thirty-two feet! I think it might be
+      called Big Tom. It stood here, of course, a giant, when Columbus sailed
+      from Spain, and perhaps some sentimental traveler will attach the name of
+      Columbus to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the woods there was not much sign of animal life, scarcely the note of
+      a bird, but we noticed as we rode along in the otherwise primeval silence
+      a loud and continuous humming overhead, almost like the sound of the wind
+      in pine tops. It was the humming of bees! The upper branches were alive
+      with these industrious toilers, and Big Tom was always on the alert to
+      discover and mark a bee-gum, which he could visit afterwards. Honey
+      hunting is one of his occupations. Collecting spruce gum is another, and
+      he was continually hacking off with his hatchet knobs of the translucent
+      secretion. How rich and fragrant are these forests! The rhododendron was
+      still in occasional bloom' and flowers of brilliant hue gleamed here and
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The struggle was more severe as we neared the summit, and the footing
+      worse for the horses. Occasionally it was safest to dismount and lead them
+      up slippery ascents; but this was also dangerous, for it was difficult to
+      keep them from treading on our heels, in their frantic flounderings, in
+      the steep, wet, narrow, brier-grown path. At one uncommonly pokerish
+      place, where the wet rock sloped into a bog, the rider of Jack thought it
+      prudent to dismount, but Big Tom insisted that Jack would &ldquo;make it&rdquo; all
+      right, only give him his head. The rider gave him his head, and the next
+      minute Jack's four heels were in the air, and he came down on his side in
+      a flash. The rider fortunately extricated his leg without losing it, Jack
+      scrambled out with a broken shoe, and the two limped along. It was a
+      wonder that the horses' legs were not broken a dozen times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we approached the top, Big Tom pointed out the direction, a half mile
+      away, of a small pond, a little mountain tarn, overlooked by a ledge of
+      rock, where Professor Mitchell lost his life. Big Tom was the guide that
+      found his body. That day, as we sat on the summit, he gave in great detail
+      the story, the general outline of which is well known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first effort to measure the height of the Black Mountains was made in
+      1835, by Professor Elisha Mitchell, professor of mathematics and chemistry
+      in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mr. Mitchell was a
+      native of Connecticut, born in Washington, Litchfield County, in 1793;
+      graduated at Yale, ordained a Presbyterian minister, and was for a time
+      state surveyor; and became a professor at Chapel Hill in 1818. He first
+      ascertained and published the fact that the Black Mountains are the
+      highest land east of the Rocky Mountains. In 1844 he visited the locality
+      again. Measurements were subsequently made by Professor Guyot and by
+      Senator Clingman. One of the peaks was named for the senator (the one next
+      in height to Mitchell is described as Clingman on the state map), and a
+      dispute arose as to whether Mitchell had really visited and measured the
+      highest peak. Senator Clingman still maintains that he did not, and that
+      the peak now known as Mitchell is the one that Clingman first described.
+      The estimates of altitudes made by the three explorers named differed
+      considerably. The height now fixed for Mount Mitchell is 6711; that of
+      Mount Washington is 6285. There are twelve peaks in this range higher than
+      Mount Washington, and if we add those in the Great Smoky Mountains which
+      overtop it, there are some twenty in this State higher than the granite
+      giant of New Hampshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to verify his statement, Professor Mitchell (then in his
+      sixty-fourth year) made a third ascent in June, 1857. He was alone, and
+      went up from the Swannanoa side. He did not return. No anxiety was felt
+      for two or three days, as he was a good mountaineer, and it was supposed
+      he had crossed the mountain and made his way out by the Caney River. But
+      when several days passed without tidings of him, a search party was
+      formed. Big Tom Wilson was with it. They explored the mountain in all
+      directions unsuccessfully. At length Big Tom separated himself from his
+      companions and took a course in accordance with his notion of that which
+      would be pursued by a man lost in the clouds or the darkness. He soon
+      struck the trail of the wanderer, and, following it, discovered Mitchell's
+      body lying in a pool at the foot of a rocky precipice some thirty feet
+      high. It was evident that Mitchell, making his way along the ridge in
+      darkness or fog, had fallen off. It was the ninth (or the eleventh) day of
+      his disappearance, but in the pure mountain air the body had suffered no
+      change. Big Tom brought his companions to the place, and on consultation
+      it was decided to leave the body undisturbed till Mitchell's friends could
+      be present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was some talk of burying him on the mountain, but the friends
+      decided otherwise, and the remains, with much difficulty, were got down to
+      Asheville and there interred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some years afterwards, I believe at the instance of a society of
+      scientists, it was resolved to transport the body to the summit of Mount
+      Mitchell; for the tragic death of the explorer had forever settled in the
+      popular mind the name of the mountain. The task was not easy. A road had
+      to be cut, over which a sledge could be hauled, and the hardy mountaineers
+      who undertook the removal were three days in reaching the summit with
+      their burden. The remains were accompanied by a considerable concourse,
+      and the last rites on the top were participated in by a hundred or more
+      scientists and prominent men from different parts of the State. Such a
+      strange cortege had never before broken the silence of this lonely
+      wilderness, nor was ever burial more impressive than this wild interment
+      above the clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had been preceded in our climb all the way by a huge bear. That he was
+      huge, a lunker, a monstrous old varmint, Big Tom knew by the size of his
+      tracks; that he was making the ascent that morning ahead of us, Big Tom
+      knew by the freshness of the trail. We might come upon him at any moment;
+      he might be in the garden; was quite likely to be found in the raspberry
+      patch. That we did not encounter him I am convinced was not the fault of
+      Big Tom, but of the bear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a struggle of five hours we emerged from the balsams and briers into
+      a lovely open meadow, of lush clover, timothy, and blue grass. We
+      unsaddled the horses and turned them loose to feed in it. The meadow
+      sloped up to a belt of balsams and firs, a steep rocky knob, and climbing
+      that on foot we stood upon the summit of Mitchell at one o'clock. We were
+      none too soon, for already the clouds were preparing for what appears to
+      be a daily storm at this season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The summit is a nearly level spot of some thirty or forty feet in extent
+      either way, with a floor of rock and loose stones. The stunted balsams
+      have been cut away so as to give a view. The sweep of prospect is vast,
+      and we could see the whole horizon except in the direction of Roan, whose
+      long bulk was enveloped in cloud. Portions of six States were in sight, we
+      were told, but that is merely a geographical expression. What we saw,
+      wherever we looked, was an inextricable tumble of mountains, without order
+      or leading line of direction,&mdash;domes, peaks, ridges, endless and
+      countless, everywhere, some in shadow, some tipped with shafts of
+      sunlight, all wooded and green or black, and all in more softened contours
+      than our Northern hills, but still wild, lonesome, terrible. Away in the
+      southwest, lifting themselves up in a gleam of the western sky, the Great
+      Smoky Mountains loomed like a frowning continental fortress, sullen and
+      remote. With Clingman and Gibbs and Holdback peaks near at hand and
+      apparently of equal height, Mitchell seemed only a part and not separate
+      from the mighty congregation of giants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the center of the stony plot on the summit lie the remains of Mitchell.
+      To dig a grave in the rock was impracticable, but the loose stones were
+      scooped away to the depth of a foot or so, the body was deposited, and the
+      stones were replaced over it. It was the original intention to erect a
+      monument, but the enterprise of the projectors of this royal entombment
+      failed at that point. The grave is surrounded by a low wall of loose
+      stones, to which each visitor adds one, and in the course of ages the
+      cairn may grow to a good size. The explorer lies there without name or
+      headstone to mark his awful resting-place. The mountain is his monument.
+      He is alone with its majesty. He is there in the clouds, in the tempests,
+      where the lightnings play, and thunders leap, amid the elemental tumult,
+      in the occasional great calm and silence and the pale sunlight. It is the
+      most majestic, the most lonesome grave on earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we sat there, awed a little by this presence, the clouds were gathering
+      from various quarters and drifting towards us. We could watch the process
+      of thunder-storms and the manufacture of tempests. I have often noticed on
+      other high mountains how the clouds, forming like genii released from the
+      earth, mount into the upper air, and in masses of torn fragments of mist
+      hurry across the sky as to a rendezvous of witches. This was a different
+      display. These clouds came slowly sailing from the distant horizon, like
+      ships on an aerial voyage. Some were below us, some on our level; they
+      were all in well-defined, distinct masses, molten silver on deck, below
+      trailing rain, and attended on earth by gigantic shadows that moved with
+      them. This strange fleet of battle-ships, drifted by the shifting
+      currents, was maneuvering for an engagement. One after another, as they
+      came into range about our peak of observation, they opened fire. Sharp
+      flashes of lightning darted from one to the other; a jet of flame from one
+      leaped across the interval and was buried in the bosom of its adversary;
+      and at every discharge the boom of great guns echoed through the
+      mountains. It was something more than a royal salute to the tomb of the
+      mortal at our feet, for the masses of cloud were rent in the fray, at
+      every discharge the rain was precipitated in increasing torrents, and soon
+      the vast hulks were trailing torn fragments and wreaths of mist, like the
+      shot-away shrouds and sails of ships in battle. Gradually, from this
+      long-range practice with single guns and exchange of broadsides, they
+      drifted into closer conflict, rushed together, and we lost sight of the
+      individual combatants in the general tumult of this aerial war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had barely twenty minutes for our observations, when it was time to go;
+      and had scarcely left the peak when the clouds enveloped it. We hastened
+      down under the threatening sky to the saddles and the luncheon. Just off
+      from the summit, amid the rocks, is a complete arbor, or tunnel, of
+      rhododendrons. This cavernous place a Western writer has made the scene of
+      a desperate encounter between Big Tom and a catamount, or American
+      panther, which had been caught in a trap and dragged it there, pursued by
+      Wilson. It is an exceedingly graphic narrative, and is enlivened by the
+      statement that Big Tom had the night before drunk up all the whisky of the
+      party which had spent the night on the summit. Now Big Tom assured us that
+      the whisky part of the story was an invention; he was not (which is true)
+      in the habit of using it; if he ever did take any, it might be a drop on
+      Mitchell; in fact, when he inquired if we had a flask, he remarked that a
+      taste of it would do him good then and there. We regretted the lack of it
+      in our baggage. But what inclined Big Tom to discredit the Western
+      writer's story altogether was the fact that he never in his life had had a
+      difficulty with a catamount, and never had seen one in these mountains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our lunch was eaten in haste. Big Tom refused the chicken he had provided
+      for us, and strengthened himself with slices of raw salt pork, which he
+      cut from a hunk with his clasp-knife. We caught and saddled our horses,
+      who were reluctant to leave the rich feed, enveloped ourselves in
+      waterproofs, and got into the stony path for the descent just as the
+      torrent came down. It did rain. It lightened, the thunder crashed, the
+      wind howled and twisted the treetops. It was as if we were pursued by the
+      avenging spirits of the mountains for our intrusion. Such a tempest on
+      this height had its terrors even for our hardy guide. He preferred to be
+      lower down while it was going on. The crash and reverberation of the
+      thunder did not trouble us so much as the swish of the wet branches in our
+      faces and the horrible road, with its mud, tripping roots, loose stones,
+      and slippery rocks. Progress was slow. The horses were in momentary danger
+      of breaking their legs. In the first hour there was not much descent. In
+      the clouds we were passing over Clingman, Gibbs, and Holdback. The rain
+      had ceased, but the mist still shut off all view, if any had been
+      attainable, and bushes and paths were deluged. The descent was more
+      uncomfortable than the ascent, and we were compelled a good deal of the
+      way to lead the jaded horses down the slippery rocks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the peak to the Widow Patten's, where we proposed to pass the night,
+      is twelve miles, a distance we rode or scrambled down, every step of the
+      road bad, in five and a half hours. Halfway down we came out upon a
+      cleared place, a farm, with fruit-trees and a house in ruins. Here had
+      been a summer hotel much resorted to before the war, but now abandoned.
+      Above it we turned aside for the view from Elizabeth rock, named from the
+      daughter of the proprietor of the hotel, who often sat here, said Big Tom,
+      before she went out of this world. It is a bold rocky ledge, and the view
+      from it, looking south, is unquestionably the finest, the most pleasing
+      and picture-like, we found in these mountains. In the foreground is the
+      deep gorge of a branch of the Swannanoa, and opposite is the great wall of
+      the Blue Ridge (the Blue Ridge is the most capricious and inexplicable
+      system) making off to the Blacks. The depth of the gorge, the sweep of the
+      sky line, and the reposeful aspect of the scene to the sunny south made
+      this view both grand and charming. Nature does not always put the needed
+      dash of poetry into her extensive prospects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving this clearing and the now neglected spring, where fashion used to
+      slake its thirst, we zigzagged down the mountain-side through a forest of
+      trees growing at every step larger and nobler, and at length struck a
+      small stream, the North Fork of the Swannanoa, which led us to the first
+      settlement. Just at night,&mdash;it was nearly seven o'clock,&mdash;we
+      entered one of the most stately forests I have ever seen, and rode for
+      some distance in an alley of rhododendrons that arched overhead and made a
+      bower. It was like an aisle in a temple; high overhead was the somber,
+      leafy roof, supported by gigantic columns. Few widows have such an avenue
+      of approach to their domain as the Widow Patten has.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cheering as this outcome was from the day's struggle and storm, the
+      Professor seemed sunk in a profound sadness. The auguries which the Friend
+      drew from these signs of civilization of a charming inn and a royal supper
+      did not lighten the melancholy of his mind. &ldquo;Alas,&rdquo; he said,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
+   And make me travel forth without my cloak,
+   To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
+   Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
+   'T is not enough that through the cloud thou break,
+   To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
+   For no man well of such a salve can speak
+   That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
+   Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief:
+   Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Loss of what?&rdquo; cried the Friend, as he whipped up his halting steed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Loss of self-respect. I feel humiliated that I consented to climb this
+      mountain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense! You'll live to thank me for it, as the best thing you ever did.
+      It's over and done now, and you've got it to tell your friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's just the trouble. They'll ask me if I went up Mitchell, and I
+      shall have to say I did. My character for consistency is gone. Not that I
+      care much what they think, but my own self-respect is gone. I never
+      believed I would do it. A man ca'nt afford to lower himself in his own
+      esteem, at my time of life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Widow Patten's was only an advanced settlement in this narrow valley
+      on the mountain-side, but a little group of buildings, a fence, and a gate
+      gave it the air of a place, and it had once been better cared for than it
+      is now. Few travelers pass that way, and the art of entertaining, if it
+      ever existed, is fallen into desuetude. We unsaddled at the veranda, and
+      sat down to review our adventure, make the acquaintance of the family, and
+      hear the last story from Big Tom. The mountaineer, though wet, was as
+      fresh as a daisy, and fatigue in no wise checked the easy, cheerful flow
+      of his talk. He was evidently a favorite with his neighbors, and not
+      unpleasantly conscious of the extent of his reputation. But he encountered
+      here another social grade. The Widow Patten was highly connected. We were
+      not long in discovering that she was an Alexander. She had been a
+      schoolmate of Senator Vance,&mdash;&ldquo;Zeb Vance&rdquo; he still was to her,&mdash;and
+      the senator and his wife had stayed at her house. I wish I could say that
+      the supper, for which we waited till nine o'clock, was as &ldquo;highly
+      connected&rdquo; as the landlady. It was, however, a supper that left its
+      memory. We were lodged in a detached house, which we had to ourselves,
+      where a roaring wood fire made amends for other things lacking. It was
+      necessary to close the doors to keep out the wandering cows and pigs, and
+      I am bound to say that, notwithstanding the voices of the night, we slept
+      there the sleep of peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning a genuine surprise awaited us; it seemed impossible, but
+      the breakfast was many degrees worse than the supper; and when we paid our
+      bill, large for the region, we were consoled by the thought that we paid
+      for the high connection as well as for the accommodations. This is a
+      regular place of entertainment, and one is at liberty to praise it without
+      violation of delicacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The broken shoe of Jack required attention, and we were all the morning
+      hunting a blacksmith, as we rode down the valley. Three blacksmith's
+      shanties were found, and after long waiting to send for the operator it
+      turned out in each case that he had no shoes, no nails, no iron to make
+      either of. We made a detour of three miles to what was represented as a
+      regular shop. The owner had secured the service of a colored blacksmith
+      for a special job, and was, not inclined to accommodate us; he had no
+      shoes, no nails. But the colored blacksmith, who appreciated the plight we
+      were in, offered to make a shoe, and to crib four nails from those he had
+      laid aside for a couple of mules; and after a good deal of delay, we were
+      enabled to go on. The incident shows, as well as anything, the barrenness
+      and shiftlessness of the region. A horseman with whom we rode in the
+      morning gave us a very low estimate of the trustworthiness of the
+      inhabitants. The valley is wild and very pretty all the way down to
+      Colonel Long's,&mdash;twelve miles,&mdash;but the wretched-looking people
+      along the way live in a wretched manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just before reaching Colonel Long's we forded the stream (here of good
+      size), the bridge having tumbled down, and encountered a party of
+      picnickers under the trees&mdash;signs of civilization; a railway station
+      is not far off. Colonel Long's is a typical Southern establishment: a
+      white house, or rather three houses, all of one story, built on to each
+      other as beehives are set in a row, all porches and galleries. No one at
+      home but the cook, a rotund, broad-faced woman, with a merry eye, whose
+      very appearance suggested good cooking and hospitality; the Missis and the
+      children had gone up to the river fishing; the Colonel was somewhere about
+      the place; always was away when he was wanted. Guess he'd take us in,
+      mighty fine man the Colonel; and she dispatched a child from a cabin in
+      the rear to hunt him up. The Colonel was a great friend of her folks down
+      to Greenville; they visited here. Law, no, she didn't live here. Was just
+      up here spending the summer, for her health. God-forsaken lot of people up
+      here, poor trash. She wouldn't stay here a day, but the Colonel was a
+      friend of her folks, the firstest folks in Greenville. Nobody round here
+      she could 'sociate with. She was a Presbyterian, the folks round here
+      mostly Baptists and Methodists. More style about the Presbyterians.
+      Married? No, she hoped not. She did n't want to support no husband. Got
+      'nuff to do to take care of herself. That her little girl? No; she'd only
+      got one child, down to Greenville, just the prettiest boy ever was, as
+      white as anybody. How did she what? reconcile this state of things with
+      not being married and being a Presbyterian? Sho! she liked to carry some
+      religion along; it was mighty handy occasionally, mebbe not all the time.
+      Yes, indeed, she enjoyed her religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel appeared and gave us a most cordial welcome. The fat and merry
+      cook blustered around and prepared a good dinner, memorable for its
+      &ldquo;light&rdquo; bread, the first we had seen since Cranberry Forge. The Colonel is
+      in some sense a public man, having been a mail agent, and a Republican. He
+      showed us photographs and engravings of Northern politicians, and had the
+      air of a man who had been in Washington. This was a fine country for any
+      kind of fruit,&mdash;apples, grapes, pears; it needed a little Northern
+      enterprise to set things going. The travelers were indebted to the Colonel
+      for a delightful noonday rest, and with regret declined his pressing
+      invitation to pass the night with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ride down the Swannanoa to Asheville was pleasant, through a
+      cultivated region, over a good road. The Swannanoa is, however, a turbid
+      stream. In order to obtain the most impressive view of Asheville we
+      approached it by the way of Beaucatcher Hill, a sharp elevation a mile
+      west of the town. I suppose the name is a corruption of some descriptive
+      French word, but it has long been a favorite resort of the frequenters of
+      Asheville, and it may be traditional that it is a good place to catch
+      beaux. The summit is occupied by a handsome private residence, and from
+      this ridge the view, which has the merit of &ldquo;bursting&rdquo; upon the traveler
+      as he comes over the hill, is captivating in its extent and variety. The
+      pretty town of Asheville is seen to cover a number of elevations gently
+      rising out of the valley, and the valley, a rich agricultural region, well
+      watered and fruitful, is completely inclosed by picturesque hills, some of
+      them rising to the dignity of mountains. The most conspicuous of these is
+      Mount Pisgah, eighteen miles distant to the southwest, a pyramid of the
+      Balsam range, 5757 feet high. Mount Pisgah, from its shape, is the most
+      attractive mountain in this region.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sunset light was falling upon the splendid panorama and softening it.
+      The windows of the town gleamed as if on fire. From the steep slope below
+      came the mingled sounds of children shouting, cattle driven home, and all
+      that hum of life that marks a thickly peopled region preparing for the
+      night. It was the leisure hour of an August afternoon, and Asheville was
+      in all its watering-place gayety, as we reined up at the Swannanoa hotel.
+      A band was playing on the balcony. We had reached ice-water, barbers,
+      waiters, civilization.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ashville, delightful for situation, on small hills that rise above the
+      French Broad below its confluence with the Swannanoa, is a sort of
+      fourteenth cousin to Saratoga. It has no springs, but lying 2250 feet
+      above the sea and in a lovely valley, mountain girt, it has pure
+      atmosphere and an equable climate; and being both a summer and winter
+      resort, it has acquired a watering-place air. There are Southerners who
+      declare that it is too hot in summer, and that the complete circuit of
+      mountains shuts out any lively movement of air. But the scenery is so
+      charming and noble, the drives are so varied, the roads so unusually
+      passable for a Southern country, and the facilities for excursions so
+      good, that Asheville is a favorite resort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Architecturally the place is not remarkable, but its surface is so
+      irregular, there are so many acclivities and deep valleys that
+      improvements can never obliterate, that it is perforce picturesque. It is
+      interesting also, if not pleasing, in its contrasts&mdash;the enterprise
+      of taste and money-making struggling with the laissez faire of the South.
+      The negro, I suppose, must be regarded as a conservative element; he has
+      not much inclination to change his clothes or his cabin, and his swarming
+      presence gives a ragged aspect to the new civilization. And to say the
+      truth, the new element of Southern smartness lacks the trim thrift the
+      North is familiar with; though the visitor who needs relaxation is not
+      disposed to quarrel with the easy-going terms on which life is taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Asheville, it is needless to say, appeared very gay and stimulating to the
+      riders from the wilderness. The Professor, who does not even pretend to
+      patronize Nature, had his revenge as we strolled about the streets (there
+      is but one of much consideration), immensely entertained by the
+      picturesque contrasts. There was more life and amusement here in five
+      minutes, he declared, than in five days of what people called scenery&mdash;the
+      present rage for scenery, anyway, being only a fashion and a modern
+      invention. The Friend suspected from this penchant for the city that the
+      Professor must have been brought up in the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a kind of predetermined and willful gayety about Asheville
+      however, that is apt to be present in a watering-place, and gave to it the
+      melancholy tone that is always present in gay places. We fancied that the
+      lively movement in the streets had an air of unreality. A band of
+      musicians on the balcony of the Swannanoa were scraping and tooting and
+      twanging with a hired air, and on the opposite balcony of the Eagle a
+      rival band echoed and redoubled the perfunctory joyousness. The gayety was
+      contagious: the horses felt it; those that carried light burdens of beauty
+      minced and pranced, the pony in the dog-cart was inclined to dash, the few
+      passing equipages had an air of pleasure; and the people of color, the
+      comely waitress and the slouching corner-loafer, responded to the
+      animation of the festive strains. In the late afternoon the streets were
+      full of people, wagons, carriages, horsemen, all with a holiday air,
+      dashed with African color and humor&mdash;the irresponsibility of the most
+      insouciant and humorous race in the world, perhaps more comical than
+      humorous; a mixture of recent civilization and rudeness, peculiar and
+      amusing; a happy coming together, it seemed, of Southern abandon and
+      Northern wealth, though the North was little represented at this season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As evening came on, the streets, though wanting gas, were still more
+      animated; the shops were open, some very good ones, and the white and
+      black throng increasing, especially the black, for the negro is
+      preeminently a night bird. In the hotels dancing was promised&mdash;the
+      german was announced; on the galleries and in the corridors were groups of
+      young people, a little loud in manner and voice,&mdash;the young
+      gentleman, with his over-elaborate manner to ladies in bowing and
+      hat-lifting, and the blooming girls from the lesser Southern cities, with
+      the slight provincial note, and yet with the frank and engaging cordiality
+      which is as charming as it is characteristic. I do not know what led the
+      Professor to query if the Southern young women were not superior to the
+      Southern young men, but he is always asking questions nobody can answer.
+      At the Swannanoa were half a dozen bridal couples, readily recognizable by
+      the perfect air they had of having been married a long time. How
+      interesting such young voyagers are, and how interesting they are to each
+      other! Columbus never discovered such a large world as they have to find
+      out and possess each in the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the attractions of the evening it was difficult to choose. There was
+      a lawn-party advertised at Battery Point (where a fine hotel has since
+      been built) and we walked up to that round knob after dark. It is a hill
+      with a grove, which commands a charming view, and was fortified during the
+      war. We found it illuminated with Chinese lanterns; and little tables set
+      about under the trees, laden with cake and ice-cream, offered a chance to
+      the stranger to contribute money for the benefit of the Presbyterian
+      Church. I am afraid it was not a profitable entertainment, for the men
+      seemed to have business elsewhere, but the ladies about the tables made
+      charming groups in the lighted grove. Man is a stupid animal at best, or
+      he would not make it so difficult for the womenkind to scrape together a
+      little money for charitable purposes. But probably the women like this
+      method of raising money better than the direct one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The evening gayety of the town was well distributed. When we descended to
+      the Court-House Square, a great crowd had collected, black, white, and
+      yellow, about a high platform, upon which four glaring torches lighted up
+      the novel scene, and those who could read might decipher this legend on a
+      standard at the back of the stage:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+           HAPPY JOHN.
+      ONE OF THE SLAVES OF WADE HAMPTON.
+          COME AND SEE HIM!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Happy John, who occupied the platform with Mary, a &ldquo;bright&rdquo; yellow girl,
+      took the comical view of his race, which was greatly enjoyed by his
+      audience. His face was blackened to the proper color of the stage-darky,
+      and he wore a flaming suit of calico, the trousers and coat striped
+      longitudinally according to Punch's idea of &ldquo;Uncle Sam,&rdquo; the coat a
+      swallow-tail bound and faced with scarlet, and a bell-crowned white hat.
+      This conceit of a colored Yankee seemed to tickle all colors in the
+      audience amazingly. Mary, the &ldquo;bright&rdquo; woman (this is the universal
+      designation of the light mulatto), was a pleasing but bold yellow girl,
+      who wore a natty cap trimmed with scarlet, and had the assured or pert
+      manner of all traveling sawdust performers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; exclaimed a bright woman in the crowd, &ldquo;Happy John was sure
+      enough one of Wade Hampton's slaves, and he's right good looking when he's
+      not blackened up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Happy John sustained the promise of his name by spontaneous gayety and
+      enjoyment of the fleeting moment; he had a glib tongue and a ready, rude
+      wit, and talked to his audience with a delicious mingling of impudence,
+      deference, and patronage, commenting upon them generally, administering
+      advice and correction in a strain of humor that kept his hearers in a
+      pleased excitement. He handled the banjo and the guitar alternately, and
+      talked all the time when he was not singing. Mary (how much harder
+      featured and brazen a woman is in such a position than a man of the same
+      caliber!) sang, in an untutored treble, songs of sentiment, often risque,
+      in solo and in company with John, but with a cold, indifferent air, in
+      contrast to the rollicking enjoyment of her comrade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The favorite song, which the crowd compelled her to repeat, touched
+      lightly the uncertainties of love, expressed in the falsetto pathetic
+      refrain:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Mary's gone away wid de coon.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      All this, with the moon, the soft summer night, the mixed crowd of darkies
+      and whites, the stump eloquence of Happy John, the singing, the laughter,
+      the flaring torches, made a wild scene. The entertainment was quite free,
+      with a &ldquo;collection&rdquo; occasionally during the performance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What most impressed us, however, was the turning to account by Happy John
+      of the &ldquo;nigger&rdquo; side of the black man as a means of low comedy, and the
+      enjoyment of it by all the people of color. They appeared to appreciate as
+      highly as anybody the comic element in themselves, and Happy John had
+      emphasized it by deepening his natural color and exaggerating the &ldquo;nigger&rdquo;
+       peculiarities. I presume none of them analyzed the nature of his
+      infectious gayety, nor thought of the pathos that lay so close to it, in
+      the fact of his recent slavery, and the distinction of being one of Wade
+      Hampton's niggers, and the melancholy mirth of this light-hearted race's
+      burlesque of itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A performance followed which called forth the appreciation of the crowd
+      more than the wit of Happy John or the faded songs of the yellow girl.
+      John took two sweet-cakes and broke each in fine pieces into a saucer, and
+      after sugaring and eulogizing the dry messes, called for two small darky
+      volunteers from the audience to come up on the platform and devour them.
+      He offered a prize of fifteen cents to the one who should first eat the
+      contents of his dish, not using his hands, and hold up the saucer empty in
+      token of his victory. The cake was tempting, and the fifteen cents
+      irresistible, and a couple of boys in ragged shirts and short trousers and
+      a suspender apiece came up shamefacedly to enter for the prize. Each one
+      grasped his saucer in both hands, and with face over the dish awaited the
+      word &ldquo;go,&rdquo; which John gave, and started off the contest with a banjo
+      accompaniment. To pick up with the mouth the dry cake and choke it down
+      was not so easy as the boys apprehended, but they went into the task with
+      all their might, gobbling and swallowing as if they loved cake,
+      occasionally rolling an eye to the saucer of the contestant to see the
+      relative progress, John strumming, ironically encouraging, and the crowd
+      roaring. As the combat deepened and the contestants strangled and stuffed
+      and sputtered, the crowd went into spasms of laughter. The smallest boy
+      won by a few seconds, holding up his empty saucer, with mouth stuffed,
+      vigorously trying to swallow, like a chicken with his throat clogged with
+      dry meal, and utterly unable to speak. The impartial John praised the
+      victor in mock heroics, but said that the trial was so even that he would
+      divide the prize, ten cents to one and five to the other&mdash;a stroke of
+      justice that greatly increased his popularity. And then he dismissed the
+      assembly, saying that he had promised the mayor to do so early, because he
+      did not wish to run an opposition to the political meeting going on in the
+      courthouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scene in the large court-room was less animated than that out-doors; a
+      half-dozen tallow dips, hung on the wall in sconces and stuck on the
+      judge's long desk, feebly illuminated the mixed crowd of black and white
+      who sat in, and on the backs of, the benches, and cast only a fitful light
+      upon the orator, who paced back and forth and pounded the rail. It was to
+      have been a joint discussion between the two presidential electors running
+      in that district, but, the Republican being absent, his place was taken by
+      a young man of the town. The Democratic orator took advantage of the
+      absence of his opponent to describe the discussion of the night before,
+      and to give a portrait of his adversary. He was represented as a cross
+      between a baboon and a jackass, who would be a natural curiosity for
+      Barnum. &ldquo;I intend,&rdquo; said the orator, &ldquo;to put him in a cage and exhibit him
+      about the deestrict.&rdquo; This political hit called forth great applause. All
+      his arguments were of this pointed character, and they appeared to be
+      unanswerable. The orator appeared to prove that there wasn't a respectable
+      man in the opposite party who wasn't an office-holder, nor a white man of
+      any kind in it who was not an office-holder. If there were any issues or
+      principles in the canvass, he paid his audience the compliment of knowing
+      all about them, for he never alluded to any. In another state of society,
+      such a speech of personalities might have led to subsequent shootings, but
+      no doubt his adversary would pay him in the same coin when next they met,
+      and the exhibition seemed to be regarded down here as satisfactory and
+      enlightened political canvassing for votes. The speaker who replied,
+      opened his address with a noble tribute to woman (as the first speaker had
+      ended his), directed to a dozen of that sex who sat in the gloom of a
+      corner. The young man was moderate in his sarcasm, and attempted to speak
+      of national issues, but the crowd had small relish for that sort of thing.
+      At eleven o'clock, when we got away from the unsavory room (more than half
+      the candles had gone out), the orator was making slow headway against the
+      refished blackguardism of the evening. The german was still &ldquo;on&rdquo; at the
+      hotel when we ascended to our chamber, satisfied that Asheville was a
+      lively town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sojourner at Asheville can amuse himself very well by walking or
+      driving to the many picturesque points of view about the town; livery
+      stables abound, and the roads are good. The Beau-catcher Hill is always
+      attractive; and Connolly's, a private place a couple of miles from town,
+      is ideally situated, being on a slight elevation in the valley, commanding
+      the entire circuit of mountains, for it has the air of repose which is so
+      seldom experienced in the location of a dwelling in America whence an
+      extensive prospect is given. Or if the visitor is disinclined to exertion,
+      he may lounge in the rooms of the hospitable Asheville Club; or he may sit
+      on the sidewalk in front of the hotels, and talk with the colonels and
+      judges and generals and ex-members of Congress, the talk generally
+      drifting to the new commercial and industrial life of the South, and only
+      to politics as it affects these; and he will be pleased, if the
+      conversation takes a reminiscent turn, with the lack of bitterness and the
+      tone of friendliness. The negro problem is commonly discussed
+      philosophically and without heat, but there is always discovered,
+      underneath, the determination that the negro shall never again get the
+      legislative upper hand. And the gentleman from South Carolina who has an
+      upland farm, and is heartily glad slavery is gone, and wants the negro
+      educated, when it comes to ascendency in politics&mdash;such as the State
+      once experienced&mdash;asks you what you would do yourself. This is not
+      the place to enter upon the politico-social question, but the writer may
+      note one impression gathered from much friendly and agreeable
+      conversation. It is that the Southern whites misapprehend and make a
+      scarecrow of &ldquo;social equality.&rdquo; When, during the war, it was a question at
+      the North of giving the colored people of the Northern States the ballot,
+      the argument against it used to be stated in the form of a question: &ldquo;Do
+      you want your daughter to marry a negro?&rdquo; Well, the negro has his
+      political rights in the North, and there has come no change in the social
+      conditions whatever. And there is no doubt that the social conditions
+      would remain exactly as they are at the South if the negro enjoyed all the
+      civil rights which the Constitution tries to give him. The most sensible
+      view of this whole question was taken by an intelligent colored man, whose
+      brother was formerly a representative in Congress. &ldquo;Social equality,&rdquo; he
+      said in effect, &ldquo;is a humbug. We do not expect it, we do not want it. It
+      does not exist among the blacks themselves. We have our own social
+      degrees, and choose our own associates. We simply want the ordinary civil
+      rights, under which we can live and make our way in peace and amity. This
+      is necessary to our self-respect, and if we have not self-respect, it is
+      not to be supposed that the race can improve. I'll tell you what I mean.
+      My wife is a modest, intelligent woman, of good manners, and she is always
+      neat, and tastefully dressed. Now, if she goes to take the cars, she is
+      not permitted to go into a clean car with decent people, but is ordered
+      into one that is repellent, and is forced into company that any refined
+      woman would shrink from. But along comes a flauntingly dressed woman, of
+      known disreputable character, whom my wife would be disgraced to know, and
+      she takes any place that money will buy. It is this sort of thing that
+      hurts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the eastern train one evening to Round Nob (Henry's Station), some
+      thirty miles, in order to see the wonderful railway that descends, a
+      distance of eight miles, from the summit of Swannanoa Gap (2657 feet
+      elevation) to Round Nob Hotel (1607 feet). The Swannanoa Summit is the
+      dividing line between the waters that flow to the Atlantic and those that
+      go to the Gulf of Mexico. This fact was impressed upon us by the
+      inhabitants, who derive a good deal of comfort from it. Such divides are
+      always matter of local pride. Unfortunately, perhaps, it was too dark
+      before we reached Henry's to enable us to see the road in all its loops
+      and parallels as it appears on the map, but we gained a better effect. The
+      hotel, when we first sighted it, all its windows blazing with light, was
+      at the bottom of a well. Beside it&mdash;it was sufficiently light to see
+      that&mdash;a column of water sprang straight into the air to the height,
+      as we learned afterwards from two official sources, of 225 and 265 feet;
+      and the information was added that it is the highest fountain in the
+      world. This stout column, stiff as a flagstaff, with its feathery head of
+      mist gleaming like silver in the failing light, had the most charming
+      effect. We passed out of sight of hotel and fountain, but were conscious
+      of being&mdash;whirled on a circular descending grade, and very soon they
+      were in sight again. Again and again they disappeared and came to view,
+      now on one side and now on the other, until our train seemed to be
+      bewitched, making frantic efforts by dodgings and turnings, now through
+      tunnels and now over high pieces of trestle, to escape the inevitable
+      attraction that was gravitating it down to the hospitable lights at the
+      bottom of the well. When we climbed back up the road in the morning, we
+      had an opportunity to see the marvelous engineering, but there is little
+      else to see, the view being nearly always very limited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hotel at the bottom of the ravine, on the side of Round Nob, offers
+      little in the way of prospect, but it is a picturesque place, and we could
+      understand why it was full of visitors when we came to the table. It was
+      probably the best-kept house of entertainment in the State, and being in
+      the midst of the Black Hills, it offers good chances for fishing and
+      mountain climbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning the fountain, which is, of course, artificial, refused to
+      play, the rain in the night having washed in debris which clogged the
+      conduit. But it soon freed itself and sent up for a long time, like a
+      sulky geyser, mud and foul water. When it got freedom and tolerable
+      clearness, we noted that the water went up in pulsations, which were
+      marked at short distances by the water falling off, giving the column the
+      appearance of a spine. The summit, always beating the air in efforts to
+      rise higher, fell over in a veil of mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are certain excursions that the sojourner at Asheville must make. He
+      must ride forty-five miles south through Henderson and Transylvania to
+      Caesar's Head, on the South Carolina border, where the mountain system
+      abruptly breaks down into the vast southern plain; where the observer,
+      standing on the edge of the precipice, has behind him and before him the
+      greatest contrast that nature can offer. He must also take the rail to
+      Waynesville, and visit the much-frequented White Sulphur Springs, among
+      the Balsam Mountains, and penetrate the Great Smoky range by way of
+      Quallatown, and make the acquaintance of the remnant of Cherokee Indians
+      living on the north slope of Cheoah Mountain. The Professor could have
+      made it a matter of personal merit that he escaped all these encounters
+      with wild and picturesque nature, if his horse had not been too disabled
+      for such long jaunts. It is only necessary, however, to explain to the
+      public that the travelers are not gormandizers of scenery, and were
+      willing to leave some portions of the State to the curiosity of future
+      excursionists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But so much was said about Hickory Nut Gap that a visit to it could not be
+      evaded. The Gap is about twenty-four miles southeast of Asheville. In the
+      opinion of a well-informed colonel, who urged us to make the trip, it is
+      the finest piece of scenery it this region. We were brought up on the
+      precept &ldquo;get the best,&rdquo; and it was with high anticipations that we set out
+      about eleven o'clock one warm, foggy morning. We followed a very good road
+      through a broken, pleasant country, gradually growing wilder and less
+      cultivated. There was heavy rain most of the day on the hills, and
+      occasionally a shower swept across our path. The conspicuous object toward
+      which we traveled all the morning was a shapely conical hill at the
+      beginning of the Gap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At three o'clock we stopped at the Widow Sherrill's for dinner. Her house,
+      only about a mile from the summit, is most picturesquely situated on a
+      rough slope, giving a wide valley and mountain view. The house is old
+      rambling, many-roomed, with wide galleries on two sides. If one wanted a
+      retired retreat for a few days, with good air and fair entertainment, this
+      could be commended. It is an excellent fruit region; apples especially are
+      sound and of good flavor. That may be said of all this part of the State.
+      The climate is adapted to apples, as the hilly part of New England is. I
+      fancy the fruit ripens slowly, as it does in New England, and is not
+      subject to quick decay like much of that grown in the West. But the grape
+      also can be grown in all this mountain region. Nothing but lack of
+      enterprise prevents any farmer from enjoying abundance of fruit. The
+      industry carried on at the moment at the Widow Sherrill's was the
+      artificial drying of apples for the market. The apples are pared, cored,
+      and sliced in spirals, by machinery, and dried on tin sheets in a patented
+      machine. The industry appears to be a profitable one hereabouts, and is
+      about the only one that calls in the aid of invention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While our dinner was preparing, we studied the well-known pictures of
+      &ldquo;Jane&rdquo; and &ldquo;Eliza,&rdquo; the photographs of Confederate boys, who had never
+      returned from the war, and the relations, whom the traveling photographers
+      always like to pillory in melancholy couples, and some stray volumes of
+      the Sunday-school Union. Madame Sherrill, who carries on the farm since
+      the death of her husband, is a woman of strong and liberal mind, who
+      informed us that she got small comfort in the churches in the
+      neighborhood, and gave us, in fact, a discouraging account of the unvital
+      piety of the region.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The descent from the summit of the Gap to Judge Logan's, nine miles, is
+      rapid, and the road is wild and occasionally picturesque, following the
+      Broad River, a small stream when we first overtook it, but roaring, rocky,
+      and muddy, owing to frequent rains, and now and then tumbling down in
+      rapids. The noisy stream made the ride animated, and an occasional cabin,
+      a poor farmhouse, a mill, a schoolhouse, a store with an assemblage of
+      lean horses tied to the hitching rails, gave the Professor opportunity for
+      remarks upon the value of life under such circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The valley which we followed down probably owes its celebrity to the
+      uncommon phenomena of occasional naked rocks and precipices. The inclosing
+      mountains are from 3000 to 4000 feet high, and generally wooded. I do not
+      think that the ravine would be famous in a country where exposed ledges
+      and buttressing walls of rock are common. It is only by comparison with
+      the local scenery that this is remarkable. About a mile above judge
+      Logan's we caught sight, through the trees, of the famous waterfall. From
+      the top of the high ridge on the right, a nearly perpendicular cascade
+      pours over the ledge of rocks and is lost in the forest. We could see
+      nearly the whole of it, at a great height above us, on the opposite side
+      of the river, and it would require an hour's stiff climb to reach its
+      foot. From where we viewed it, it seemed a slender and not very important,
+      but certainly a very beautiful cascade, a band of silver in the mass of
+      green foliage. The fall is said to be 1400 feet. Our colonel insists that
+      it is a thousand. It may be, but the valley where we stood is at least at
+      an elevation of 1300 feet; we could not believe that the ridge over which
+      the water pours is much higher than 3000 feet, and the length of the fall
+      certainly did not appear to be a quarter of the height of the mountain
+      from our point of observation. But we had no desire to belittle this
+      pretty cascade, especially when we found that Judge Logan would regard a
+      foot abated from the 1400 as a personal grievance. Mr. Logan once
+      performed the functions of local judge, a Republican appointment, and he
+      sits around the premises now in the enjoyment of that past dignity and of
+      the fact that his wife is postmistress. His house of entertainment is at
+      the bottom of the valley, a place shut in, warm, damp, and not inviting to
+      a long stay, although the region boasts a good many natural curiosities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was here that we encountered again the political current, out of which
+      we had been for a month. The Judge himself was reticent, as became a
+      public man, but he had conspicuously posted up a monster prospectus, sent
+      out from Augusta, of a campaign life of Blaine and Logan, in which the
+      Professor read, with shaking knees, this sentence: &ldquo;Sure to be the
+      greatest and hottest [campaign and civil battle] ever known in this world.
+      The thunder of the supreme struggle and its reverberations will shake the
+      continents for months, and will be felt from Pole to Pole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For this and other reasons this seemed a risky place to be in. There was
+      something sinister about the murky atmosphere, and a suspicion of
+      mosquitoes besides. Had there not been other travelers staying here, we
+      should have felt still more uneasy. The house faced Bald Mountain, 4000
+      feet high, a hill that had a very bad reputation some years ago, and was
+      visited by newspaper reporters. This is, in fact, the famous Shaking
+      Mountain. For a long time it had a habit of trembling, as if in an
+      earthquake spasm, but with a shivering motion very different from that
+      produced by an earthquake. The only good that came of it was that it
+      frightened all the &ldquo;moonshiners,&rdquo; and caused them to join the church. It
+      is not reported what became of the church afterwards. It is believed now
+      that the trembling was caused by the cracking of a great ledge on the
+      mountain, which slowly parted asunder. Bald Mountain is the scene of Mrs.
+      Burnett's delightful story of &ldquo;Louisiana,&rdquo; and of the play of &ldquo;Esmeralda.&rdquo;
+       A rock is pointed out toward the summit, which the beholder is asked to
+      see resembles a hut, and which is called &ldquo;Esmeralda's Cottage.&rdquo; But this
+      attractive maiden has departed, and we did not discover any woman in the
+      region who remotely answers to her description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning we rode a mile and a half through the woods and followed up
+      a small stream to see the celebrated pools, one of which the Judge said
+      was two hundred feet deep, and another bottomless. These pools, not round,
+      but on one side circular excavations, some twenty feet across, worn in the
+      rock by pebbles, are very good specimens, and perhaps remarkable
+      specimens, of &ldquo;pot-holes.&rdquo; They are, however, regarded here as one of the
+      wonders of the world. On the way to them we saw beautiful wild
+      trumpet-creepers in blossom, festooning the trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stream that originates in Hickory Nut Gap is the westernmost branch of
+      several forks of the Broad, which unite to the southeast in Rutherford
+      County, flow to Columbia, and reach the Atlantic through the channel of
+      the Santee. It is not to be confounded with the French Broad, which
+      originates among the hills of Transylvania, runs northward past Asheville,
+      and finds its way to the Tennessee through the Warm Springs Gap in the
+      Bald Mountains. As the French claimed ownership of all the affluents of
+      the Mississippi, this latter was called the French Broad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a great relief the next morning, on our return, to rise out of the
+      lifeless atmosphere of the Gap into the invigorating air at the Widow
+      Sherrill's, whose country-seat is three hundred feet higher than
+      Asheville. It was a day of heavy showers, and apparently of leisure to the
+      scattered population; at every store and mill was a congregation of
+      loafers, who had hitched their scrawny horses and mules to the fences, and
+      had the professional air of the idler and gossip the world over. The
+      vehicles met on the road were a variety of the prairie schooner, long
+      wagons with a top of hoops over which is stretched a cotton cloth. The
+      wagons are without seats, and the canvas is too low to admit of sitting
+      upright, if there were. The occupants crawl in at either end, sit or lie
+      on the bottom of the wagon, and jolt along in shiftless uncomfortableness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riding down the French Broad was one of the original objects of our
+      journey. Travelers with the same intention may be warned that the route on
+      horseback is impracticable. The distance to the Warm Springs is
+      thirty-seven miles; to Marshall, more than halfway, the road is clear, as
+      it runs on the opposite side of the river from the railway, and the valley
+      is something more than river and rails. But below Marshall the valley
+      contracts, and the rails are laid a good portion of the way in the old
+      stage road. One can walk the track, but to ride a horse over its sleepers
+      and culverts and occasional bridges, and dodge the trains, is neither safe
+      nor agreeable. We sent our horses round&mdash;the messenger taking the
+      risk of leading them, between trains, over the last six or eight miles,&mdash;and
+      took the train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The railway, after crossing a mile or two of meadows, hugs the river all
+      the way. The scenery is the reverse of bold. The hills are low, monotonous
+      in form, and the stream winds through them, with many a pretty turn and
+      &ldquo;reach,&rdquo; with scarcely a ribbon of room to spare on either side. The river
+      is shallow, rapid, stony, muddy, full of rocks, with an occasional little
+      island covered with low bushes. The rock seems to be a clay formation,
+      rotten and colored. As we approach Warm Springs the scenery becomes a
+      little bolder, and we emerge into the open space about the Springs through
+      a narrower defile, guarded by rocks that are really picturesque in color
+      and splintered decay, one of them being known, of course, as the &ldquo;Lover's
+      Leap,&rdquo; a name common in every part of the modern or ancient world where
+      there is a settlement near a precipice, with always the same legend
+      attached to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a little village at Warm Springs, but the hotel&mdash;since
+      burned and rebuilt&mdash;(which may be briefly described as a palatial
+      shanty) stands by itself close to the river, which is here a deep, rapid,
+      turbid stream. A bridge once connected it with the road on the opposite
+      bank, but it was carried away three or four years ago, and its ragged
+      butments stand as a monument of procrastination, while the stream is
+      crossed by means of a flatboat and a cable. In front of the hotel, on the
+      slight slope to the river, is a meager grove of locusts. The famous
+      spring, close to-the stream, is marked only by a rough box of wood and an
+      iron pipe, and the water, which has a temperature of about one hundred
+      degrees, runs to a shabby bath-house below, in which is a pool for
+      bathing. The bath is very agreeable, the tepid water being singularly soft
+      and pleasant. It has a slightly sulphurous taste. Its good effects are
+      much certified. The grounds, which might be very pretty with care, are
+      ill-kept and slatternly, strewn with debris, as if everything was left to
+      the easy-going nature of the servants. The main house is of brick, with
+      verandas and galleries all round, and a colonnade of thirteen huge brick
+      and stucco columns, in honor of the thirteen States,&mdash;a relic of
+      post-Revolutionary times, when the house was the resort of Southern
+      fashion and romance. These columns have stood through one fire, and
+      perhaps the recent one, which swept away the rest of the structure. The
+      house is extended in a long wooden edifice, with galleries and outside
+      stairs, the whole front being nearly seven hundred feet long. In a rear
+      building is a vast, barrack-like dining-room, with a noble ball-room
+      above, for dancing is the important occupation of visitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The situation is very pretty, and the establishment has a picturesqueness
+      of its own. Even the ugly little brick structure near the bath-house
+      imposes upon one as Wade Hampton's cottage. No doubt we liked the place
+      better than if it had been smart, and enjoyed the neglige condition, and
+      the easy terms on which life is taken there. There was a sense of
+      abundance in the sight of fowls tiptoeing about the verandas, and to meet
+      a chicken in the parlor was a sort of guarantee that we should meet him
+      later on in the dining-room. There was nothing incongruous in the presence
+      of pigs, turkeys, and chickens on the grounds; they went along with the
+      good-natured negro-service and the general hospitality; and we had a
+      mental rest in the thought that all the gates would have been off the
+      hinges, if there had been any gates. The guests were very well treated
+      indeed, and were put under no sort of restraint by discipline. The long
+      colonnade made an admirable promenade and lounging-place and point of
+      observation. It was interesting to watch the groups under the locusts, to
+      see the management of the ferry, the mounting and dismounting of the
+      riding-parties, and to study the colors on the steep hill opposite,
+      halfway up which was a neat cottage and flower-garden. The type of people
+      was very pleasantly Southern. Colonels and politicians stand in groups and
+      tell stories, which are followed by explosions of laughter; retire
+      occasionally into the saloon, and come forth reminded of more stories, and
+      all lift their hats elaborately and suspend the narratives when a lady
+      goes past. A company of soldiers from Richmond had pitched its tents near
+      the hotel, and in the evening the ball-room was enlivened with uniforms.
+      Among the graceful dancers&mdash;and every one danced well, and with
+      spirit was pointed out the young widow of a son of Andrew Johnson, whose
+      pretty cottage overlooks the village. But the Professor, to whom this
+      information was communicated, doubted whether here it was not a greater
+      distinction to be the daughter of the owner of this region than to be
+      connected with a President of the United States.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain air of romance and tradition hangs about the French Broad and
+      the Warm Springs, which the visitor must possess himself of in order to
+      appreciate either. This was the great highway of trade and travel. At
+      certain seasons there was an almost continuous procession of herds of
+      cattle and sheep passing to the Eastern markets, and of trains of big
+      wagons wending their way to the inviting lands watered by the Tennessee.
+      Here came in the summer-time the Southern planters in coach and four, with
+      a great retinue of household servants, and kept up for months that unique
+      social life, a mixture of courtly ceremony and entire freedom, the
+      civilization which had the drawing-room at one end and the negro-quarters
+      at the other,&mdash;which has passed away. It was a continuation into our
+      own restless era of the manners and the literature of George the Third,
+      with the accompanying humor and happy-go-lucky decadence of the negro
+      slaves. On our way down we saw on the river-bank, under the trees, the old
+      hostelry, Alexander's, still in decay,&mdash;an attractive tavern, that
+      was formerly one of the notable stopping-places on the river. Master, and
+      fine lady, and obsequious, larking darky, and lumbering coach, and throng
+      of pompous and gay life, have all disappeared. There was no room in this
+      valley for the old institutions and for the iron track.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;When in the chronicle of wasted time
+   I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
+   And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
+   In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
+   We, which now behold these present days,
+   Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      This perverted use of noble verse was all the response the Friend got in
+      his attempt to drop into the sentimental vein over the past of the French
+      Broad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reader must not think there is no enterprise in this sedative and idle
+      resort. The conceited Yankee has to learn that it is not he alone who can
+      be accused of the thrift of craft. There is at the Warm Springs a thriving
+      mill for crushing and pulverizing barites, known vulgarly as heavy-spar.
+      It is the weight of this heaviest of minerals, and not its lovely
+      crystals, that gives it value. The rock is crushed, washed, sorted out by
+      hand, to remove the foreign substances, then ground and subjected to
+      acids, and at the end of the process it is as white and fine as the best
+      bolted flour. This heavy adulterant is shipped to the North in large
+      quantities,&mdash;the manager said he had recently an order for a hundred
+      thousand dollars' worth of it. What is the use of this powder? Well, it is
+      of use to the dealer who sells white lead for paint, to increase the
+      weight of the lead, and it is the belief hereabouts that it is mixed with
+      powdered sugar. The industry is profitable to those engaged in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was impossible to get much information about our route into Tennessee,
+      except that we should go by Paint Rock, and cross Paint Mountain. Late one
+      morning,&mdash;a late start is inevitable here,&mdash;accompanied by a
+      cavalcade, we crossed the river by the rope ferry, and trotted down the
+      pretty road, elevated above the stream and tree-shaded, offering always
+      charming glimpses of swift water and overhanging foliage (the railway
+      obligingly taking the other side of the river), to Paint Rock,&mdash;six
+      miles. This Paint Rock is a naked precipice by the roadside, perhaps sixty
+      feet high, which has a large local reputation. It is said that its face
+      shows painting done by the Indians, and hieroglyphics which nobody can
+      read. On this bold, crumbling cliff, innumerable visitors have written
+      their names. We stared at it a good while to discover the paint and
+      hieroglyphics, but could see nothing except iron stains. Round the corner
+      is a farmhouse and place of call for visitors, a neat cottage, with a
+      display of shells and minerals and flower-pots; and here we turned north
+      crossed the little stream called Paint River, the only clear water we had
+      seen in a month, passed into the State of Tennessee, and by a gentle
+      ascent climbed Paint Mountain. The open forest road, with the murmur of
+      the stream below, was delightfully exhilarating, and as we rose the
+      prospect opened,&mdash;the lovely valley below, Bald Mountains behind us,
+      and the Butt Mountains rising as we came over the ridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody on the way, none of the frowzy women or unintelligent men, knew
+      anything of the route, or could give us any information of the country
+      beyond. But as we descended in Tennessee the country and the farms
+      decidedly improved,&mdash;apple-trees and a grapevine now and then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A ride of eight miles brought us to Waddle's, hungry and disposed to
+      receive hospitality. We passed by an old farm building to a new
+      two-storied, gayly painted house on a hill. We were deceived by
+      appearances. The new house, with a new couple in it, had nothing to offer
+      us except some buttermilk. Why should anybody be obliged to feed roving
+      strangers? As to our horses, the young woman with a baby in her arms
+      declared,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've got nothing for stock but roughness; perhaps you can get something
+      at the other house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Roughness,&rdquo; we found out at the other house, meant hay in this region. We
+      procured for the horses a light meal of green oats, and for our own dinner
+      we drank at the brook and the Professor produced a few sonnets. On this
+      sustaining repast we fared on nearly twelve miles farther, through a
+      rolling, good farming country, offering little for comment, in search of a
+      night's lodging with one of the brothers Snap. But one brother declined
+      our company on the plea that his wife was sick, and the other because his
+      wife lived in Greenville, and we found ourselves as dusk came on without
+      shelter in a tavernless land. Between the two refusals we enjoyed the most
+      picturesque bit of scenery of the day, at the crossing of Camp Creek, a
+      swift little stream, that swirled round under the ledge of bold rocks
+      before the ford. This we learned was a favorite camp-meeting ground. Mary
+      was calling the cattle home at the farm of the second Snap. It was a very
+      peaceful scene of rural life, and we were inclined to tarry, but Mary,
+      instead of calling us home with the cattle, advised us to ride on to
+      Alexander's before it got dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is proper to say that at Alexander's we began to see what this pleasant
+      and fruitful country might be, and will be, with thrift and intelligent
+      farming. Mr. Alexander is a well-to-do farmer, with plenty of cattle and
+      good barns (always an evidence of prosperity), who owes his success to
+      industry and an open mind to new ideas. He was a Unionist during the war,
+      and is a Democrat now, though his county (Greene) has been Republican. We
+      had been riding all the afternoon through good land, and encountering a
+      better class of farmers. Peach-trees abounded (though this was an off year
+      for fruit), and apples and grapes throve. It is a land of honey and of
+      milk. The persimmon flourishes; and, sign of abundance generally, we
+      believe, great flocks of turkey-buzzards&mdash;majestic floaters in the
+      high air&mdash;hovered about. This country was ravaged during the war by
+      Unionists and Confederates alternately, the impartial patriots as they
+      passed scooping in corn, bacon, and good horses, leaving the farmers
+      little to live on. Mr. Alexander's farm cost him forty dollars an acre,
+      and yields good crops of wheat and maize. This was the first house on our
+      journey where at breakfast we had grace before meat, though there had been
+      many tables that needed it more. From the door the noble range of the Big
+      Bald is in sight and not distant; and our host said he had a shanty on it,
+      to which he was accustomed to go with his family for a month or six weeks
+      in the summer and enjoy a real primitive woods life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Refreshed by this little touch of civilization, and with horses well fed,
+      we rode on next morning towards Jonesboro, over a rolling, rather
+      unpicturesque country, but ennobled by the Big Bald and Butt ranges, which
+      we had on our right all day. At noon we crossed the Nollechucky River at a
+      ford where the water was up to the saddle girth, broad, rapid, muddy, and
+      with a treacherous stony bottom, and came to the little hamlet of
+      Boylesville, with a flour-mill, and a hospitable old-fashioned house,
+      where we found shelter from the heat of the hot day, and where the
+      daughters of the house, especially one pretty girl in a short skirt and
+      jaunty cap, contradicted the currently received notion that this world is
+      a weary pilgrimage. The big parlor, with its photographs and stereoscope,
+      and bits of shell and mineral, a piano and a melodeon, and a coveted old
+      sideboard of mahogany, recalled rural New England. Perhaps these
+      refinements are due to the Washington College (a school for both sexes),
+      which is near. We noted at the tables in this region a singular use of the
+      word fruit. When we were asked, Will you have some of the fruit? and said
+      Yes, we always got applesauce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten miles more in the late afternoon brought us to Jonesboro, the oldest
+      town in the State, a pretty place, with a flavor of antiquity, set
+      picturesquely on hills, with the great mountains in sight. People from
+      further South find this an agreeable summering place, and a fair hotel,
+      with odd galleries in front and rear, did not want company. The Warren
+      Institute for negroes has been flourishing here ever since the war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A ride of twenty miles next day carried us to Union. Before noon we forded
+      the Watauga, a stream not so large as the Nollechucky, and were
+      entertained at the big brick house of Mr. Devault, a prosperous and
+      hospitable farmer. This is a rich country. We had met in the morning
+      wagon-loads of watermelons and muskmelons, on the way to Jonesboro, and
+      Mr. Devault set abundance of these refreshing fruits before us as we
+      lounged on the porch before dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was here that we made the acquaintance of a colored woman, a withered,
+      bent old pensioner of the house, whose industry (she excelled any modern
+      patent apple-parer) was unabated, although she was by her own confession
+      (a woman, we believe, never owns her age till she has passed this point)
+      and the testimony of others a hundred years old. But age had not impaired
+      the brightness of her eyes, nor the limberness of her tongue, nor her
+      shrewd good sense. She talked freely about the want of decency and
+      morality in the young colored folks of the present day. It was n't so when
+      she was a girl. Long, long time ago, she and her husband had been sold at
+      sheriff's sale and separated, and she never had another husband. Not that
+      she blamed her master so much he could n't help it; he got in debt. And
+      she expounded her philosophy about the rich, and the danger they are in.
+      The great trouble is that when a person is rich, he can borrow money so
+      easy, and he keeps drawin' it out of the bank and pilin' up the debt, like
+      rails on top of one another, till it needs a ladder to get on to the pile,
+      and then it all comes down in a heap, and the man has to begin on the
+      bottom rail again. If she'd to live her life over again, she'd lay up
+      money; never cared much about it till now. The thrifty, shrewd old woman
+      still walked about a good deal, and kept her eye on the neighborhood.
+      Going out that morning she had seen some fence up the road that needed
+      mending, and she told Mr. Devault that she didn't like such shiftlessness;
+      she didn't know as white folks was much better than colored folks.
+      Slavery? Yes, slavery was pretty bad&mdash;she had seen five hundred
+      niggers in handcuffs, all together in a field, sold to be sent South.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About six miles from here is a beech grove of historical interest, worth a
+      visit if we could have spared the time. In it is the large beech (six and
+      a half feet around six feet from the ground) on which Daniel Boone shot a
+      bear, when he was a rover in this region. He himself cut an inscription on
+      the tree recording his prowess, and it is still distinctly legible:
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        <b>D. BOONE CILT A BAR ON THIS TREE, 1760.</b>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      This tree is a place of pilgrimage, and names of people from all parts of
+      the country are cut on it, until there is scarcely room for any more
+      records of such devotion. The grove is ancient looking, the trees are
+      gnarled and moss-grown. Hundreds of people go there, and the trees are
+      carved all over with their immortal names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pleasant ride over a rich rolling country, with an occasional strip of
+      forest, brought us to Union in the evening, with no other adventure than
+      the meeting of a steam threshing-machine in the road, with steam up,
+      clattering along. The devil himself could not invent any machine
+      calculated to act on the nerves of a horse like this. Jack took one look
+      and then dashed into the woods, scraping off his rider's hat but did not
+      succeed in getting rid of his burden or knocking down any trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Union, on the railway, is the forlornest of little villages, with some
+      three hundred inhabitants and a forlorn hotel, kept by an ex-stage-driver.
+      The village, which lies on the Holston, has no drinking-water in it nor
+      enterprise enough to bring it in; not a well nor a spring in its limits;
+      and for drinking-water everybody crosses the river to a spring on the
+      other side. A considerable part of the labor of the town is fetching water
+      over the bridge. On a hill overlooking the village is a big, pretentious
+      brick house, with a tower, the furniture of which is an object of wonder
+      to those who have seen it. It belonged to the late Mrs. Stover, daughter
+      of Andrew Johnson. The whole family of the ex-President have departed this
+      world, but his memory is still green in this region, where he was almost
+      worshiped&mdash;so the people say in speaking of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forlorn as was the hotel at Union, the landlord's daughters were beginning
+      to draw the lines in rural refinement. One of them had been at school in
+      Abingdon. Another, a mature young lady of fifteen, who waited on the
+      table, in the leisure after supper asked the Friend for a light for her
+      cigarette, which she had deftly rolled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you smoke?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So as I shan't get into the habit of dipping. Do you think dipping is
+      nice?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The traveler was compelled to say that he did not, though he had seen a
+      good deal of it wherever he had been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the girls dips round here. But me and my sisters rather smoke than
+      get in a habit of dipping.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To the observation that Union seemed to be a dull place:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, there's gay times here in the winter&mdash;dancing. Like to dance?
+      Well, I should say! Last winter I went over to Blountsville to a dance in
+      the court-house; there was a trial between Union and Blountsville for the
+      best dancing. You bet I brought back the cake and the blue ribbon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The country was becoming too sophisticated, and the travelers hastened to
+      the end of their journey. The next morning Bristol, at first over a hilly
+      country with magnificent oak-trees,&mdash;happily not girdled, as these
+      stately monarchs were often seen along the roads in North Carolina,&mdash;and
+      then up Beaver Creek, a turbid stream, turning some mills. When a closed
+      woolen factory was pointed out to the Professor (who was still traveling
+      for Reform), as the result of the agitation in Congress, he said, Yes, the
+      effect of agitation was evident in all the decayed dams and ancient
+      abandoned mills we had seen in the past month.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bristol is mainly one long street, with some good stores, but generally
+      shabby, and on this hot morning sleepy. One side of the street is in
+      Tennessee, the other in Virginia. How handy for fighting this would have
+      been in the war, if Tennessee had gone out and Virginia stayed in. At the
+      hotel&mdash;may a kind Providence wake it up to its responsibilities&mdash;we
+      had the pleasure of reading one of those facetious handbills which the
+      great railway companies of the West scatter about, the serious humor of
+      which is so pleasing to our English friends. This one was issued by the
+      accredited agents of the Ohio and Mississippi Railway, and dated April 1,
+      1984. One sentence will suffice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Allow us to thank our old traveling friends for the many favors in our
+      line, and if you are going on your bridal trip, or to see your girl out
+      West, drop in at the general office of the Ohio and Mississippi Railway
+      and we will fix you up in Queen Anne style. Passengers for Dakota,
+      Montana, or the Northwest will have an overcoat and sealskin cap thrown in
+      with all tickets sold on or after the above date.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The great republic cannot yet take itself seriously. Let us hope the
+      humors of it will last another generation. Meditating on this, we hailed
+      at sundown the spires of Abingdon, and regretted the end of a journey that
+      seems to have been undertaken for no purpose.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+Title: On Horseback
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+Author: Charles Dudley Warner
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+
+
+
+
+
+On Horseback
+
+By Charles Dudley Warner
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+"The way to mount a horse"- said the Professor.
+
+"If you have no ladder--put in the Friend of Humanity.
+
+The Professor had ridden through the war for the Union on the right
+side, enjoying a much better view of it than if he had walked, and
+knew as much about a horse as a person ought to know for the sake of
+his character.  The man who can recite the tales of the Canterbury
+Pilgrims, on horseback, giving the contemporary pronunciation, never
+missing an accent by reason of the trot, and at the same time witch
+North Carolina and a strip of East Tennessee with his noble
+horsemanship, is a kind of Literary Centaur of whose double
+instruction any Friend of Humanity may be glad to avail himself.
+
+"The way to mount a horse is to grasp the mane with the left hand
+holding the bridle-rein, put your left foot in the stirrup, with the
+right hand on the back of the saddle, and---"
+
+Just then the horse stepped quickly around on his hind feet, and
+looked the Professor in the face.  The Superintendents of Affairs,
+who occupy the flagging in front of the hotel, seated in cane-
+bottomed chairs tilted back, smiled.  These useful persons appear to
+have a life-lease of this portion of the city pavement, and pretty
+effectually block it up nearly all day and evening.  When a lady
+wishes to make her way through the blockade, it is the habit of these
+observers of life to rise and make room, touching their hats, while
+she picks her way through, and goes down the street with a pretty
+consciousness of the flutter she has caused.  The war has not changed
+the Southern habit of sitting out-of-doors, but has added a new
+element of street picturesqueness in groups of colored people
+lounging about the corners.  There appears to be more leisure than
+ever.
+
+The scene of this little lesson in horsemanship was the old town of
+Abingdon, in southwest Virginia, on the Virginia and East Tennessee
+railway; a town of ancient respectability, which gave birth to the
+Johnstons and Floyds and other notable people; a town, that still
+preserves the flavor of excellent tobacco and, something of the easy-
+going habits of the days of slavery, and is a sort of educational
+center, where the young ladies of the region add the final graces of
+intellectual life in moral philosophy and the use of the globes to
+their natural gifts.  The mansion of the late and left Floyd is now a
+seminary, and not far from it is the Stonewall Jackson Institute, in
+the midst of a grove of splendid oaks, whose stately boles and wide-
+spreading branches give a dignity to educational life.  The
+distinction of the region is its superb oak-trees.  As it was
+vacation in these institutions of learning, the travelers did not see
+any of the vines that traditionally cling to the oak.
+
+The Professor and the Friend of Humanity were about starting on a
+journey, across country southward, through regions about which the
+people of Abingdon could give little useful information.  If the
+travelers had known the capacities and resources of the country, they
+would not have started without a supply train, or the establishment
+of bases of provisions in advance.  But, as the Professor remarked,
+knowledge is something that one acquires when he has no use for it.
+The horses were saddled; the riders were equipped with flannel shirts
+and leather leggings; the saddle-bags were stuffed with clean linen,
+and novels, and sonnets of Shakespeare, and other baggage, it would
+have been well if they had been stuffed with hard-tack, for in real
+life meat is more than raiment.
+
+The hotel, in front of which there is cultivated so much of what the
+Germans call sitzfleisch, is a fair type of the majority of Southern
+hotels, and differs from the same class in the North in being left a
+little more to run itself.  The only information we obtained about it
+was from its porter at the station, who replied to the question, "Is
+it the best?"  "We warrant you perfect satisfaction in every
+respect."  This seems to be only a formula of expression, for we
+found that the statement was highly colored.  It was left to our
+imagination to conjecture how the big chambers of the old house, with
+their gaping fireplaces, might have looked when furnished and filled
+with gay company, and we got what satisfaction we could out of a
+bygone bustle and mint-julep hilarity.  In our struggles with the
+porter to obtain the little items of soap, water, and towels, we were
+convinced that we had arrived too late, and that for perfect
+satisfaction we should have been here before the war.  It was not
+always as now.  In colonial days the accommodations and prices at
+inns were regulated by law.  In the old records in the court-house we
+read that if we had been here in 1777, we could have had a gallon of
+good rum for sixteen shillings; a quart bowl of rum toddy made with
+loaf sugar for two shillings, or with brown sugar for one shilling
+and sixpence.  In 1779 prices had risen.  Good rum sold for four
+pounds a gallon.  It was ordered that a warm dinner should cost
+twelve shillings, a cold dinner nine shillings, and a good breakfast
+twelve shillings.  But the item that pleased us most, and made us
+regret our late advent, was that for two shillings we could have had
+a "good lodging, with clean sheets." The colonists were fastidious
+people.
+
+Abingdon, prettily situated on rolling hills, and a couple of
+thousand feet above the sea, with views of mountain peaks to the
+south, is a cheerful and not too exciting place for a brief sojourn,
+and hospitable and helpful to the stranger.  We had dined--so much,
+at least, the public would expect of us--with a descendant of
+Pocahontas; we had assisted on Sunday morning at the dedication of a
+new brick Methodist church, the finest edifice in the region--
+a dedication that took a long time, since the bishop would not
+proceed with it until money enough was raised in open meeting to pay
+the balance due on it: a religious act, though it did give a business
+aspect to the place at the time; and we had been the light spots in
+the evening service at the most aristocratic church of color.  The
+irresponsibility of this amiable race was exhibited in the tardiness
+with which they assembled: at the appointed time nobody was there
+except the sexton; it was three quarters of an hour before the
+congregation began to saunter in, and the sermon was nearly over
+before the pews were at all filled.  Perhaps the sermon was not new,
+but it was fervid, and at times the able preacher roared so that
+articulate sounds were lost in the general effect.  It was precisely
+these passages of cataracts of sound and hard breathing which excited
+the liveliest responses,--"Yes, Lord," and "Glory to God."  Most of
+these responses came from the "Amen corner."  The sermon contained
+the usual vivid description of the last judgment--ah, and I fancied
+that the congregation did not get the ordinary satisfaction out of
+it.  Fashion had entered the fold, and the singing was mostly
+executed by a choir in the dusky gallery, who thinly and harshly
+warbled the emotional hymns.  It occupied the minister a long time to
+give out the notices of the week, and there was not an evening or
+afternoon that had not its meetings, its literary or social
+gathering, its picnic or fair for the benefit of the church, its
+Dorcas society, or some occasion of religious sociability.  The
+raising of funds appeared to be the burden on the preacher's mind.
+Two collections were taken up.  At the first, the boxes appeared to
+get no supply except from the two white trash present.  But the
+second was more successful.  After the sermon was over, an elder took
+his place at a table within the rails, and the real business of the
+evening began.  Somebody in the Amen corner struck up a tune that had
+no end, but a mighty power of setting the congregation in motion.
+The leader had a voice like the pleasant droning of a bag-pipe, and
+the faculty of emitting a continuous note like that instrument,
+without stopping to breathe.  It went on and on like a Bach fugue,
+winding and whining its way, turning the corners of the lines of the
+catch without a break.  The effect was soon visible in the emotional
+crowd: feet began to move in a regular cadence and voices to join in,
+with spurts of ejaculation; and soon, with an air of martyrdom, the
+members began to leave their seats and pass before the table and
+deposit their contributions.  It was a cent contribution, and we
+found it very difficult, under the contagious influence of the hum
+from the Amen corner, not to rise and go forward and deposit a cent.
+If anything could extract the pennies from a reluctant worldling, it
+would be the buzzing of this tune.  It went on and on, until the
+house appeared to be drained dry of its cash; and we inferred by the
+stopping of the melody that the preacher's salary was secure for the
+time being.  On inquiring, we ascertained that the pecuniary flood
+that evening had risen to the height of a dollar and sixty cents.
+
+All was ready for the start.  It should have been early in the
+morning, but it was not; for Virginia is not only one of the blessed
+regions where one can get a late breakfast, but where it is almost
+impossible to get an early one.  At ten A. M.  the two horsemen rode
+away out of sight of the Abingdon spectators, down the eastern
+turnpike.  The day was warm, but the air was full of vitality and the
+spirit of adventure.  It was the 22d of July.  The horses were not
+ambitious, but went on at an easy fox-trot that permits observation
+and encourages conversation.  It had been stipulated that the horses
+should be good walkers, the one essential thing in a horseback
+journey.  Few horses, even in a country where riding is general, are
+trained to walk fast.  We hear much of horses that can walk five
+miles an hour, but they are as rare as white elephants.  Our horses
+were only fair walkers.  We realized how necessary this
+accomplishment is, for between the Tennessee line and Asheville,
+North Carolina, there is scarcely a mile of trotting-ground.
+
+We soon turned southward and descended into the Holston River Valley.
+Beyond lay the Tennessee hills and conspicuous White-Top Mountain
+(5530 feet), which has a good deal of local celebrity (standing where
+the States of Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina corner), and
+had been pointed out to us at Abingdon.  We had been urged,
+personally and by letter, to ascend this mountain, without fail.
+People recommend mountains to their friends as they do patent
+medicines.  As we leisurely jogged along we discussed this, and
+endeavored to arrive at some rule of conduct for the journey.  The
+Professor expressed at once a feeling about mountain-climbing that
+amounted to hostility,--he would go nowhere that he could not ride.
+Climbing was the most unsatisfactory use to which a mountain could be
+put.  As to White-Top, it was a small mountain, and not worth
+ascending.  The Friend of Humanity, who believes in mountain-climbing
+as a theory, and for other people, and knows the value of being able
+to say, without detection, that he has ascended any high mountain
+about which he is questioned,--since this question is the first one
+asked about an exploration in a new country,--saw that he should have
+to use a good deal of diplomacy to get the Professor over any
+considerable elevation on the trip.  And he had to confess also that
+a view from a mountain is never so satisfactory as a view of a
+mountain, from a moderate height.  The Professor, however, did not
+argue the matter on any such reasonable ground, but took his stand on
+his right as a man not to ascend a mountain.  With this appeal to
+first principles,--a position that could not be confuted on account
+of its vagueness (although it might probably be demonstrated that in
+society man has no such right), there was no way of agreement except
+by a compromise.  It was accordingly agreed that no mountain under
+six thousand feet is worth ascending; that disposed of White-Top.  It
+was further agreed that any mountain that is over six thousand feet
+high is too high to ascend on foot.
+
+With this amicable adjustment we forded the Holston, crossing it
+twice within a few miles.  This upper branch of the Tennessee is a
+noble stream, broad, with a rocky bed and a swift current.  Fording
+it is ticklish business except at comparatively low water, and as it
+is subject to sudden rises, there must be times when it seriously
+interrupts travel.  This whole region, full of swift streams, is
+without a bridge, and, as a consequence, getting over rivers and
+brooks and the dangers of ferries occupy a prominent place in the
+thoughts of the inhabitants.  The life necessarily had the "frontier"
+quality all through, for there can be little solid advance in
+civilization in the uncertainties of a bridgeless condition.  An
+open, pleasant valley, the Holston, but cultivation is more and more
+negligent and houses are few and poorer as we advance.
+
+We had left behind the hotels of "perfect satisfaction," and expected
+to live on the country, trusting to the infrequent but remunerated
+hospitality of the widely scattered inhabitants.  We were to dine at
+Ramsey's.  Ramsey's had been recommended to us as a royal place of
+entertainment the best in all that region; and as the sun grew hot in
+the sandy valley, and the weariness of noon fell upon us, we
+magnified Ramsey's in our imagination,--the nobility of its
+situation, its cuisine, its inviting restfulness,--and half decided
+to pass the night there in the true abandon of plantation life.  Long
+before we reached it, the Holston River which we followed had become
+the Laurel, a most lovely, rocky, winding stream, which we forded
+continually, for the valley became too narrow much of the way to
+accommodate a road and a river.  Eagerly as we were looking out for
+it, we passed the great Ramsey's without knowing it, for it was the
+first of a little settlement of two houses and a saw-mill and barn.
+It was a neat log house of two lower rooms and a summer kitchen,
+quite the best of the class that we saw, and the pleasant mistress of
+it made us welcome.  Across the road and close, to the Laurel was the
+spring-house, the invariable adjunct to every well-to-do house in the
+region, and on the stony margin of the stream was set up the big
+caldron for the family washing; and here, paddling in the shallow
+stream, while dinner was preparing, we established an intimacy with
+the children and exchanged philosophical observations on life with
+the old negress who was dabbling the clothes.  What impressed this
+woman was the inequality in life.  She jumped to the unwarranted
+conclusion that the Professor and the Friend were very rich, and
+spoke with asperity of the difficulty she experienced in getting
+shoes and tobacco.  It was useless to point out to her that her
+alfresco life was singularly blessed and free from care, and the
+happy lot of any one who could loiter all day by this laughing
+stream, undisturbed by debt or ambition.  Everybody about the place
+was barefooted, except the mistress, including the comely daughter of
+eighteen, who served our dinner in the kitchen.  The dinner was
+abundant, and though it seemed to us incongruous at the time, we were
+not twelve hours older when we looked back upon it with longing.  On
+the table were hot biscuit, ham, pork, and green beans, apple-sauce,
+blackberry preserves, cucumbers, coffee, plenty of milk, honey, and
+apple and blackberry pie.  Here we had our first experience, and I
+may say new sensation, of "honey on pie." It has a cloying sound as
+it is written, but the handmaiden recommended it with enthusiasm, and
+we evidently fell in her esteem, as persons from an uncultivated
+society, when we declared our inexperience of "honey on pie."  "Where
+be you from?"  It turned out to be very good, and we have tried to
+introduce it in families since our return, with indifferent success.
+There did not seem to be in this family much curiosity about the
+world at large, nor much stir of social life.  The gayety of madame
+appeared to consist in an occasional visit to paw and maw and
+grandmaw, up the river a few miles, where she was raised.
+
+Refreshed by the honey and fodder at Ramsey's, the pilgrims went
+gayly along the musical Laurel, in the slanting rays of the afternoon
+sun, which played upon the rapids and illumined all the woody way.
+Inspired by the misapprehension of the colored philosopher and the
+dainties of the dinner, the Professor soliloquized:
+
+    "So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
+     Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
+     The which he will not every hour survey,
+     For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
+     Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
+     Since seldom coming, in the long year set,
+     Like stones of wealth they thinly placed are,
+     Or captain jewels in the carcanet."
+
+Five miles beyond Ramsey's the Tennessee line was crossed.  The
+Laurel became more rocky, swift, full of rapids, and the valley
+narrowed down to the riverway, with standing room, however, for
+stately trees along the banks.  The oaks, both black and white, were,
+as they had been all day, gigantic in size and splendid in foliage.
+There is a certain dignity in riding in such stately company, and the
+travelers clattered along over the stony road under the impression of
+possible high adventure in a new world of such freshness.  Nor was
+beauty wanting.  The rhododendrons had, perhaps, a week ago reached
+their climax, and now began to strew the water and the ground with
+their brilliant petals, dashing all the way with color; but they were
+still matchlessly beautiful.  Great banks of pink and white covered
+the steep hillsides; the bending stems, ten to twenty feet high, hung
+their rich clusters over the river; avenues of glory opened away in
+the glade of the stream; and at every turn of the winding way vistas
+glowing with the hues of romance wrenched exclamations of delight and
+wonder from the Shakespearean sonneteer and his humble Friend.  In
+the deep recesses of the forest suddenly flamed to the view, like the
+splashes of splendor on the somber canvas of an old Venetian, these
+wonders of color,--the glowing summer-heart of the woods.
+
+It was difficult to say, meantime, whether the road was laid out in
+the river, or the river in the road.  In the few miles to Egger's
+(this was the destination of our great expectations for the night)
+the stream was crossed twenty-seven times,--or perhaps it would be
+more proper to say that the road was crossed twenty-seven times.
+Where the road did not run in the river, its bed was washed out and
+as stony as the bed of the stream.  This is a general and accurate
+description of all the roads in this region, which wind along and in
+the streams, through narrow valleys, shut in by low and steep hills.
+The country is full of springs and streams, and between Abingdon and
+Egger's is only one (small) bridge.  In a region with scarcely any
+level land or intervale, farmers are at a disadvantage.  All along
+the road we saw nothing but mean shanties, generally of logs, with
+now and then a decent one-story frame, and the people looked
+miserably poor.
+
+As we picked our way along up the Laurel, obliged for the most part
+to ride single-file, or as the Professor expressed it,
+
+    "Let me confess that we two must be twain,
+     Although our undivided loves are one,"
+
+we gathered information about Egger's from the infrequent hovels on
+the road, which inflamed our imaginations.  Egger was the thriving
+man of the region, and lived in style in a big brick house.  We began
+to feel a doubt that Egger would take us in, and so much did his
+brick magnificence impress us that we regretted we had not brought
+apparel fit for the society we were about to enter.
+
+It was half-past six, and we were tired and hungry, when the domain
+of Egger towered in sight,--a gaunt, two-story structure of raw
+brick, unfinished, standing in a narrow intervale.  We rode up to the
+gate, and asked a man who sat in the front-door porch if this was
+Egger's, and if we could be accommodated for the night.  The man,
+without moving, allowed that it was Egger's, and that we could
+probably stay there.  This person, however, exhibited so much
+indifference to our company, he was such a hairy, unkempt man, and
+carried on face, hands, and clothes so much more of the soil of the
+region than a prudent proprietor would divert from raising corn, that
+we set him aside as a poor relation, and asked for Mr. Egger.  But
+the man, still without the least hospitable stir, admitted that that
+was the name he went by, and at length advised us to "lite" and hitch
+our horses, and sit on the porch with him and enjoy the cool of the
+evening.  The horses would be put up by and by, and in fact things
+generally would come round some time.  This turned out to be the easy
+way of the country.  Mr. Egger was far from being inhospitable, but
+was in no hurry, and never had been in a hurry.  He was not exactly a
+gentleman of the old school.  He was better than that.  He dated from
+the time when there were no schools at all, and he lived in that
+placid world which is without information and ideas.  Mr. Egger
+showed his superiority by a total lack of curiosity about any other
+world.
+
+This brick house, magnificent by comparison with other dwellings in
+this country, seemed to us, on nearer acquaintance, only a thin,
+crude shell of a house, half unfinished, with bare rooms, the
+plastering already discolored.  In point of furnishing it had not yet
+reached the "God bless our Home" stage in crewel.  In the narrow
+meadow, a strip of vivid green south of the house, ran a little
+stream, fed by a copious spring, and over it was built the inevitable
+spring-house.  A post, driven into the bank by the stream, supported
+a tin wash-basin, and here we performed our ablutions.  The traveler
+gets to like this freedom and primitive luxury.
+
+The farm of Egger produces corn, wheat, grass, and sheep; it is a
+good enough farm, but most of it lies at an angle of thirty-five to
+forty degrees.  The ridge back of the house, planted in corn, was as
+steep as the roof of his dwelling.  It seemed incredible that it ever
+could have been plowed, but the proprietor assured us that it was
+plowed with mules, and I judged that the harvesting must be done by
+squirrels.  The soil is good enough, if it would stay in place, but
+all the hillsides are seamed with gullies.  The discolored state of
+the streams was accounted for as soon as we saw this cultivated land.
+No sooner is the land cleared of trees and broken up than it begins
+to wash.  We saw more of this later, especially in North Carolina,
+where we encountered no stream of water that was not muddy, and saw
+no cultivated ground that was not washed.  The process of denudation
+is going on rapidly wherever the original forests are girdled (a
+common way of preparing for crops), or cut away.
+
+As the time passed and there was no sign of supper, the question
+became a burning one, and we went to explore the kitchen.  No sign of
+it there.  No fire in the stove, nothing cooked in the house, of
+course.  Mrs. Egger and her comely young barefooted daughter had
+still the milking to attend to, and supper must wait for the other
+chores.  It seemed easier to be Mr. Egger, in this state of
+existence, and sit on the front porch and meditate on the price of
+mules and the prospect of a crop, than to be Mrs. Egger, whose work
+was not limited from sun to sun; who had, in fact, a day's work to do
+after the men-folks had knocked off; whose chances of neighborhood
+gossip were scanty, whose amusements were confined to a religious
+meeting once a fortnight.  Good, honest people these, not unduly
+puffed up by the brick house, grubbing away year in and year out.
+Yes, the young girl said, there was a neighborhood party, now and
+then, in the winter.  What a price to pay for mere life!
+
+Long before supper was ready, nearly nine o'clock, we had almost lost
+interest in it.  Meantime two other guests had arrived, a couple of
+drovers from North Carolina, who brought into the circle--by this
+time a wood-fire had been kindled in the sitting-room, which
+contained a bed, an almanac, and some old copies of a newspaper--a
+rich flavor of cattle, and talk of the price of steers.  As to
+politics, although a presidential campaign was raging, there was
+scarcely an echo of it here.  This was Johnson County, Tennessee, a
+strong Republican county but dog-gone it, says Mr.  Egger, it's no
+use to vote; our votes are overborne by the rest of the State.  Yes,
+they'd got a Republican member of Congress,--he'd heard his name, but
+he'd forgotten it.  The drover said he'd heard it also, but he didn't
+take much interest in such things, though he wasn't any Republican.
+Parties is pretty much all for office, both agreed.  Even the
+Professor, who was traveling in the interest of Reform, couldn't wake
+up a discussion out of such a state of mind.
+
+Alas!  the supper, served in a room dimly lighted with a smoky lamp,
+on a long table covered with oilcloth, was not of the sort to arouse
+the delayed and now gone appetite of a Reformer, and yet it did not
+lack variety: cornpone (Indian meal stirred up with water and heated
+through), hot biscuit, slack-baked and livid, fried salt-pork
+swimming in grease, apple-butter, pickled beets, onions and cucumbers
+raw, coffee (so-called), buttermilk, and sweet milk when specially
+asked for (the correct taste, however, is for buttermilk), and pie.
+This was not the pie of commerce, but the pie of the country,--two
+thick slabs of dough, with a squeezing of apple between.  The
+profusion of this supper staggered the novices, but the drovers
+attacked it as if such cooking were a common occurrence) and did
+justice to the weary labors of Mrs. Egger.
+
+Egger is well prepared to entertain strangers, having several rooms
+and several beds in each room.  Upon consultation with the drovers,
+they said they'd just as soon occupy an apartment by themselves, and
+we gave up their society for the night.  The beds in our chamber had
+each one sheet, and the room otherwise gave evidence of the modern
+spirit; for in one corner stood the fashionable aesthetic decoration
+of our Queen Anne drawing-rooms,--the spinning-wheel.  Soothed by
+this concession to taste, we crowded in between the straw and the
+home-made blanket and sheet, and soon ceased to hear the barking of
+dogs and the horned encounters of the drovers' herd.
+
+We parted with Mr. Egger after breakfast (which was a close copy of
+the supper) with more respect than regret.  His total charge for the
+entertainment of two men and two horses--supper, lodging, and
+breakfast--was high or low, as the traveler chose to estimate it.  It
+was $1.20: that is, thirty cents for each individual, or ten cents
+for each meal and lodging.
+
+Our road was a sort of by-way up Gentry Creek and over the Cut Laurel
+Gap to Worth's, at Creston Post Office, in North Carolina,--the next
+available halting place, said to be fifteen miles distant, and
+turning out to be twenty-two, and a rough road.  There is a little
+settlement about Egger's, and the first half mile of our way we had
+the company of the schoolmistress, a modest, pleasant-spoken girl.
+Neither she nor any other people we encountered had any dialect or
+local peculiarity of speech.  Indeed, those we encountered that
+morning had nothing in manner or accent to distinguish them.  The
+novelists had led us to expect something different; and the modest
+and pretty young lady with frank and open blue eyes, who wore gloves
+and used the common English speech, had never figured in the fiction
+of the region.  Cherished illusions vanish often on near approach.
+The day gave no peculiarity of speech to note, except the occasional
+use of "hit" for "it."
+
+The road over Cut Laurel Gap was very steep and stony, the
+thermometer mounted up to 80 deg., and, notwithstanding the beauty of
+the way, the ride became tedious before we reached the summit.  On
+the summit is the dwelling and distillery of a colonel famous in
+these parts.  We stopped at the house for a glass of milk; the
+colonel was absent, and while the woman in charge went after it, we
+sat on the veranda and conversed with a young lady, tall, gent, well
+favored, and communicative, who leaned in the doorway.
+
+"Yes, this house stands on the line.  Where you sit, you are in
+Tennessee; I'm in North Carolina."
+
+"Do you live here?"
+
+"Law, no; I'm just staying a little while at the colonel's.  I live
+over the mountain here, three miles from Taylorsville.  I thought I'd
+be where I could step into North Carolina easy."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Well, they wanted me to go before the grand jury and testify about
+some pistol-shooting down by our house, some friends of mine got into
+a little difficulty,--and I did n't want to.  I never has no
+difficulty with nobody, never says nothing about nobody, has nothing
+against nobody, and I reckon nobody has nothing against me."
+
+"Did you come alone?"
+
+"Why, of course.  I come across the mountain by a path through the
+woods.  That's nothing."
+
+A discreet, pleasant, pretty girl.  This surely must be the Esmeralda
+who lives in these mountains, and adorns low life by her virgin
+purity and sentiment.  As she talked on, she turned from time to time
+to the fireplace behind her, and discharged a dark fluid from her
+pretty lips, with accuracy of aim, and with a nonchalance that was
+not assumed, but belongs to our free-born American girls.  I cannot
+tell why this habit of hers (which is no worse than the sister habit
+of "dipping") should take her out of the romantic setting that her
+face and figure had placed her in; but somehow we felt inclined to
+ride on farther for our heroine.
+
+"And yet," said the Professor, as we left the site of the colonel's
+thriving distillery, and by a winding, picturesque road through a
+rough farming country descended into the valley,--"and yet, why fling
+aside so readily a character and situation so full of romance, on
+account of a habit of this mountain Helen, which one of our best
+poets has almost made poetical, in the case of the pioneer taking his
+westward way, with ox-goad pointing to the sky:
+
+    "'He's leaving on the pictured rock
+     His fresh tobacco stain.'
+
+"To my mind the incident has Homeric elements.  The Greeks would have
+looked at it in a large, legendary way.  Here is Helen, strong and
+lithe of limb, ox-eyed, courageous, but woman-hearted and love-
+inspiring, contended for by all the braves and daring moonshiners of
+Cut Laurel Gap, pursued by the gallants of two States, the prize of a
+border warfare of bowie knives and revolvers.  This Helen,
+magnanimous as attractive, is the witness of a pistol difficulty on
+her behalf, and when wanted by the areopagus, that she may neither
+implicate a lover nor punish an enemy (having nothing, this noble
+type of her sex) against nobody), skips away to Mount Ida, and there,
+under the aegis of the flag of her country, in a Licensed Distillery,
+stands with one slender foot in Tennessee and the other in North
+Carolina"
+
+"Like the figure of the Republic itself, superior to state
+sovereignty," interposed the Friend.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the Professor, urging up Laura Matilda (for
+so he called the nervous mare, who fretted herself into a fever in
+the stony path), "I was quite able to get the woman out of that
+position without the aid of a metaphor.  It is a large and Greek
+idea, that of standing in two mighty States, superior to the law,
+looking east and looking west, ready to transfer her agile body to
+either State on the approach of messengers of the court; and I'll be
+hanged if I didn't think that her nonchalant rumination of the weed,
+combined with her lofty moral attitude, added something to the
+picture."
+
+The Friend said that he was quite willing to join in the extremest
+defense of the privileges of beauty,--that he even held in abeyance
+judgment on the practice of dipping; but when it came to chewing, gum
+was as far as he could go as an allowance for the fair sex.
+
+    "When I consider everything that grows
+     Holds in perfection but a little moment..."
+
+The rest of the stanza was lost, for the Professor was splashing
+through the stream.  No sooner had we descended than the fording of
+streams began again.  The Friend had been obliged to stipulate that
+the Professor should go ahead at these crossings, to keep the
+impetuous nag of the latter from throwing half the contents of the
+stream upon his slower and uncomplaining companion.
+
+What a lovely country, but for the heat of noon and the long
+wearisomeness of the way!--not that the distance was great, but miles
+and miles more than expected.  How charming the open glades of the
+river, how refreshing the great forests of oak and chestnut, and what
+a panorama of beauty the banks of rhododendrons, now intermingled
+with the lighter pink and white of the laurel!  In this region the
+rhododendron is called laurel) and the laurel (the sheep-laurel of
+New England) is called ivy.
+
+At Worth's, well on in the afternoon, we emerged into a wide, open
+farming intervale, a pleasant place of meadows and streams and decent
+dwellings.  Worth's is the trading center of the region, has a post
+office and a saw-mill and a big country store; and the dwelling of
+the proprietor is not unlike a roomy New England country house.
+Worth's has been immemorially a stopping-place in a region where
+places of accommodation are few.  The proprietor, now an elderly man,
+whose reminiscences are long ante bellum, has seen the world grow up
+about him, he the honored, just center of it, and a family come up
+into the modern notions of life, with a boarding-school education and
+glimpses of city life and foreign travel.  I fancy that nothing but
+tradition and a remaining Southern hospitality could induce this
+private family to suffer the incursions of this wayfaring man.  Our
+travelers are not apt to be surprised at anything in American life,
+but they did not expect to find a house in this region with two
+pianos and a bevy of young ladies, whose clothes were certainly not
+made on Cut Laurel Gap, and to read in the books scattered about the
+house the evidences of the finishing schools with which our country
+is blessed, nor to find here pupils of the Stonewall Jackson
+Institute at Abingdon.  With a flush of local pride, the Professor
+took up, in the roomy, pleasant chamber set apart for the guests, a
+copy of Porter's "Elements of Moral Science."
+
+"Where you see the 'Elements of Moral Science,'" the Friend
+generalized, "there'll be plenty of water and towels;" and the sign
+did not fail.  The friends intended to read this book in the cool of
+the day; but as they sat on the long veranda, the voice of a maiden
+reading the latest novel to a sewing group behind the blinds in the
+drawing-room; and the antics of a mule and a boy in front of the
+store opposite; and the arrival of a spruce young man, who had just
+ridden over from somewhere, a matter of ten miles' gallop, to get a
+medicinal potion for his sick mother, and lingered chatting with the
+young ladies until we began to fear that his mother would recover
+before his return; the coming and going of lean women in shackly
+wagons to trade at the store; the coming home of the cows, splashing
+through the stream, hooking right and left, and lowing for the hand
+of the milker,--all these interruptions, together with the generally
+drowsy quiet of the approach of evening, interfered with the study of
+the Elements.  And when the travelers, after a refreshing rest, went
+on their way next morning, considering the Elements and the pianos
+and the refinement, to say nothing of the cuisine, which is not
+treated of in the text-book referred to, they were content with a
+bill double that of brother Egger, in his brick magnificence.
+
+The simple truth is, that the traveler in this region must be content
+to feed on natural beauties.  And it is an unfortunate truth in
+natural history that the appetite for this sort of diet fails after a
+time, if the inner man is not supplied with other sort of food.
+There is no landscape in the world that is agreeable after two days
+of rusty-bacon and slack biscuit.
+
+"How lovely this would be," exclaimed the Professor, if it had a
+background of beefsteak and coffee!
+
+We were riding along the west fork of the Laurel, distinguished
+locally as Three Top Creek,--or, rather, we were riding in it,
+crossing it thirty-one times within six miles; a charming wood (and
+water) road, under the shade of fine trees with the rhododendron
+illuminating the way, gleaming in the forest and reflected in the
+stream, all the ten miles to Elk Cross Roads, our next destination.
+We had heard a great deal about Elk Cross Roads; it was on the map,
+it was down in the itinerary furnished by a member of the Coast
+Survey.  We looked forward to it as a sweet place of repose from the
+noontide heat.  Alas!  Elk Cross Roads is a dirty grocery store,
+encumbered with dry-goods boxes, fly-blown goods, flies, loafers.  In
+reply to our inquiry we were told that they had nothing to eat, for
+us, and not a grain of feed for the horses.  But there was a man a
+mile farther on, who was well to do and had stores of food,--old man
+Tatern would treat us in bang-up style.  The difficulty of getting
+feed for the horses was chronic all through the journey.  The last
+corn crop had failed, the new oats and corn had not come in, and the
+country was literally barren.  We had noticed all along that the hens
+were taking a vacation, and that chickens were not put forward as an
+article of diet.
+
+We were unable, when we reached the residence of old man Tatem, to
+imagine how the local superstition of his wealth arose.  His house is
+of logs, with two rooms, a kitchen and a spare room, with a low loft
+accessible by a ladder at the side of the chimney.  The chimney is a
+huge construction of stone, separating the two parts of the house; in
+fact, the chimney was built first, apparently, and the two rooms were
+then built against it.  The proprietor sat in a little railed
+veranda.  These Southern verandas give an air to the meanest
+dwelling, and they are much used; the family sit here, and here are
+the washbasin and pail (which is filled from the neighboring spring-
+house), and the row of milk-pans.  The old man Tatern did not welcome
+us with enthusiasm; he had no corn,--these were hard times.  He
+looked like hard times, grizzled times, dirty times.  It seemed time
+out of mind since he had seen comb or razor, and although the lovely
+New River, along which we had ridden to his house,--a broad, inviting
+stream,--was in sight across the meadow, there was no evidence that
+he had ever made acquaintance with its cleansing waters.  As to corn,
+the necessities of the case and pay being dwelt on, perhaps he could
+find a dozen ears.  A dozen small cars he did find, and we trust that
+the horses found them.
+
+We took a family dinner with old man Tatern in the kitchen, where
+there was a bed and a stove,--a meal that the host seemed to enjoy,
+but which we could not make much of, except the milk; that was good.
+A painful meal, on the whole, owing to the presence in the room of a
+grown-up daughter with a graveyard cough, without physician or
+medicine, or comforts.  Poor girl! just dying of "a misery."
+
+In the spare room were two beds; the walls were decorated with the
+gay-colored pictures of patent-medicine advertisements--a favorite
+art adornment of the region; and a pile of ancient illustrated papers
+with the usual patent-office report, the thoughtful gift of the
+member for the district.  The old man takes in the "Blue Ridge
+Baptist," a journal which we found largely taken up with the
+experiences of its editor on his journeys roundabout in search of
+subscribers.  This newspaper was the sole communication of the family
+with the world at large, but the old man thought he should stop it,--
+he did n't seem to get the worth of his money out of it.  And old man
+Tatem was a thrifty and provident man.  On the hearth in this best
+room--as ornaments or memento mori were a couple of marble
+gravestones, a short headstone and foot-stone, mounted on bases and
+ready for use, except the lettering.  These may not have been so
+mournful and significant as they looked, nor the evidence of simple,
+humble faith; they may have been taken for debt.  But as parlor
+ornaments they had a fascination which we could not escape.
+
+It was while we were bathing in the New River, that afternoon, and
+meditating on the grim, unrelieved sort of life of our host, that the
+Professor said, "judging by the face of the 'Blue Ridge Baptist,' he
+will charge us smartly for the few nubbins of corn and the milk."
+The face did not deceive us; the charge was one dollar.  At this rate
+it would have broken us to have tarried with old man Tatem (perhaps
+he is not old, but that is the name he goes by) over night.
+
+It was a hot afternoon, and it needed some courage to mount and climb
+the sandy hill leading us away from the corn-crib of Tatem.  But we
+entered almost immediately into fine stretches of forest, and rode
+under the shade of great oaks.  The way, which began by the New
+River, soon led us over the hills to the higher levels of Watauga
+County.  So far on our journey we had been hemmed in by low hills,
+and without any distant or mountain outlooks.  The excessive heat
+seemed out of place at the elevation of over two thousand feet, on
+which we were traveling.  Boone, the county seat of Watauga County,
+was our destination, and, ever since morning, the guideboards and the
+trend of the roads had notified us that everything in this region
+tends towards Boone as a center of interest.  The simple ingenuity of
+some of the guide-boards impressed us.  If, on coming to a fork, the
+traveler was to turn to the right, the sign read,
+
+      To BOONE 10 M.
+If he was to go to the left, it read,
+      .M 01 ENOOB oT
+
+A short ride of nine miles, on an ascending road, through an open,
+unfenced forest region, brought us long before sundown to this
+capital.  When we had ridden into its single street, which wanders
+over gentle hills, and landed at the most promising of the taverns,
+the Friend informed his comrade that Boone was 3250 feet above
+Albemarle Sound, and believed by its inhabitants to be the highest
+village east of the Rocky Mountains.  The Professor said that it
+might be so, but it was a God-forsaken place.  Its inhabitants
+numbered perhaps two hundred and fifty, a few of them colored.  It
+had a gaunt, shaky court-house and jail, a store or two, and two
+taverns.  The two taverns are needed to accommodate the judges and
+lawyers and their clients during the session of the court.  The court
+is the only excitement and the only amusement.  It is the event from
+which other events date.  Everybody in the county knows exactly when
+court sits, and when court breaks.  During the session the whole
+county is practically in Boone, men, women, and children.  They camp
+there, they attend the trials, they take sides; half of them,
+perhaps, are witnesses, for the region is litigious, and the
+neighborhood quarrels are entered into with spirit.  To be fond of
+lawsuits seems a characteristic of an isolated people in new
+conditions.  The early settlers of New England were.
+
+Notwithstanding the elevation of Boone, which insured a pure air, the
+thermometer that afternoon stood at from 85 to 89 deg.  The flies
+enjoyed it.  How they swarmed in this tavern!  They would have
+carried off all the food from the dining-room table (for flies do not
+mind eating off oilcloth, and are not particular how food is cooked),
+but for the machine with hanging flappers that swept the length of
+it; and they destroy all possibility of sleep except in the dark.
+The mountain regions of North Carolina are free from mosquitoes, but
+the fly has settled there, and is the universal scourge.  This
+tavern, one end of which was a store, had a veranda in front, and a
+back gallery, where there were evidences of female refinement in pots
+of plants and flowers.  The landlord himself kept tavern very much as
+a hostler would, but we had to make a note in his favor that he had
+never heard of a milk punch.  And it might as well be said here, for
+it will have to be insisted on later, that the traveler, who has read
+about the illicit stills till his imagination dwells upon the
+indulgence of his vitiated tastes in the mountains of North Carolina,
+is doomed to disappointment.  If he wants to make himself an
+exception to the sober people whose cooking will make him long for
+the maddening bowl, he must bring his poison with him.  We had found
+no bread since we left Virginia; we had seen cornmeal and water,
+slack-baked; we had seen potatoes fried in grease, and bacon
+incrusted with salt (all thirst-provokers), but nothing to drink
+stronger than buttermilk.  And we can say that, so far as our example
+is concerned, we left the country as temperate as we found it.  How
+can there be mint juleps (to go into details) without ice? and in the
+summer there is probably not a pound of ice in all the State north of
+Buncombe County.
+
+There is nothing special to be said about Boone.  We were anxious to
+reach it, we were glad to leave it; we note as to all these places
+that our joy at departing always exceeds that on arriving, which is a
+merciful provision of nature for people who must keep moving.  This
+country is settled by genuine Americans, who have the aboriginal
+primitive traits of the universal Yankee nation.  The front porch in
+the morning resembled a carpenter's shop; it was literally covered
+with the whittlings of the row of natives who had spent the evening
+there in the sedative occupation of whittling.
+
+We took that morning a forest road to Valle Crusis, seven miles,
+through noble growths of oaks, chestnuts, hemlocks, rhododendrons,--a
+charming wood road, leading to a place that, as usual, did not keep
+the promise of its name.  Valle Crusis has a blacksmith shop and a
+dirty, flyblown store.  While the Professor consulted the blacksmith
+about a loose shoe, the Friend carried his weariness of life without
+provisions up to a white house on the hill, and negotiated for boiled
+milk.  This house was occupied by flies.  They must have numbered
+millions, settled in black swarms, covering tables, beds, walls, the
+veranda; the kitchen was simply a hive of them.  The only book in
+sight, Whewell's--Elements of Morality," seemed to attract flies.
+Query, Why should this have such a different effect from Porter's?  A
+white house,--a pleasant-looking house at a distance,--amiable,
+kindly people in it,--why should we have arrived there on its dirty
+day?  Alas! if we had been starving, Valle Crusis had nothing to
+offer us.
+
+So we rode away, in the blazing heat, no poetry exuding from the
+Professor, eight miles to Banner's Elk, crossing a mountain and
+passing under Hanging Rock, a conspicuous feature in the landscape,
+and the only outcropping of rock we had seen: the face of a ledge,
+rounded up into the sky, with a green hood on it.  From the summit we
+had the first extensive prospect during our journey.  The road can be
+described as awful,--steep, stony, the horses unable to make two
+miles an hour on it.  Now and then we encountered a rude log cabin
+without barns or outhouses, and a little patch of feeble corn.  The
+women who regarded the passers from their cabin doors were frowzy and
+looked tired.  What with the heat and the road and this discouraged
+appearance of humanity, we reached the residence of Dugger, at
+Banner's Elk, to which we had been directed, nearly exhausted.  It is
+no use to represent this as a dash across country on impatient
+steeds.  It was not so.  The love of truth is stronger than the
+desire of display.  And for this reason it is impossible to say that
+Mr. Dugger, who is an excellent man, lives in a clean and attractive
+house, or that he offers much that the pampered child of civilization
+can eat.  But we shall not forget the two eggs, fresh from the hens,
+whose temperature must have been above the normal, nor the spring-
+house in the glen, where we found a refuge from the flies and the
+heat.  The higher we go, the hotter it is.  Banner's Elk boasts an
+elevation of thirty-five to thirty-seven hundred feet.
+
+We were not sorry, towards sunset, to descend along the Elk River
+towards Cranberry Forge.  The Elk is a lovely stream, and, though not
+very clear, has a reputation for trout; but all this region was under
+operation of a three-years game law, to give the trout a chance to
+multiply, and we had no opportunity to test the value of its
+reputation.  Yet a boy whom we encountered had a good string of
+quarter-pound trout, which he had taken out with a hook and a feather
+rudely tied on it, to resemble a fly.  The road, though not to be
+commended, was much better than that of the morning, the forests grew
+charming in the cool of the evening, the whippoorwill sang, and as
+night fell the wanderers, in want of nearly everything that makes
+life desirable, stopped at the Iron Company's hotel, under the
+impression that it was the only comfortable hotel in North Carolina.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Cranberry Forge is the first wedge of civilization fairly driven into
+the northwest mountains of North Carolina.  A narrow-gauge railway,
+starting from Johnson City, follows up the narrow gorge of the Doe
+River, and pushes into the heart of the iron mines at Cranberry,
+where there is a blast furnace; and where a big company store, rows
+of tenement houses, heaps of slag and refuse ore, interlacing tracks,
+raw embankments, denuded hillsides, and a blackened landscape, are
+the signs of a great devastating American enterprise.  The Cranberry
+iron is in great esteem, as it has the peculiar quality of the
+Swedish iron.  There are remains of old furnaces lower down the
+stream, which we passed on our way.  The present "plant" is that of a
+Philadelphia company, whose enterprise has infused new life into all
+this region, made it accessible, and spoiled some pretty scenery.
+
+When we alighted, weary, at the gate of the pretty hotel, which
+crowns a gentle hill and commands a pleasing, evergreen prospect of
+many gentle hills, a mile or so below the works, and wholly removed
+from all sordid associations, we were at the point of willingness
+that the whole country should be devastated by civilization.  In the
+local imagination this hotel of the company is a palace of unequaled
+magnificence, but probably its good taste, comfort, and quiet
+elegance are not appreciated after all.  There is this to be said
+about Philadelphia,--and it will go far in pleading for it in the
+Last Day against its monotonous rectangularity and the babel-like
+ambition of its Public Building,--that wherever its influence
+extends, there will be found comfortable lodgings and the luxury of
+an undeniably excellent cuisine.  The visible seal that Philadelphia
+sets on its enterprise all through the South is a good hotel.
+
+This Cottage Beautiful has on two sides a wide veranda, set about
+with easy chairs; cheerful parlors and pretty chambers, finished in
+native woods, among which are conspicuous the satin stripes of the
+cucumber-tree; luxurious beds, and an inviting table ordered by a
+Philadelphia landlady, who knows a beefsteak from a boot-tap.  Is it
+"low" to dwell upon these things of the senses, when one is on a tour
+in search of the picturesque?  Let the reader ride from Abingdon
+through a wilderness of cornpone and rusty bacon, and then judge.
+There were, to be sure, novels lying about, and newspapers, and
+fragments of information to be picked up about a world into which the
+travelers seemed to emerge.  They, at least, were satisfied, and went
+off to their rooms with the restful feeling that they had arrived
+somewhere) and no unquiet spirit at morn would say "to horse."  To
+sleep, perchance to dream of Tatem and his household cemetery; and
+the Professor was heard muttering in his chamber,
+
+    "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
+     The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
+     But then begins a journey in my head,
+     To work my mind, when body's work's expir'd."
+
+The morning was warm (the elevation of the hotel must be between
+twenty-five hundred and three thousand feet), rainy, mildly rainy;
+and the travelers had nothing better to do than lounge upon the
+veranda, read feeble ten-cent fictions, and admire the stems of the
+white birches, glistening in the moisture, and the rhododendron-
+trees, twenty feet high, which were shaking off their last pink
+blossoms, and look down into the valley of the Doe.  It is not an
+exciting landscape, nothing bold or specially wild in it, but restful
+with the monotony of some of the wooded Pennsylvania hills.
+
+Sunday came up smiling, a lovely day, but offering no church
+privileges, for the ordinance of preaching is only occasional in this
+region.  The ladies of the hotel have, however, gathered in the
+valley a Sunday-school of fifty children from the mountain cabins.  A
+couple of rainy days, with the thermometer rising to 80 deg.,
+combined with natural laziness to detain the travelers in this
+cottage of ease.  They enjoyed this the more because it was on their
+consciences that they should visit Linville Falls, some twenty-five
+miles eastward, long held up before them as the most magnificent
+feature of this region, and on no account to be omitted.  Hence,
+naturally, a strong desire to omit it.  The Professor takes bold
+ground against these abnormal freaks of nature, and it was nothing to
+him that the public would demand that we should see Linville Falls.
+In the first place, we could find no one who had ever seen them, and
+we spent two days in catechizing natives and strangers.  The nearest
+we came to information was from a workman at the furnace, who was
+born and raised within three miles of the Falls.  He had heard of
+people going there.  He had never seen them himself.  It was a good
+twenty-five miles there, over the worst road in the State we'd think
+it thirty before we got there.  Fifty miles of such travel to see a
+little water run down-hill!  The travelers reflected.  Every country
+has a local waterfall of which it boasts; they had seen a great many.
+One more would add little to the experience of life.  The vagueness
+of information, to be sure, lured the travelers to undertake the
+journey; but the temptation was resisted--something ought to be left
+for the next explorer--and so Linville remains a thing of the
+imagination.
+
+Towards evening, July 29, between showers, the Professor and the
+Friend rode along the narrow-gauge road, down Johnson's Creek, to
+Roan Station, the point of departure for ascending Roan Mountain.  It
+was a ride of an hour and a half over a fair road, fringed with
+rhododendrons, nearly blossomless; but at a point on the stream this
+sturdy shrub had formed a long bower where under a table might have
+been set for a temperance picnic, completely overgrown with wild
+grape, and still gay with bloom.  The habitations on the way are
+mostly board shanties and mean frame cabins, but the railway is
+introducing ambitious architecture here and there in the form of
+ornamental filigree work on flimsy houses; ornamentation is apt to
+precede comfort in our civilization.
+
+Roan Station is on the Doe River (which flows down from Roan
+Mountain), and is marked at 1265 feet above the sea.  The visitor
+will find here a good hotel, with open wood fires (not ungrateful in
+a July evening), and obliging people.  This railway from Johnson
+City, hanging on the edge of the precipices that wall the gorge of
+the Doe, is counted in this region by the inhabitants one of the
+engineering wonders of the world.  The tourist is urged by all means
+to see both it and Linville Falls.
+
+The tourist on horseback, in search of exercise and recreation, is
+not probably expected to take stock of moral conditions.  But this
+Mitchell County, although it was a Union county during the war and is
+Republican in politics (the Southern reader will perhaps prefer
+another adverb to "although"), has had the worst possible reputation.
+The mountains were hiding-places of illicit distilleries; the woods
+were full of grog-shanties, where the inflaming fluid was sold as
+"native brandy," quarrels and neighborhood difficulties were
+frequent, and the knife and pistol were used on the slightest
+provocation.  Fights arose about boundaries and the title to mica
+mines, and with the revenue officers; and force was the arbiter of
+all disputes.  Within the year four murders were committed in the
+sparsely settled county.  Travel on any of the roads was unsafe.  The
+tone of morals was what might be expected with such lawlessness.  A
+lady who came up on the road on the 4th of July, when an excursion
+party of country people took possession of the cars, witnessed a
+scene and heard language past belief.  Men, women, and children drank
+from whisky bottles that continually circulated, and a wild orgy
+resulted.  Profanity, indecent talk on topics that even the license
+of the sixteenth century would not have tolerated, and freedom of
+manners that even Teniers would have shrunk from putting on canvas,
+made the journey horrible.
+
+The unrestrained license of whisky and assault and murder had
+produced a reaction a few months previous to our visit.  The people
+had risen up in their indignation and broken up the groggeries.  So
+far as we observed temperance prevailed, backed by public-opinion.
+In our whole ride through the mountain region we saw only one or two
+places where liquor was sold.
+
+It is called twelve miles from Roan Station to Roan Summit.  The
+distance is probably nearer fourteen, and our horses were five hours
+in walking it.  For six miles the road runs by Doe River, here a
+pretty brook shaded with laurel and rhododendron, and a few
+cultivated patches of ground, and infrequent houses.  It was a blithe
+morning, and the horsemen would have given full indulgence to the
+spirit of adventure but for the attitude of the Professor towards
+mountains.  It was not with him a matter of feeling, but of
+principle, not to ascend them.  But here lay Roan, a long, sprawling
+ridge, lifting itself 6250 feet up into the sky.  Impossible to go
+around it, and the other side must be reached.  The Professor was
+obliged to surrender, and surmount a  difficulty which he could not
+philosophize out of his mind.
+
+>From the base of the mountain a road is very well engineered, in easy
+grades for carriages, to the top; but it was in poor repair and
+stony.  We mounted slowly through splendid forests, specially of fine
+chestnuts and hemlocks.  This big timber continues till within a mile
+and a half of the summit by the winding road, really within a short
+distance of the top.  Then there is a narrow belt of scrubby
+hardwood, moss-grown, and then large balsams, which crown the
+mountain.  As soon as we came out upon the southern slope we found
+great open spaces, covered with succulent grass, and giving excellent
+pasturage to cattle.  These rich mountain meadows are found on all
+the heights of this region.  The surface of Roan is uneven, and has
+no one culminating peak that commands the country, like the peak of
+Mount Washington, but several eminences within its range of probably
+a mile and a half, where various views can be had.  Near the highest
+point, sheltered from the north by balsams, stands a house of
+entertainment, with a detached cottage, looking across the great
+valley to the Black Mountain range.  The surface of the mountain is
+pebbly, but few rocks crop out; no ledges of any size are seen except
+at a distance from the hotel, on the north side, and the mountain
+consequently lacks that savage, unsubduable aspect which the White
+Hills of New Hampshire have.  It would, in fact, have been difficult
+to realize that we were over six thousand feet above the sea, except
+for that pallor in the sunlight, that atmospheric thinness and want
+of color which is an unpleasant characteristic of high altitudes.  To
+be sure, there is a certain brilliancy in the high air,--it is apt to
+be foggy on Roan,--and objects appear in sharp outline, but I have
+often experienced on such places that feeling of melancholy, which
+would, of course, deepen upon us all if we were sensible that the sun
+was gradually withdrawing its power of warmth and light.  The black
+balsam is neither a cheerful nor a picturesque tree; the frequent
+rains and mists on Roan keep the grass and mosses green, but the
+ground damp.  Doubtless a high mountain covered with vegetation has
+its compensation, but for me the naked granite rocks in sun and
+shower are more cheerful.
+
+The advantage of Roan is that one can live there and be occupied for
+a long time in mineral and botanical study.  Its mild climate,
+moisture, and great elevation make it unique in this country for the
+botanist.  The variety of plants assembled there is very large, and
+there are many, we were told, never or rarely found elsewhere in the
+United States.  At any rate, the botanists rave about Roan Mountain,
+and spend weeks at a time on it.  We found there ladies who could
+draw for us Grey's lily (then passed), and had kept specimens of the
+rhododendron (not growing elsewhere in this region) which has a deep
+red, almost purple color.
+
+The hotel (since replaced by a good house) was a rude mountain
+structure, with a couple of comfortable rooms for office and sitting-
+room, in which big wood fires were blazing; for though the
+thermometer might record 60 deg., as it did when we arrived, fire was
+welcome.  Sleeping-places partitioned off in the loft above gave the
+occupants a feeling of camping out, all the conveniences being
+primitive; and when the wind rose in the night and darkness, and the
+loose boards rattled and the timbers creaked, the sensation was not
+unlike that of being at sea.  The hotel was satisfactorily kept, and
+Southern guests, from as far south as New Orleans, were spending the
+season there, and not finding time hang heavy on their hands.  This
+statement is perhaps worth more than pages of description as to the
+character of Roan, and its contrast to Mount Washington.
+
+The summer weather is exceedingly uncertain on all these North
+Carolina mountains; they are apt at any moment to be enveloped in
+mist; and it would rather rain on them than not.  On the afternoon of
+our arrival there was fine air and fair weather, but not a clear sky.
+The distance was hazy, but the outlines were preserved.  We could see
+White Top, in Virginia; Grandfather Mountain, a long serrated range;
+the twin towers of Linville; and the entire range of the Black
+Mountains, rising from the valley, and apparently lower than we were.
+They get the name of Black from the balsams which cover the summits.
+
+The rain on Roan was of less annoyance by reason of the delightful
+company assembled at the hotel, which was in a manner at home there,
+and, thrown upon its own resources, came out uncommonly strong in
+agreeableness.  There was a fiddle in the house, which had some of
+the virtues of that celebrated in the history of old Mark Langston;
+the Professor was enabled to produce anything desired out of the
+literature of the eighteenth century; and what with the repartee of
+bright women, big wood fires, reading, and chat, there was no dull
+day or evening on Roan.  I can fancy, however, that it might tire in
+time, if one were not a botanist, without the resource of women's
+society.  The ladies staying here were probably all accomplished
+botanists, and the writer is indebted to one of them for a list of
+plants found on Roan, among which is an interesting weed, catalogued
+as Humana, perplexia negligens.  The species is, however, common
+elsewhere.
+
+The second morning opened, after a night of high wind, with a
+thunder-shower.  After it passed, the visitors tried to reach Eagle
+Cliff, two miles off, whence an extensive western prospect is had,
+but were driven back by a tempest, and rain practically occupied the
+day.  Now and then through the parted clouds we got a glimpse of a
+mountain-side, or the gleam of a valley.  On the lower mountains, at
+wide intervals apart, were isolated settlements, commonly a wretched
+cabin and a spot of girdled trees.  A clergyman here, not long ago,
+undertook to visit some of these cabins and carry his message to
+them.  In one wretched hut of logs he found a poor woman, with whom,
+after conversation on serious subjects, he desired to pray.  She
+offered no objection, and he kneeled down and prayed.  The woman
+heard him, and watched him for some moments with curiosity, in an
+effort to ascertain what he was doing, and then said :
+
+"Why, a man did that when he put my girl in a hole."
+
+Towards night the wind hauled round from the south to the northwest,
+and we went to High Bluff, a point on the north edge, where some
+rocks are piled up above the evergreens, to get a view of the sunset.
+In every direction the mountains were clear, and a view was obtained
+of the vast horizon and the hills and lowlands of several States--a
+continental prospect, scarcely anywhere else equaled for variety or
+distance.  The grandeur of mountains depends mostly on the state of
+the atmosphere.  Grandfather loomed up much more loftily than the day
+before, the giant range of the Blacks asserted itself in grim
+inaccessibility, and we could see, a small pyramid on the southwest
+horizon, King's Mountain in South Carolina, estimated to be distant
+one hundred and fifty miles.  To the north Roan falls from this point
+abruptly, and we had, like a map below us, the low country all the
+way into Virginia.  The clouds lay like lakes in the valleys of the
+lower hills, and in every direction were ranges of mountains wooded
+to the summits.  Off to the west by south lay the Great Smoky
+Mountains, disputing eminence with the Blacks.
+
+Magnificent and impressive as the spectacle was, we were obliged to
+contrast it unfavorably with that of the White Hills.  The rock here
+is a sort of sand or pudding stone; there is no limestone or granite.
+And all the hills are tree-covered.  To many this clothing of verdure
+is most restful and pleasing.  I missed the sharp outlines, the
+delicate artistic sky lines, sharply defined in uplifted bare granite
+peaks and ridges, with the purple and violet color of the northern
+mountains, and which it seems to me that limestone and granite
+formations give.  There are none of the great gorges and awful
+abysses of the White Mountains, both valleys and mountains here being
+more uniform in outline.  There are few precipices and jutting crags,
+and less is visible of the giant ribs and bones of the planet.
+
+Yet Roan is a noble mountain.  A lady from Tennessee asked me if I
+had ever seen anything to compare with it--she thought there could be
+nothing in the world.  One has to dodge this sort of question in the
+South occasionally, not to offend a just local pride.  It is
+certainly one of the most habitable of big mountains.  It is roomy on
+top, there is space to move about without too great fatigue, and one
+might pleasantly spend a season there, if he had agreeable company
+and natural tastes.
+
+Getting down from Roan on the south side is not as easy as ascending
+on the north; the road for five miles to the foot of the mountain is
+merely a river of pebbles, gullied by the heavy rains, down which the
+horses picked their way painfully.  The travelers endeavored to
+present a dashing and cavalier appearance to the group of ladies who
+waved good-by from the hotel, as they took their way over the waste
+and wind-blown declivities, but it was only a show, for the horses
+would neither caracole nor champ the bit (at a dollar a day) down-
+hill over the slippery stones, and, truth to tell, the wanderers
+turned with regret from the society of leisure and persiflage to face
+the wilderness of Mitchell County.
+
+"How heavy," exclaimed the Professor, pricking Laura Matilda to call
+her attention sharply to her footing
+
+    "How heavy do I journey on the way,
+     When what I seek--my weary travel's end
+     Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
+     Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend!
+     The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
+     Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
+     As if by some instinct the wretch did know
+     His rider loved not speed, being made from thee:
+     The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
+     That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
+     Which heavily he answers with a groan,
+     More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
+     For that same groan doth put this in my mind;
+     My grief lies onward and my joy behind."
+
+This was not spoken to the group who fluttered their farewells, but
+poured out to the uncomplaining forest, which rose up in ever
+statelier--and grander ranks to greet the travelers as they
+descended--the silent, vast forest, without note of bird or chip of
+squirrel, only the wind tossing the great branches high overhead in
+response to the sonnet.  Is there any region or circumstance of life
+that the poet did not forecast and provide for?  But what would have
+been his feelings if he could have known that almost three centuries
+after these lines were penned, they would be used to express the
+emotion of an unsentimental traveler in the primeval forests of the
+New World?  At any rate, he peopled the New World with the children
+of his imagination.  And, thought the Friend, whose attention to his
+horse did not permit him to drop into poetry, Shakespeare might have
+had a vision of this vast continent, though he did not refer to it,
+when he exclaimed:
+
+    "What is your substance, whereof are you made,
+     That millions of strange shadows on you tend?"
+
+Bakersville, the capital of Mitchell County, is eight miles from the
+top of Roan, and the last three miles of the way the horsemen found
+tolerable going, over which the horses could show their paces.  The
+valley looked fairly thrifty and bright, and was a pleasing
+introduction to Bakersville, a pretty place in the hills, of some six
+hundred inhabitants, with two churches, three indifferent hotels, and
+a court-house.  This mountain town, 255O feet above the sea, is said
+to have a decent winter climate, with little snow, favorable to
+fruit-growing, and, by contrast with New England, encouraging to
+people with weak lungs.
+
+This is the center of the mica mining, and of considerable excitement
+about minerals.  All around, the hills are spotted with "diggings."
+Most of the mines which yield well show signs of having been worked
+before, a very long time ago, no doubt by the occupants before the
+Indians.  The mica is of excellent quality and easily mined.  It is
+got out in large irregular-shaped blocks and transported to the
+factories, where it is carefully split by hand, and the laminae, of
+as large size as can be obtained, are trimmed with shears and tied up
+in packages for market.  The quantity of refuse, broken, and rotten
+mica piled up about the factories is immense, and all the roads round
+about glisten with its scales.  Garnets are often found imbedded in
+the laminae, flattened by the extreme pressure to which the mass was
+subjected.  It is fascinating material, this mica, to handle, and we
+amused ourselves by experimenting on the thinness to which its scales
+could be reduced by splitting.  It was at Bakersville that we saw
+specimens of mica that resembled the delicate tracery in the moss-
+agate and had the iridescent sheen of the rainbow colors--the most
+delicate greens, reds, blues, purples, and gold, changing from one to
+the other in the reflected light.  In the texture were the tracings
+of fossil forms of ferns and the most exquisite and delicate
+vegetable beauty of the coal age.  But the magnet shows this tracery
+to be iron.  We were shown also emeralds and "diamonds," picked up in
+this region, and there is a mild expectation in all the inhabitants
+of great mineral treasure.  A singular product of the region is the
+flexible sandstone.  It is a most uncanny stone.  A slip of it a
+couple of feet long and an inch in diameter each way bends in the
+hand like a half-frozen snake.  This conduct of a substance that we
+have been taught to regard as inflexible impairs one's confidence in
+the stability of nature and affects him as an earthquake does.
+
+This excitement over mica and other minerals has the usual effect of
+starting up business and creating bad blood.  Fortunes have been
+made, and lost in riotous living; scores of visionary men have been
+disappointed; lawsuits about titles and claims have multiplied, and
+quarrels ending in murder have been frequent in the past few years.
+The mica and the illicit whisky have worked together to make this
+region one of lawlessness and violence.  The travelers were told
+stories of the lack of common morality and decency in the region, but
+they made no note of them.  And, perhaps fortunately, they were not
+there during court week to witness the scenes of license that were
+described.  This court week, which draws hither the whole population,
+is a sort of Saturnalia.  Perhaps the worst of this is already a
+thing of the past; for the outrages a year before had reached such a
+pass that by a common movement the sale of whisky was stopped (not
+interdicted, but stopped), and not a drop of liquor could be bought
+in Bakersville nor within three miles of it.
+
+The jail at Bakersville is a very simple residence.  The main
+building is brick, two stories high and about twelve feet square.
+The walls are so loosely laid up that it seems as if a colored
+prisoner might butt his head through.  Attached to this is a room for
+the jailer.  In the lower room is a wooden cage, made of logs bolted
+together and filled with spikes, nine feet by ten feet square and
+perhaps seven or eight feet high.  Between this cage and the wall is
+a space of eighteen inches in width.  It has a narrow door, and an
+opening through which the food is passed to the prisoners, and a
+conduit leading out of it.  Of course it soon becomes foul, and in
+warm weather somewhat warm.  A recent prisoner, who wanted more
+ventilation than the State allowed him, found some means, by a loose
+plank, I think, to batter a hole in the outer wall opposite the
+window in the cage, and this ragged opening, seeming to the jailer a
+good sanitary arrangement, remains.  Two murderers occupied this
+apartment at the time of our visit.  During the recent session of
+court, ten men had been confined in this narrow space, without room
+enough for them to lie down together.  The cage in the room above, a
+little larger, had for tenant a person who was jailed for some
+misunderstanding about an account, and who was probably innocent--
+from the jailer's statement.  This box is a wretched residence, month
+after month, while awaiting trial.
+
+We learned on inquiry that it is practically impossible to get a jury
+to convict of murder in this region, and that these admitted felons
+would undoubtedly escape.  We even heard that juries were purchasable
+here, and that a man's success in court depended upon the length of
+his purse.  This is such an unheard-of thing that we refused to
+credit it.  When the Friend attempted to arouse the indignation of
+the Professor about the barbarity of this jail, the latter defended
+it on the ground that as confinement was the only punishment that
+murderers were likely to receive in this region, it was well to make
+their detention disagreeable to them.  But the Friend did not like
+this wild-beast cage for men, and could only exclaim,
+
+"Oh, murder!  what crimes are done in thy name."
+
+If the comrades wished an adventure, they had a small one, more
+interesting to them than to the public, the morning they left
+Bakersville to ride to Burnsville, which sets itself up as the
+capital of Yancey.  The way for the first three miles lay down a
+small creek and in a valley fairly settled, the houses, a store, and
+a grist-mill giving evidence of the new enterprise of the region.
+When Toe River was reached, there was a choice of routes.  We might
+ford the Toe at that point, where the river was wide, but shallow,
+and the crossing safe, and climb over the mountain by a rough but
+sightly road, or descend the stream by a better road and ford the
+river at a place rather dangerous to those unfamiliar with it.  The
+danger attracted us, but we promptly chose the hill road on account
+of the views, for we were weary of the limited valley prospects.
+
+The Toe River, even here, where it bears westward, is a very
+respectable stream in size, and not to be trifled with after a
+shower.  It gradually turns northward, and, joining the Nollechucky,
+becomes part of the Tennessee system.  We crossed it by a long,
+diagonal ford, slipping and sliding about on the round stones, and
+began the ascent of a steep hill.  The sun beat down unmercifully,
+the way was stony, and the horses did not relish the weary climbing.
+The Professor, who led the way, not for the sake of leadership, but
+to be the discoverer of laden blackberry bushes, which began to offer
+occasional refreshment, discouraged by the inhospitable road and
+perhaps oppressed by the moral backwardness of things in general,
+cried out:
+
+    "Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,--
+     As, to behold desert a beggar born,
+     And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
+     And purest faith unhappily foresworn,
+     And gilded honor shamefully misplaced,
+     And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
+     And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
+     And strength by limping sway disabled,
+     And art made tongue-tied by authority,
+     And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
+     And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
+     And captive good attending captain ill:
+     Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
+     Save that, to die, I leave my love alone."
+
+In the midst of a lively discussion of this pessimistic view of the
+inequalities of life, in which desert and capacity are so often put
+at disadvantage by birth in beggarly conditions, and brazen
+assumption raises the dust from its chariot wheels for modest merit
+to plod along in, the Professor swung himself off his horse to attack
+a blackberry bush, and the Friend, representing simple truth, and
+desirous of getting a wider prospect, urged his horse up the hill.
+At the top he encountered a stranger, on a sorrel horse, with whom he
+entered into conversation and extracted all the discouragement the
+man had as to the road to Burnsville.
+
+Nevertheless, the view opened finely and extensively.  There are few
+exhilarations comparable to that of riding or walking along a high
+ridge, and the spirits of the traveler rose many degrees above the
+point of restful death, for which the Professor was crying when he
+encountered the blackberry bushes.  Luckily the Friend soon fell in
+with a like temptation, and dismounted.  He discovered something that
+spoiled his appetite for berries.  His coat, strapped on behind the
+saddle, had worked loose, the pocket was open, and the pocket-book
+was gone.  This was serious business.  For while the Professor was
+the cashier, and traveled like a Rothschild, with large drafts, the
+Friend represented the sub-treasury.  That very morning, in response
+to inquiry as to the sinews of travel, the Friend had displayed,
+without counting, a roll of bills.  These bills had now disappeared,
+and when the Friend turned back to communicate his loss, in the
+character of needy nothing not trimm'd in jollity, he had a
+sympathetic listener to the tale of woe.
+
+Going back on such a journey is the woefulest experience, but retrace
+our steps we must.  Perhaps the pocket-book lay in the road not half
+a mile back.  But not in half a mile, or a mile, was it found.
+Probably, then, the man on the sorrel horse had picked it up.  But
+who was the man on the sorrel horse, and where had he gone?  Probably
+the coat worked loose in crossing Toe River and the pocket-book had
+gone down-stream.  The number of probabilities was infinite, and each
+more plausible than the others as it occurred to us.  We inquired at
+every house we had passed on the way, we questioned every one we met.
+At length it began to seem improbable that any one would remember if
+he had picked up a pocketbook that morning.  This is just the sort of
+thing that slips an untrained memory.
+
+At a post office or doctor's shop, or inn for drovers, it might be
+either or neither, where several horses were tied to the fence,, and
+a group of men were tilted back in cane chairs on the veranda, we
+unfolded our misfortune and made particular inquiries for a man on a
+sorrel horse.  Yes, such a man, David Thomas by name, had just ridden
+towards Bakersville.  If he had found the pocket-book, we would
+recover it.  He was an honest man.  It might, however, fall into
+hands that would freeze to it.
+
+Upon consultation, it was the general verdict that there were men in
+the county who would keep it if they had picked it up.  But the
+assembly manifested the liveliest interest in the incident.  One
+suggested Toe River.  Another thought it risky to drop a purse on any
+road.  But there was a chorus of desire expressed that we should find
+it, and in this anxiety was exhibited a decided sensitiveness about
+the honor of Mitchell County.  It seemed too bad that a stranger
+should go away with the impression that it was not safe to leave
+money anywhere in it.  We felt very much obliged for this genuine
+sympathy, and we told them that if a pocket-book were lost in this
+way on a Connecticut road, there would be felt no neighborhood
+responsibility for it, and that nobody would take any interest in the
+incident except the man who lost, and the man who found.
+
+By the time the travelers pulled up at a store in Bakersville they
+had lost all expectation of recovering the missing article, and were
+discussing the investment of more money in an advertisement in the
+weekly newspaper of the capital.  The Professor, whose reform
+sentiments agreed with those of the newspaper, advised it.  There was
+a group of idlers, mica acquaintances of the morning, and
+philosophers in front of the store, and the Friend opened the
+colloquy by asking if a man named David Thomas had been seen in town.
+He was in town, had ridden in within an hour, and his brother, who
+was in the group, would go in search of him.  The information was
+then given of the loss, and that the rider had met David Thomas just
+before it was discovered, on the mountain beyond the Toe.  The news
+made a sensation, and by the time David Thomas appeared a crowd of a
+hundred had drawn around the horsemen eager for further developments.
+Mr. Thomas was the least excited of the group as he took his position
+on the sidewalk, conscious of the dignity of the occasion and that he
+was about to begin a duel in which both reputation and profit were
+concerned.  He recollected meeting the travelers in the morning.
+
+The Friend said, "I discovered that I had lost my purse just after
+meeting you; it may have been dropped in Toe River, but I was told
+back here that if David Thomas had picked it up, it was as safe as if
+it were in the bank."
+
+"What sort of a pocket-book was it?"  asked Mr. Thomas.
+
+"It was of crocodile skin, or what is sold for that, very likely it
+is an imitation, and about so large indicating the size."
+
+"What had it in it?"
+
+"Various things.  Some specimens of mica; some bank checks, some
+money."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Yes, a photograph.  And, oh, something that I presume is not in
+another pocket-book in North Carolina,--in an envelope, a lock of the
+hair of George Washington, the Father of his Country."  Sensation
+mixed with incredulity.  Washington's hair did seem such an odd part
+of an outfit for a journey of this kind.
+
+"How much money was in it?"
+
+"That I cannot say, exactly.  I happen to remember four twenty-dollar
+United States notes, and a roll of small bills, perhaps something
+over a hundred dollars."
+
+"Is that the pocket-book?"  asked David Thomas, slowly pulling the
+loved and lost out of his trousers pocket.
+
+"It is."
+
+"You'd be willing to take your oath on it?"
+
+"I should be delighted to."
+
+"Well, I guess there ain't so much money in it.  You can count it
+[handing it over]; there hain't been nothing taken out.  I can't
+read, but my friend here counted it over, and he says there ain't as
+much as that."
+
+Intense interest in the result of the counting.  One hundred and ten
+dollars!  The Friend selected one of the best engraved of the notes,
+and appealed to the crowd if they thought that was the square thing
+to do.  They did so think, and David Thomas said it was abundant.
+And then said the Friend :
+
+"I'm exceedingly grateful to you besides.  Washington's hair is
+getting scarce, and I did not want to lose these few hairs, gray as
+they are.  You've done the honest thing, Mr. Thomas, as was expected
+of you.  You might have kept the whole.  But I reckon if there had
+been five hundred dollars in the book and you had kept it, it
+wouldn't have done you half as much good as giving it up has done;
+and your reputation as an honest man is worth a good deal more than
+this pocket-book.  [The Professor was delighted with this sentiment,
+because it reminded him of a Sunday-school.]  I shall go away with a
+high opinion of the honesty of Mitchell County."
+
+"Oh, he lives in Yancey," cried two or three voices.  At which there
+was a great laugh.
+
+"Well, I wondered where he came from."  And the Mitchell County
+people laughed again at their own expense, and the levee broke up.
+It was exceedingly gratifying, as we spread the news of the recovered
+property that afternoon at every house on our way to the Toe, to see
+what pleasure it gave.  Every man appeared to feel that the honor of
+the region had been on trial--and had stood the test.
+
+The eighteen miles to Burnsville had now to be added to the morning
+excursion, but the travelers were in high spirits, feeling the truth
+of the adage that it is better to have loved and lost, than never to
+have lost at all.  They decided, on reflection, to join company with
+the mail-rider, who was going to Burnsville by the shorter route, and
+could pilot them over the dangerous ford of the Toe.
+
+The mail-rider was a lean, sallow, sinewy man, mounted on a sorry
+sorrel nag, who proved, however, to have blood in her, and to be a
+fast walker and full of endurance.  The mail-rider was taciturn, a
+natural habit for a man who rides alone the year round, over a lonely
+road, and has nothing whatever to think of.  He had been in the war
+sixteen months, in Hugh White's regiment,--reckon you've heerd of
+him?
+
+"Confederate?"
+
+"Which?"
+
+"Was he on the Union or Confederate side?"
+
+"Oh, Union."
+
+"Were you in any engagements?"
+
+"Which?"
+
+"Did you have any fighting?"
+
+"Not reg'lar."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Which?"
+
+"What did you do in Hugh White's regiment?"
+
+"Oh, just cavorted round the mountains."
+
+"You lived on the country?"
+
+"Which?"
+
+"Picked up what you could find, corn, bacon, horses?"
+
+"That's about so.  Did n't make much difference which side was round,
+the country got cleaned out."
+
+"Plunder seems to have been the object?"
+
+"Which?"
+
+"You got a living out of the farmers?"
+
+"You bet."
+
+Our friend and guide seemed to have been a jayhawker and mountain
+marauder--on the right side.  His attachment to the word "which"
+prevented any lively flow of conversation, and there seemed to be
+only two trains of ideas running in his mind: one was the subject of
+horses and saddles, and the other was the danger of the ford we were
+coming to, and he exhibited a good deal of ingenuity in endeavoring
+to excite our alarm.  He returned to the ford from every other
+conversational excursion, and after every silence.
+
+I do' know's there 's any great danger; not if you know the ford.
+Folks is carried away there.  The Toe gits up sudden.  There's been
+right smart rain lately.
+
+If you're afraid, you can git set over in a dugout, and I'll take
+your horses across.  Mebbe you're used to fording?  It's a pretty bad
+ford for them as don't know it.  But you'll get along if you mind
+your eye.  There's some rocks you'll have to look out for.  But
+you'll be all right if you follow me."
+
+Not being very successful in raising an interest in the dangers of
+his ford, although he could not forego indulging a malicious pleasure
+in trying to make the strangers uncomfortable, he finally turned his
+attention to a trade.  "This hoss of mine," he said, "is just the
+kind of brute-beast you want for this country.  Your hosses is too
+heavy.  How'll you swap for that one o' yourn?"  The reiterated
+assertion that the horses were not ours, that they were hired, made
+little impression on him.  All the way to Burnsville he kept
+referring to the subject of a trade.  The instinct of "swap" was
+strong in him.  When we met a yoke of steers, he turned round and
+bantered the owner for a trade.  Our saddles took his fancy.  They
+were of the army pattern, and he allowed that one of them would just
+suit him.  He rode a small flat English pad, across which was flung
+the United States mail pouch, apparently empty.  He dwelt upon the
+fact that his saddle was new and ours were old, and the advantages
+that would accrue to us from the exchange.  He did n't care if they
+had been through the war, as they had, for he fancied an army saddle.
+The Friend answered for himself that the saddle he rode belonged to a
+distinguished Union general, and had a bullet in it that was put
+there by a careless Confederate in the first battle of Bull Run, and
+the owner would not part with it for money.  But the mail-rider said
+he did n't mind that.  He would n't mind swapping his new saddle for
+my old one and the rubber coat and leggings.  Long before we reached
+the ford we thought we would like to swap the guide, even at the,
+risk of drowning.  The ford was passed, in due time, with no
+inconvenience save that of wet feet, for the stream was breast high
+to the horses; but being broad and swift and full of sunken rocks and
+slippery stones, and the crossing tortuous, it is not a ford to be
+commended.  There is a curious delusion that a rider has in crossing
+a swift broad stream.  It is that he is rapidly drifting up-stream,
+while in fact the tendency of the horse is to go with the current.
+
+The road in the afternoon was not unpicturesque, owing to the streams
+and the ever noble forests, but the prospect was always very limited.
+Agriculturally, the country was mostly undeveloped.  The travelers
+endeavored to get from the rider an estimate of the price of land.
+Not much sold, he said.  "There was one sale of a big piece last
+year; the owner enthorited Big Tom Wilson to sell it, but I d'know
+what he got for it,"
+
+All the way along, the habitations were small log cabins, with one
+room, chinked with mud, and these were far between; and only
+occasionally thereby a similar log structure, unchinked, laid up like
+a cob house, that served for a stable.  Not much cultivation, except
+now and then a little patch of poor corn on a steep hillside,
+occasionally a few apple-trees, and a peach-tree without fruit.  Here
+and there was a house that had been half finished and then abandoned,
+or a shanty in which a couple of young married people were just
+beginning life.  Generally the cabins (confirming the accuracy of the
+census of 1880 swarmed with children, and nearly all the women were
+thin and sickly.
+
+In the day's ride we did not see a wheeled vehicle, and only now and
+then a horse.  We met on the road small sleds, drawn by a steer,
+sometimes by a cow, on which a bag of grist was being hauled to the
+mill, and boys mounted on steers gave us good-evening with as much
+pride as if they were bestriding fiery horses.
+
+In a house of the better class, which was a post-house, and where the
+rider and the woman of the house had a long consultation over a
+letter to be registered, we found the rooms decorated with patent-
+medicine pictures, which were often framed in strips of mica, an
+evidence of culture that was worth noting.  Mica was the rage.  Every
+one with whom we talked, except the rider, had more or less the
+mineral fever.  The impression was general that the mountain region
+of North Carolina was entering upon a career of wonderful mineral
+development, and the most extravagant expectations were entertained.
+Mica was the shining object of most "prospecting," but gold was also
+on the cards.
+
+The country about Burnsville is not only mildly picturesque, but very
+pleasing.  Burnsville, the county-seat of Yancey, at an elevation of
+2840 feet, is more like a New England village than any hitherto seen.
+Most of the houses stand about a square, which contains the shabby
+court-house; around it are two small churches, a jail, an inviting
+tavern) with a long veranda, and a couple of stores.  On an
+overlooking hill is the seminary.  Mica mining is the exciting
+industry, but it is agriculturally a good country.  The tavern had
+recently been enlarged to meet the new demands for entertainment) and
+is a roomy structure, fresh with paint and only partially organized.
+The travelers were much impressed with the brilliant chambers, the
+floors of which were painted in alternate stripes of vivid green and
+red.  The proprietor, a very intelligent and enterprising man, who
+had traveled often in the North, was full of projects for the
+development of his region and foremost in its enterprises, and had
+formed a considerable collection of minerals.  Besides, more than any
+one else we met, he appreciated the beauty of his country, and took
+us to a neighboring hill, where we had a view of Table Mountain to
+the east and the nearer giant Blacks.  The elevation of Burnsville
+gives it a delightful summer climate, the gentle undulations of the
+country are agreeable, the views noble, the air is good, and it is
+altogether a "livable" and attractive place.  With facilities of
+communication, it would be a favorite summer resort.  Its nearness to
+the great mountains (the whole Black range is in Yancey County), its
+fine pure air, its opportunity for fishing and hunting, commend it to
+those in search of an interesting and restful retreat in summer.
+
+But it should be said that before the country can attract and retain
+travelers, its inhabitants must learn something about the preparation
+of food.  If, for instance, the landlord's wife at Burnsville had
+traveled with her husband, her table would probably have been more on
+a level with his knowledge of the world, and it would have contained
+something that the wayfaring man, though a Northerner, could eat.  We
+have been on the point several times in this journey of making the
+observation, but have been restrained by a reluctance to touch upon
+politics, that it was no wonder that a people with such a cuisine
+should have rebelled.  The travelers were in a rebellious mood most
+of the time.
+
+The evidences of enterprise in this region were pleasant to see, but
+the observers could not but regret, after all, the intrusion of the
+money-making spirit, which is certain to destroy much of the present
+simplicity.  It is as yet, to a degree, tempered by a philosophic
+spirit.  The other guest of the house was a sedate, long-bearded
+traveler for some Philadelphia house, and in the evening he and the
+landlord fell into a conversation upon what Socrates calls the
+disadvantage of the pursuit of wealth to the exclusion of all noble
+objects, and they let their fancy play about Vanderbilt, who was
+agreed to be the richest man in the world, or that ever lived.
+
+"All I want," said the long-bearded man, "is enough to be
+comfortable.  I would n't have Vanderbilt's wealth if he'd give it to
+me."
+
+"Nor I," said the landlord.  "Give me just enough to be comfortable."
+[The tourist couldn't but note that his ideas of enough to be
+comfortable had changed a good deal since he had left his little farm
+and gone into the mica business, and visited New York, and enlarged
+and painted his tavern.]  I should like to know what more Vanderbilt
+gets out of his money than I get out of mine.  I heard tell of a
+young man who went to Vanderbilt to get employment.  Vanderbilt
+finally offered to give the young man, if he would work for him, just
+what he got himself.  The young man jumped at that--he'd be perfectly
+satisfied with that pay.  And Vanderbilt said that all he got was
+what he could eat and wear, and offered to give the young man his
+board and clothes."
+
+"I declare" said the long-bearded man.  "That's just it.  Did you
+ever see Vanderbilt's house?  Neither did I, but I heard he had a
+vault built in it five feet thick, solid.  He put in it two hundred
+millions of dollars, in gold.  After a year, he opened it and put in
+twelve millions more, and called that a poor year.  They say his
+house has gold shutters to the windows, so I've heard."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," said the landlord.  "I heard he had one door in
+his house cost forty thousand dollars.  I don't know what it is made
+of, unless it's made of gold."
+
+Sunday was a hot and quiet day.  The stores were closed and the two
+churches also, this not being the Sunday for the itinerant preacher.
+The jail also showed no sign of life, and when we asked about it, we
+learned that it was empty, and had been for some time.  No liquor is
+sold in the place, nor within at least three miles of it.  It is not
+much use to try to run a jail without liquor.
+
+In the course of the morning a couple of stout fellows arrived,
+leading between them a young man whom they had arrested,--it didn't
+appear on any warrant, but they wanted to get him committed and
+locked up.  The offense charged was carrying a pistol; the boy had
+not used it against anybody, but he had flourished it about and
+threatened, and the neighbors wouldn't stand that; they were bound to
+enforce the law against carrying concealed weapons.
+
+The captors were perfectly good-natured and on friendly enough terms
+with the young man, who offered no resistance, and seemed not
+unwilling to go to jail.  But a practical difficulty arose.  The jail
+was locked up, the sheriff had gone away into the country with the
+key, and no one could get in.  It did not appear that there was any
+provision for boarding the man in jail; no one in fact kept it.  The
+sheriff was sent for, but was not to be found, and the prisoner and
+his captors loafed about the square all day, sitting on the fence,
+rolling on the grass, all of them sustained by a simple trust that
+the jail would be open some time.
+
+Late in the afternoon we left them there, trying to get into the
+jail.  But we took a personal leaf out of this experience.  Our
+Virginia friends, solicitous for our safety in this wild country, had
+urged us not to venture into it without arms--take at least, they
+insisted, a revolver each.  And now we had to congratulate ourselves
+that we had not done so.  If we had, we should doubtless on that
+Sunday have been waiting, with the other law-breaker, for admission
+into the Yancey County jail.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+>From Burnsville the next point in our route was Asheville, the most
+considerable city in western North Carolina, a resort of fashion, and
+the capital of Buncombe County.  It is distant some forty to forty-
+five miles, too long a journey for one day over such roads.  The
+easier and common route is by the Ford of Big Ivy, eighteen miles,
+the first stopping-place; and that was a long ride for the late
+afternoon when we were in condition to move.
+
+The landlord suggested that we take another route, stay that night on
+Caney River with Big Tom Wilson, only eight miles from Burnsville,
+cross Mount Mitchell, and go down the valley of the Swannanoa to
+Asheville.  He represented this route as shorter and infinitely more
+picturesque.  There was nothing worth seeing on the Big Ivy way.
+With scarcely a moment's reflection and while the horses were
+saddling, we decided to ride to Big Tom Wilson's.  I could not at the
+time understand, and I cannot now, why the Professor consented.  I
+should hardly dare yet confess to my fixed purpose to ascend Mount
+Mitchell.  It was equally fixed in the Professor's mind not to do it.
+We had not discussed it much.  But it is safe to say that if he had
+one well-defined purpose on this trip, it was not to climb Mitchell.
+"Not," as he put it,--
+
+    "Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
+     Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,"
+
+had suggested the possibility that he could do it.
+
+But at the moment the easiest thing to do seemed to be to ride down
+to Wilson's.  When there we could turn across country to the Big Ivy,
+although, said the landlord, you can ride over Mitchell just as easy
+as anywhere--a lady rode plump over the peak of it last week, and
+never got off her horse.  You are not obliged to go; at Big Tom's,
+you can go any way you please.
+
+Besides, Big Tom himself weighed in the scale more than Mount
+Mitchell, and not to see him was to miss one of the most
+characteristic productions of the country, the typical backwoodsman,
+hunter, guide.  So we rode down Bolling Creek, through a pretty,
+broken country, crossed the Caney River, and followed it up a few
+miles to Wilson's plantation.  There are little intervales along the
+river, where hay is cut and corn grown, but the region is not much
+cleared, and the stock browse about in the forest.  Wilson is the
+agent of the New York owner of a tract of some thirteen thousand
+acres of forest, including the greater portion of Mount Mitchell, a
+wilderness well stocked with bears and deer, and full of streams
+abounding in trout.  It is also the playground of the rattlesnake.
+With all these attractions Big Tom's life is made lively in watching
+game poachers, and endeavoring to keep out the foraging cattle of the
+few neighbors.  It is not that the cattle do much injury in the
+forest, but the looking after them is made a pretense for roaming
+around, and the roamers are liable to have to defend themselves
+against the deer, or their curiosity is excited about the bears, and
+lately they have taken to exploding powder in the streams to kill the
+fish.
+
+Big Tom's plantation has an openwork stable, an ill-put-together
+frame house, with two rooms and a kitchen, and a veranda in front, a
+loft, and a spring-house in the rear.  Chickens and other animals
+have free run of the premises.  Some fish-rods hung in the porch, and
+hunter's gear depended on hooks in the passage-way to the kitchen.
+In one room were three beds, in the other two, only one in the
+kitchen.  On the porch was a loom, with a piece of cloth in process.
+The establishment had the air of taking care of itself.  Neither Big
+Tom nor his wife was at home.  Sunday seemed to be a visiting day,
+and the travelers had met many parties on horseback.  Mrs.  Wilson
+was away for a visit of a day or two.  One of the sons, who was
+lounging on the veranda, was at last induced to put up the horses; a
+very old woman, who mumbled and glared at the visitors, was found in
+the kitchen, but no intelligible response could be got out of her.
+Presently a bright little girl, the housekeeper in charge, appeared.
+She said that her paw had gone up to her brother's (her brother was
+just married and lived up the river in the house where Mr. Murchison
+stayed when he was here) to see if he could ketch a bear that had
+been rootin' round in the corn-field the night before.  She expected
+him back by sundown--by dark anyway.  'Les he'd gone after the bear,
+and then you could n't tell when he would come.
+
+It appeared that Big Tom was a thriving man in the matter of family.
+More boys appeared.  Only one was married, but four had "got their
+time."  As night approached, and no Wilson, there was a good deal of
+lively and loud conversation about the stock and the chores, in all
+of which the girl took a leading and intelligent part, showing a
+willingness to do her share, but not to have all the work put upon
+her.  It was time to go down the road and hunt up the cows; the mule
+had disappeared and must be found before dark; a couple of steers
+hadn't turned up since the day before yesterday, and in the midst of
+the gentle contention as to whose business all this was, there was an
+alarm of cattle in the corn-patch, and the girl started off on a run
+in that direction.  It was due to the executive ability of this small
+girl, after the cows had been milked and the mule chased and the boys
+properly stirred up, that we had supper.  It was of the oilcloth,
+iron fork, tin spoon, bacon, hot bread and honey variety,
+distinguished, however, from all meals we had endured or enjoyed
+before by the introduction of fried eggs (as the breakfast next
+morning was by the presence of chicken), and it was served by the
+active maid with right hearty good-will and genuine hospitable
+intent.
+
+While it was in progress, after nine o'clock, Big Tom arrived, and,
+with a simple greeting, sat down and attacked the supper and began to
+tell about the bear.  There was not much to tell except that he
+hadn't seen the bear, and that, judged by his tracks and his sloshing
+around, he must be a big one.  But a trap had been set for him, and
+he judged it wouldn't be long before we had some bear meat.  Big Tom
+Wilson, as he is known all over this part of the State, would not
+attract attention from his size.  He is six feet and two inches tall,
+very spare and muscular, with sandy hair, long gray beard, and honest
+blue eyes.  He has a reputation for great strength and endurance; a
+man of native simplicity and mild manners.  He had been rather
+expecting us from what Mr. Murchison wrote; he wrote (his son had
+read out the letter) that Big Tom was to take good care of us, and
+anybody that Mr. Murchison sent could have the best he'd got.
+
+Big Tom joined us in our room after supper.  This apartment, with two
+mighty feather-beds, was hung about with all manner of stuffy family
+clothes, and had in one end a vast cavern for a fire.  The floor was
+uneven, and the hearthstones billowy.  When the fire was lighted, the
+effect of the bright light in the cavern and the heavy shadows in the
+room was Rembrandtish.  Big Tom sat with us before the fire and told
+bear stories.  Talk?  Why, it was not the least effort.  The stream
+flowed on without a ripple.  "Why, the old man," one of the sons
+confided to us next morning, "can begin and talk right over Mount
+Mitchell and all the way back, and never make a break."  Though Big
+Tom had waged a lifelong warfare with the bears, and taken the hide
+off at least a hundred of them, I could not see that he had any
+vindictive feeling towards the varmint, but simply an insatiable love
+of killing him, and he regarded him in that half-humorous light in
+which the bear always appears to those who study him.  As to deer--he
+couldn't tell how many of them he had slain.  But Big Tom was a
+gentleman: he never killed deer for mere sport.  With rattlesnakes,
+now, it was different.  There was the skin of one hanging upon a tree
+by the route we would take in the morning, a buster, he skinned him
+yesterday.  There was an entire absence, of braggadocio in Big Tom's
+talk, but somehow, as he went on, his backwoods figure loomed larger
+and larger in our imagination, and he seemed strangely familiar.  At
+length it came over us where we had met him before.  It was in
+Cooper's novels.  He was the Leather-Stocking exactly.  And yet he
+was an original; for he assured us that he had never read the
+Leather-Stocking Tales.  What a figure, I was thinking, he must have
+made in the late war!  Such a shot, such a splendid physique, such
+iron endurance!  I almost dreaded to hear his tales of the havoc he
+had wrought on the Union army.  Yes, he was in the war, he was
+sixteen months in the Confederate army, this Homeric man.  In what
+rank?"  Oh, I was a fifer!"
+
+But hunting and war did not by any means occupy the whole of Big
+Tom's life.  He was also engaged in "lawin'."  He had a long-time
+feud with a neighbor about a piece of land and alleged trespass, and
+they'd been "lawin'" for years, with no definite result; but as a
+topic of conversation it was as fully illustrative of frontier life
+as the bear-fighting.
+
+Long after we had all gone to bed, we heard Big Tom's continuous
+voice, through the thin partition that separated us from the kitchen,
+going on to his little boy about the bear; every circumstance of how
+he tracked him, and what corner of the field he entered, and where he
+went out, and his probable size and age, and the prospect of his
+coming again; these were the details of real everyday life, and
+worthy to be dwelt on by the hour.  The boy was never tired of
+pursuing them.  And Big Tom was just a big boy, also, in his delight
+in it all.
+
+Perhaps it was the fascination of Big Tom, perhaps the representation
+that we were already way off the Big Ivy route, and that it would, in
+fact, save time to go over the mountain and we could ride all the
+way, that made the Professor acquiesce, with no protest worth
+noticing, in the preparations that went on, as by a natural
+assumption, for going over Mitchell.  At any rate, there was an early
+breakfast, luncheon was put up, and by half-past seven we were riding
+up the Caney,--a half-cloudy day,--Big Tom swinging along on foot
+ahead, talking nineteen to the dozen.  There was a delightful
+freshness in the air, the dew-laden bushes, and the smell of the
+forest.  In half an hour we called at the hunting shanty of Mr.
+Murchison, wrote our names on the wall, according to custom, and
+regretted that we could not stay for a day in that retreat and try
+the speckled trout.  Making our way through the low growth and bushes
+of the valley, we came into a fine open forest, watered by a noisy
+brook, and after an hour's easy going reached the serious ascent.
+
+>From Wilson's to the peak of Mitchell it is seven and a half miles;
+we made it in five and a half hours.  A bridle path was cut years
+ago, but it has been entirely neglected.  It is badly washed, it is
+stony, muddy, and great trees have fallen across it which wholly
+block the way for horses.  At these places long detours were
+necessary, on steep hillsides and through gullies, over treacherous
+sink-holes in the rocks, through quaggy places, heaps of brush, and
+rotten logs.  Those who have ever attempted to get horses over such
+ground will not wonder at the slow progress we made.  Before we were
+halfway up the ascent, we realized the folly of attempting it on
+horseback; but then to go on seemed as easy as to go back.  The way
+was also exceedingly steep in places, and what with roots, and logs,
+and slippery rocks and stones, it was a desperate climb for the
+horses.
+
+What a magnificent forest!  Oaks, chestnuts, Poplars, hemlocks, the
+cucumber (a species of magnolia, with a pinkish, cucumber-like cone),
+and all sorts of northern and southern growths meeting here in
+splendid array.  And this gigantic forest, with little diminution in
+size of trees, continued two thirds of the way up.  We marked, as we
+went on, the maple, the black walnut, the buckeye, the hickory, the
+locust, and the guide pointed out in one section the largest cherry-
+trees we had ever seen; splendid trunks, each worth a large sum if it
+could be got to market.  After the great trees were left behind, we
+entered a garden of white birches, and then a plateau of swamp, thick
+with raspberry bushes, and finally the ridges, densely crowded with
+the funereal black balsam.
+
+Halfway up, Big Tom showed us his favorite, the biggest tree he knew.
+It was a poplar, or tulip.  It stands more like a column than a tree,
+rising high into the air, with scarcely a perceptible taper, perhaps
+sixty, more likely a hundred, feet before it puts out a limb.
+
+Its girth six feet from the ground is thirty-two feet!  I think it
+might be called Big Tom.  It stood here, of course, a giant, when
+Columbus sailed from Spain, and perhaps some sentimental traveler
+will attach the name of Columbus to it.
+
+In the woods there was not much sign of animal life, scarcely the
+note of a bird, but we noticed as we rode along in the otherwise
+primeval silence a loud and continuous humming overhead, almost like
+the sound of the wind in pine tops.  It was the humming of bees!  The
+upper branches were alive with these industrious toilers, and Big Tom
+was always on the alert to discover and mark a bee-gum, which he
+could visit afterwards.  Honey hunting is one of his occupations.
+Collecting spruce gum is another, and he was continually hacking off
+with his hatchet knobs of the translucent secretion.  How rich and
+fragrant are these forests!  The rhododendron was still in occasional
+bloom' and flowers of brilliant hue gleamed here and there.
+
+The struggle was more severe as we neared the summit, and the footing
+worse for the horses.  Occasionally it was safest to dismount and
+lead them up slippery ascents; but this was also dangerous, for it
+was difficult to keep them from treading on our heels, in their
+frantic flounderings, in the steep, wet, narrow, brier-grown path.
+At one uncommonly pokerish place, where the wet rock sloped into a
+bog, the rider of Jack thought it prudent to dismount, but Big Tom
+insisted that Jack would "make it" all right, only give him his head.
+The rider gave him his head, and the next minute Jack's four heels
+were in the air, and he came down on his side in a flash.  The rider
+fortunately extricated his leg without losing it, Jack scrambled out
+with a broken shoe, and the two limped along.  It was a wonder that
+the horses' legs were not broken a dozen times.
+
+As we approached the top, Big Tom pointed out the direction, a half
+mile away, of a small pond, a little mountain tarn, overlooked by a
+ledge of rock, where Professor Mitchell lost his life.  Big Tom was
+the guide that found his body.  That day, as we sat on the summit, he
+gave in great detail the story, the general outline of which is well
+known.
+
+The first effort to measure the height of the Black Mountains was
+made in 1835, by Professor Elisha Mitchell, professor of mathematics
+and chemistry in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
+Mr. Mitchell was a native of Connecticut, born in Washington,
+Litchfield County, in 1793; graduated at Yale, ordained a
+Presbyterian minister, and was for a time state surveyor; and became
+a professor at Chapel Hill in 1818.  He first ascertained and
+published the fact that the Black Mountains are the highest land east
+of the Rocky Mountains.  In 1844 he visited the locality again.
+Measurements were subsequently made by Professor Guyot and by Senator
+Clingman.  One of the peaks was named for the senator (the one next
+in height to Mitchell is described as Clingman on the state map), and
+a dispute arose as to whether Mitchell had really visited and
+measured the highest peak.  Senator Clingman still maintains that he
+did not, and that the peak now known as Mitchell is the one that
+Clingman first described.  The estimates of altitudes made by the
+three explorers named differed considerably.  The height now fixed
+for Mount Mitchell is 6711; that of Mount Washington is 6285.  There
+are twelve peaks in this range higher than Mount Washington, and if
+we add those in the Great Smoky Mountains which overtop it, there are
+some twenty in this State higher than the granite giant of New
+Hampshire.
+
+In order to verify his statement, Professor Mitchell (then in his
+sixty-fourth year) made a third ascent in June, 1857.  He was alone,
+and went up from the Swannanoa side.  He did not return.  No anxiety
+was felt for two or three days, as he was a good mountaineer, and it
+was supposed he had crossed the mountain and made his way out by the
+Caney River.  But when several days passed without tidings of him, a
+search party was formed.  Big Tom Wilson was with it.  They explored
+the mountain in all directions unsuccessfully.  At length Big Tom
+separated himself from his companions and took a course in accordance
+with his notion of that which would be pursued by a man lost in the
+clouds or the darkness.  He soon struck the trail of the wanderer,
+and, following it, discovered Mitchell's body lying in a pool at the
+foot of a rocky precipice some thirty feet high.  It was evident that
+Mitchell, making his way along the ridge in darkness or fog, had
+fallen off.  It was the ninth (or the eleventh) day of his
+disappearance, but in the pure mountain air the body had suffered no
+change.  Big Tom brought his companions to the place, and on
+consultation it was decided to leave the body undisturbed till
+Mitchell's friends could be present.
+
+There was some talk of burying him on the mountain, but the friends
+decided otherwise, and the remains, with much difficulty, were got
+down to Asheville and there interred.
+
+Some years afterwards, I believe at the instance of a society of
+scientists, it was resolved to transport the body to the summit of
+Mount Mitchell; for the tragic death of the explorer had forever
+settled in the popular mind the name of the mountain.  The task was
+not easy.  A road had to be cut, over which a sledge could be hauled,
+and the hardy mountaineers who undertook the removal were three days
+in reaching the summit with their burden.  The remains were
+accompanied by a considerable concourse, and the last rites on the
+top were participated in by a hundred or more scientists and
+prominent men from different parts of the State.  Such a strange
+cortege had never before broken the silence of this lonely
+wilderness, nor was ever burial more impressive than this wild
+interment above the clouds.
+
+We had been preceded in our climb all the way by a huge bear.  That
+he was huge, a lunker, a monstrous old varmint, Big Tom knew by the
+size of his tracks; that he was making the ascent that morning ahead
+of us, Big Tom knew by the freshness of the trail.  We might come
+upon him at any moment; he might be in the garden; was quite likely
+to be found in the raspberry patch.  That we did not encounter him I
+am convinced was not the fault of Big Tom, but of the bear.
+
+After a struggle of five hours we emerged from the balsams and briers
+into a lovely open meadow, of lush clover, timothy, and blue grass.
+We unsaddled the horses and turned them loose to feed in it.  The
+meadow sloped up to a belt of balsams and firs, a steep rocky knob,
+and climbing that on foot we stood upon the summit of Mitchell at one
+o'clock.  We were none too soon, for already the clouds were
+preparing for what appears to be a daily storm at this season.
+
+The summit is a nearly level spot of some thirty or forty feet in
+extent either way, with a floor of rock and loose stones.  The
+stunted balsams have been cut away so as to give a view.  The sweep
+of prospect is vast, and we could see the whole horizon except in the
+direction of Roan, whose long bulk was enveloped in cloud.  Portions
+of six States were in sight, we were told, but that is merely a
+geographical expression.  What we saw, wherever we looked, was an
+inextricable tumble of mountains, without order or leading line of
+direction,--domes, peaks, ridges, endless and countless, everywhere,
+some in shadow, some tipped with shafts of sunlight, all wooded and
+green or black, and all in more softened contours than our Northern
+hills, but still wild, lonesome, terrible.  Away in the southwest,
+lifting themselves up in a gleam of the western sky, the Great Smoky
+Mountains loomed like a frowning continental fortress, sullen and
+remote.  With Clingman and Gibbs and Holdback peaks near at hand and
+apparently of equal height, Mitchell seemed only a part and not
+separate from the mighty congregation of giants.
+
+In the center of the stony plot on the summit lie the remains of
+Mitchell.  To dig a grave in the rock was impracticable, but the
+loose stones were scooped away to the depth of a foot or so, the body
+was deposited, and the stones were replaced over it.  It was the
+original intention to erect a monument, but the enterprise of the
+projectors of this royal entombment failed at that point.  The grave
+is surrounded by a low wall of loose stones, to which each visitor
+adds one, and in the course of ages the cairn may grow to a good
+size.  The explorer lies there without name or headstone to mark his
+awful resting-place.  The mountain is his monument.  He is alone with
+its majesty.  He is there in the clouds, in the tempests, where the
+lightnings play, and thunders leap, amid the elemental tumult, in the
+occasional great calm and silence and the pale sunlight.  It is the
+most majestic, the most lonesome grave on earth.
+
+As we sat there, awed a little by this presence, the clouds were
+gathering from various quarters and drifting towards us.  We could
+watch the process of thunder-storms and the manufacture of tempests.
+I have often noticed on other high mountains how the clouds, forming
+like genii released from the earth, mount into the upper air, and in
+masses of torn fragments of mist hurry across the sky as to a
+rendezvous of witches.  This was a different display.  These clouds
+came slowly sailing from the distant horizon, like ships on an aerial
+voyage.  Some were below us, some on our level; they were all in
+well-defined, distinct masses, molten silver on deck, below trailing
+rain, and attended on earth by gigantic shadows that moved with them.
+This strange fleet of battle-ships, drifted by the shifting currents,
+was maneuvering for an engagement.  One after another, as they came
+into range about our peak of observation, they opened fire.  Sharp
+flashes of lightning darted from one to the other; a jet of flame
+from one leaped across the interval and was buried in the bosom of
+its adversary; and at every discharge the boom of great guns echoed
+through the mountains.  It was something more than a royal salute to
+the tomb of the mortal at our feet, for the masses of cloud were rent
+in the fray, at every discharge the rain was precipitated in
+increasing torrents, and soon the vast hulks were trailing torn
+fragments and wreaths of mist, like the shot-away shrouds and sails
+of ships in battle.  Gradually, from this long-range practice with
+single guns and exchange of broadsides, they drifted into closer
+conflict, rushed together, and we lost sight of the individual
+combatants in the general tumult of this aerial war.
+
+We had barely twenty minutes for our observations, when it was time
+to go; and had scarcely left the peak when the clouds enveloped it.
+We hastened down under the threatening sky to the saddles and the
+luncheon.  Just off from the summit, amid the rocks, is a complete
+arbor, or tunnel, of rhododendrons.  This cavernous place a Western
+writer has made the scene of a desperate encounter between Big Tom
+and a catamount, or American panther, which had been caught in a trap
+and dragged it there, pursued by Wilson.  It is an exceedingly
+graphic narrative, and is enlivened by the statement that Big Tom had
+the night before drunk up all the whisky of the party which had spent
+the night on the summit.  Now Big Tom assured us that the whisky part
+of the story was an invention; he was not (which is true) in the
+habit of using it; if he ever did take any, it might be a drop on
+Mitchell; in fact, when he inquired if we had a flask, he remarked
+that a taste of it would do him good then and there.  We regretted
+the lack of it in our baggage.  But what inclined Big Tom to
+discredit the Western writer's story altogether was the fact that he
+never in his life had had a difficulty with a catamount, and never
+had seen one in these mountains.
+
+Our lunch was eaten in haste.  Big Tom refused the chicken he had
+provided for us, and strengthened himself with slices of raw salt
+pork, which he cut from a hunk with his clasp-knife.  We caught and
+saddled our horses, who were reluctant to leave the rich feed,
+enveloped ourselves in waterproofs, and got into the stony path for
+the descent just as the torrent came down.  It did rain.  It
+lightened, the thunder crashed, the wind howled and twisted the
+treetops.  It was as if we were pursued by the avenging spirits of
+the mountains for our intrusion.  Such a tempest on this height had
+its terrors even for our hardy guide.  He preferred to be lower down
+while it was going on.  The crash and reverberation of the thunder
+did not trouble us so much as the swish of the wet branches in our
+faces and the horrible road, with its mud, tripping roots, loose
+stones, and slippery rocks.  Progress was slow.  The horses were in
+momentary danger of breaking their legs.  In the first hour there was
+not much descent.  In the clouds we were passing over Clingman,
+Gibbs, and Holdback.  The rain had ceased, but the mist still shut
+off all view, if any had been attainable, and bushes and paths were
+deluged.  The descent was more uncomfortable than the ascent, and we
+were compelled a good deal of the way to lead the jaded horses down
+the slippery rocks.
+
+>From the peak to the Widow Patten's, where we proposed to pass the
+night, is twelve miles, a distance we rode or scrambled down, every
+step of the road bad, in five and a half hours.  Halfway down we came
+out upon a cleared place, a farm, with fruit-trees and a house in
+ruins.  Here had been a summer hotel much resorted to before the war,
+but now abandoned.  Above it we turned aside for the view from
+Elizabeth rock, named from the daughter of the proprietor of the
+hotel, who often sat here, said Big Tom, before she went out of this
+world.  It is a bold rocky ledge, and the view from it, looking
+south, is unquestionably the finest, the most pleasing and picture-
+like, we found in these mountains.  In the foreground is the deep
+gorge of a branch of the Swannanoa, and opposite is the great wall of
+the Blue Ridge (the Blue Ridge is the most capricious and
+inexplicable system) making off to the Blacks.  The depth of the
+gorge, the sweep of the sky line, and the reposeful aspect of the
+scene to the sunny south made this view both grand and charming.
+Nature does not always put the needed dash of poetry into her
+extensive prospects.
+
+Leaving this clearing and the now neglected spring, where fashion
+used to slake its thirst, we zigzagged down the mountain-side through
+a forest of trees growing at every step larger and nobler, and at
+length struck a small stream, the North Fork of the Swannanoa, which
+led us to the first settlement.  Just at night,--it was nearly seven
+o'clock,--we entered one of the most stately forests I have ever
+seen, and rode for some distance in an alley of rhododendrons that
+arched overhead and made a bower.  It was like an aisle in a temple;
+high overhead was the somber, leafy roof, supported by gigantic
+columns.  Few widows have such an avenue of approach to their domain
+as the Widow Patten has.
+
+Cheering as this outcome was from the day's struggle and storm, the
+Professor seemed sunk in a profound sadness.  The auguries which the
+Friend drew from these signs of civilization of a charming inn and a
+royal supper did not lighten the melancholy of his mind.  "Alas," he
+said,
+
+    "Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
+     And make me travel forth without my cloak,
+     To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
+     Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
+     'T is not enough that through the cloud thou break,
+     To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
+     For no man well of such a salve can speak
+     That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
+     Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief:
+     Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss."
+
+"Loss of what?"  cried the Friend, as he whipped up his halting
+steed.
+
+"Loss of self-respect.  I feel humiliated that I consented to climb
+this mountain."
+
+"Nonsense!  You'll live to thank me for it, as the best thing you
+ever did.  It's over and done now, and you've got it to tell your
+friends."
+
+"That's just the trouble.  They'll ask me if I went up Mitchell, and
+I shall have to say I did.  My character for consistency is gone.
+Not that I care much what they think, but my own self-respect is
+gone.  I never believed I would do it.  A man ca'nt afford to lower
+himself in his own esteem, at my time of life."
+
+The Widow Patten's was only an advanced settlement in this narrow
+valley on the mountain-side, but a little group of buildings, a
+fence, and a gate gave it the air of a place, and it had once been
+better cared for than it is now.  Few travelers pass that way, and
+the art of entertaining, if it ever existed, is fallen into
+desuetude.  We unsaddled at the veranda, and sat down to review our
+adventure, make the acquaintance of the family, and hear the last
+story from Big Tom.  The mountaineer, though wet, was as fresh as a
+daisy, and fatigue in no wise checked the easy, cheerful flow of his
+talk.  He was evidently a favorite with his neighbors, and not
+unpleasantly conscious of the extent of his reputation.  But he
+encountered here another social grade.  The Widow Patten was highly
+connected.  We were not long in discovering that she was an
+Alexander.  She had been a schoolmate of Senator Vance,--" Zeb Vance
+"he still was to her,--and the senator and his wife had stayed at her
+house.  I wish I could say that the supper, for which we waited till
+nine o'clock, was as "highly connected " as the landlady.  It was,
+however, a supper that left its memory.  We were lodged in a detached
+house, which we had to ourselves, where a roaring wood fire made
+amends for other things lacking.  It was necessary to close the doors
+to keep out the wandering cows and pigs, and I am bound to say that,
+notwithstanding the voices of the night, we slept there the sleep of
+peace.
+
+In the morning a genuine surprise awaited us; it seemed impossible,
+but the breakfast was many degrees worse than the supper; and when we
+paid our bill, large for the region, we were consoled by the thought
+that we paid for the high connection as well as for the
+accommodations.  This is a regular place of entertainment, and one is
+at liberty to praise it without violation of delicacy.
+
+The broken shoe of Jack required attention, and we were all the
+morning hunting a blacksmith, as we rode down the valley.  Three
+blacksmith's shanties were found, and after long waiting to send for
+the operator it turned out in each case that he had no shoes, no
+nails, no iron to make either of.  We made a detour of three miles to
+what was represented as a regular shop.  The owner had secured the
+service of a colored blacksmith for a special job, and was, not
+inclined to accommodate us; he had no shoes, no nails.  But the
+colored blacksmith, who appreciated the plight we were in, offered to
+make a shoe, and to crib four nails from those he had laid aside for
+a couple of mules; and after a good deal of delay, we were enabled to
+go on.  The incident shows, as well as anything, the barrenness and
+shiftlessness of the region.  A horseman with whom we rode in the
+morning gave us a very low estimate of the trustworthiness of the
+inhabitants.  The valley is wild and very pretty all the way down to
+Colonel Long's,--twelve miles,--but the wretched-looking people along
+the way live in a wretched manner.
+
+Just before reaching Colonel Long's we forded the stream (here of
+good size), the bridge having tumbled down, and encountered a party
+of picnickers under the trees--signs of civilization; a railway
+station is not far off.  Colonel Long's is a typical Southern
+establishment: a white house, or rather three houses, all of one
+story, built on to each other as beehives are set in a row, all
+porches and galleries.  No one at home but the cook, a rotund, broad-
+faced woman, with a merry eye, whose very appearance suggested good
+cooking and hospitality; the Missis and the children had gone up to
+the river fishing; the Colonel was somewhere about the place; always
+was away when he was wanted.  Guess he'd take us in, mighty fine man
+the Colonel; and she dispatched a child from a cabin in the rear to
+hunt him up.  The Colonel was a great friend of her folks down to
+Greenville; they visited here.  Law, no, she didn't live here.  Was
+just up here spending the summer, for her health.  God-forsaken lot
+of people up here, poor trash.  She wouldn't stay here a day, but the
+Colonel was a friend of her folks, the firstest folks in Greenville.
+Nobody round here she could 'sociate with.  She was a Presbyterian,
+the folks round here mostly Baptists and Methodists.  More style
+about the Presbyterians.  Married?  No, she hoped not.  She did n't
+want to support no husband.  Got 'nuff to do to take care of herself.
+That her little girl?  No; she'd only got one child, down to
+Greenville, just the prettiest boy ever was, as white as anybody.
+How did she what? reconcile this state of things with not being
+married and being a Presbyterian?  Sho! she liked to carry some
+religion along; it was mighty handy occasionally, mebbe not all the
+time.  Yes, indeed, she enjoyed her religion.
+
+The Colonel appeared and gave us a most cordial welcome.  The fat and
+merry cook blustered around and prepared a good dinner, memorable for
+its "light" bread, the first we had seen since Cranberry Forge.  The
+Colonel is in some sense a public man, having been a mail agent, and
+a Republican.  He showed us photographs and engravings of Northern
+politicians, and had the air of a man who had been in Washington.
+This was a fine country for any kind of fruit,--apples, grapes,
+pears; it needed a little Northern enterprise to set things going.
+The travelers were indebted to the Colonel for a delightful noonday
+rest, and with regret declined his pressing invitation to pass the
+night with him.
+
+The ride down the Swannanoa to Asheville was pleasant, through a
+cultivated region, over a good road.  The Swannanoa is, however, a
+turbid stream.  In order to obtain the most impressive view of
+Asheville we approached it by the way of Beaucatcher Hill, a sharp
+elevation a mile west of the town.  I suppose the name is a
+corruption of some descriptive French word, but it has long been a
+favorite resort of the frequenters of Asheville, and it may be
+traditional that it is a good place to catch beaux.  The summit is
+occupied by a handsome private residence, and from this ridge the
+view, which has the merit of "bursting" upon the traveler as he comes
+over the hill, is captivating in its extent and variety.  The pretty
+town of Asheville is seen to cover a number of elevations gently
+rising out of the valley, and the valley, a rich agricultural region,
+well watered and fruitful, is completely inclosed by picturesque
+hills, some of them rising to the dignity of mountains.  The most
+conspicuous of these is Mount Pisgah, eighteen miles distant to the
+southwest, a pyramid of the Balsam range, 5757 feet high.  Mount
+Pisgah, from its shape, is the most attractive mountain in this
+region.
+
+The sunset light was falling upon the splendid panorama and softening
+it.  The windows of the town gleamed as if on fire.  From the steep
+slope below came the mingled sounds of children shouting, cattle
+driven home, and all that hum of life that marks a thickly peopled
+region preparing for the night.  It was the leisure hour of an August
+afternoon, and Asheville was in all its watering-place gayety, as we
+reined up at the Swannanoa hotel.  A band was playing on the balcony.
+We had reached ice-water, barbers, waiters, civilization.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Ashville, delightful for situation, on small hills that rise above
+the French Broad below its confluence with the Swannanoa, is a sort
+of fourteenth cousin to Saratoga.  It has no springs, but lying 2250
+feet above the sea and in a lovely valley, mountain girt, it has pure
+atmosphere and an equable climate; and being both a summer and winter
+resort, it has acquired a watering-place air.  There are Southerners
+who declare that it is too hot in summer, and that the complete
+circuit of mountains shuts out any lively movement of air.  But the
+scenery is so charming and noble, the drives are so varied, the roads
+so unusually passable for a Southern country, and the facilities for
+excursions so good, that Asheville is a favorite resort.
+
+Architecturally the place is not remarkable, but its surface is so
+irregular, there are so many acclivities and deep valleys that
+improvements can never obliterate, that it is perforce picturesque.
+It is interesting also, if not pleasing, in its contrasts--the
+enterprise of taste and money-making struggling with the laissez
+faire of the South.  The negro, I suppose, must be regarded as a
+conservative element; he has not much inclination to change his
+clothes or his cabin, and his swarming presence gives a ragged aspect
+to the new civilization.  And to say the truth, the new element of
+Southern smartness lacks the trim thrift the North is familiar with;
+though the visitor who needs relaxation is not disposed to quarrel
+with the easy-going terms on which life is taken.
+
+Asheville, it is needless to say, appeared very gay and stimulating
+to the riders from the wilderness.  The Professor, who does not even
+pretend to patronize Nature, had his revenge as we strolled about the
+streets (there is but one of much consideration), immensely
+entertained by the picturesque contrasts.  There was more life and
+amusement here in five minutes, he declared, than in five days of
+what people called scenery--the present rage for scenery, anyway,
+being only a fashion and a modern invention.  The Friend suspected
+from this penchant for the city that the Professor must have been
+brought up in the country.
+
+There was a kind of predetermined and willful gayety about Asheville
+however, that is apt to be present in a watering-place, and gave to
+it the melancholy tone that is always present in gay places.  We
+fancied that the lively movement in the streets had an air of
+unreality.  A band of musicians on the balcony of the Swannanoa were
+scraping and tooting and twanging with a hired air, and on the
+opposite balcony of the Eagle a rival band echoed and redoubled the
+perfunctory joyousness.  The gayety was contagious: the horses felt
+it; those that carried light burdens of beauty minced and pranced,
+the pony in the dog-cart was inclined to dash, the few passing
+equipages had an air of pleasure; and the people of color, the comely
+waitress and the slouching corner-loafer, responded to the animation
+of the festive strains.  In the late afternoon the streets were full
+of people, wagons, carriages, horsemen, all with a holiday air,
+dashed with African color and humor--the irresponsibility of the most
+insouciant and humorous race in the world, perhaps more comical than
+humorous; a mixture of recent civilization and rudeness, peculiar and
+amusing; a happy coming together, it seemed, of Southern abandon and
+Northern wealth, though the North was little represented at this
+season.
+
+As evening came on, the streets, though wanting gas, were still more
+animated; the shops were open, some very good ones, and the white and
+black throng increasing, especially the black, for the negro is
+preeminently a night bird.  In the hotels dancing was promised--the
+german was announced; on the galleries and in the corridors were
+groups of young people, a little loud in manner and voice,--the young
+gentleman, with his over-elaborate manner to ladies in bowing and
+hat-lifting, and the blooming girls from the lesser Southern cities,
+with the slight provincial note, and yet with the frank and engaging
+cordiality which is as charming as it is characteristic.  I do not
+know what led the Professor to query if the Southern young women were
+not superior to the Southern young men, but he is always asking
+questions nobody can answer.  At the Swannanoa were half a dozen
+bridal couples, readily recognizable by the perfect air they had of
+having been married a long time.  How interesting such young voyagers
+are, and how interesting they are to each other!  Columbus never
+discovered such a large world as they have to find out and possess
+each in the other.
+
+Among the attractions of the evening it was difficult to choose.
+There was a lawn-party advertised at Battery Point (where a fine
+hotel has since been built) and we walked up to that round knob after
+dark.  It is a hill with a grove, which commands a charming view, and
+was fortified during the war.  We found it illuminated with Chinese
+lanterns; and little tables set about under the trees, laden with
+cake and ice-cream, offered a chance to the stranger to contribute
+money for the benefit of the Presbyterian Church.  I am afraid it was
+not a profitable entertainment, for the men seemed to have business
+elsewhere, but the ladies about the tables made charming groups in
+the lighted grove.  Man is a stupid animal at best, or he would not
+make it so difficult for the womenkind to scrape together a little
+money for charitable purposes.  But probably the women like this
+method of raising money better than the direct one.
+
+The evening gayety of the town was well distributed.  When we
+descended to the Court-House Square, a great crowd had collected,
+black, white, and yellow, about a high platform, upon which four
+glaring torches lighted up the novel scene, and those who could read
+might decipher this legend on a standard at the back of the stage:
+
+                      HAPPY JOHN.
+            ONE OF THE SLAVES OF WADE HAMPTON.
+                   COME AND SEE HIM!
+
+Happy John, who occupied the platform with Mary, a "bright" yellow
+girl, took the comical view of his race, which was greatly enjoyed by
+his audience.  His face was blackened to the proper color of the
+stage-darky, and he wore a flaming suit of calico, the trousers and
+coat striped longitudinally according to Punch's idea of "Uncle Sam,"
+the coat a swallow-tail bound and faced with scarlet, and a bell-
+crowned white hat.  This conceit of a colored Yankee seemed to tickle
+all colors in the audience amazingly.  Mary, the "bright" woman (this
+is the universal designation of the light mulatto), was a pleasing
+but bold yellow girl, who wore a natty cap trimmed with scarlet, and
+had the assured or pert manner of all traveling sawdust performers.
+
+"Oh, yes," exclaimed a bright woman in the crowd, "Happy John was
+sure enough one of Wade Hampton's slaves, and he's right good looking
+when he's not blackened up."
+
+Happy John sustained the promise of his name by spontaneous gayety
+and enjoyment of the fleeting moment; he had a glib tongue and a
+ready, rude wit, and talked to his audience with a delicious mingling
+of impudence, deference, and patronage, commenting upon them
+generally, administering advice and correction in a strain of humor
+that kept his hearers in a pleased excitement.  He handled the banjo
+and the guitar alternately, and talked all the time when he was not
+singing.  Mary (how much harder featured and brazen a woman is in
+such a position than a man of the same caliber!) sang, in an
+untutored treble, songs of sentiment, often risque, in solo and in
+company with John, but with a cold, indifferent air, in contrast to
+the rollicking enjoyment of her comrade.
+
+The favorite song, which the crowd compelled her to repeat, touched
+lightly the uncertainties of love, expressed in the falsetto pathetic
+refrain :
+
+    "Mary's gone away wid de coon."
+
+All this, with the moon, the soft summer night, the mixed crowd of
+darkies and whites, the stump eloquence of Happy John, the singing,
+the laughter, the flaring torches, made a wild scene.  The
+entertainment was quite free, with a "collection" occasionally during
+the performance.
+
+What most impressed us, however, was the turning to account by Happy
+John of the "nigger" side of the black man as a means of low comedy,
+and the enjoyment of it by all the people of color.  They appeared to
+appreciate as highly as anybody the comic element in themselves, and
+Happy John had emphasized it by deepening his natural color and
+exaggerating the "nigger" peculiarities.  I presume none of them
+analyzed the nature of his infectious gayety, nor thought of the
+pathos that lay so close to it, in the fact of his recent slavery,
+and the distinction of being one of Wade Hampton's niggers, and the
+melancholy mirth of this light-hearted race's burlesque of itself.
+
+A performance followed which called forth the appreciation of the
+crowd more than the wit of Happy John or the faded songs of the
+yellow girl.  John took two sweet-cakes and broke each in fine pieces
+into a saucer, and after sugaring and eulogizing the dry messes,
+called for two small darky volunteers from the audience to come up on
+the platform and devour them.  He offered a prize of fifteen cents to
+the one who should first eat the contents of his dish, not using his
+hands, and hold up the saucer empty in token of his victory.  The
+cake was tempting, and the fifteen cents irresistible, and a couple
+of boys in ragged shirts and short trousers and a suspender apiece
+came up shamefacedly to enter for the prize.  Each one grasped his
+saucer in both hands, and with face over the dish awaited the word
+"go," which John gave, and started off the contest with a banjo
+accompaniment.  To pick up with the mouth the dry cake and choke it
+down was not so easy as the boys apprehended, but they went into the
+task with all their might, gobbling and swallowing as if they loved
+cake, occasionally rolling an eye to the saucer of the contestant to
+see the relative progress, John strumming, ironically encouraging,
+and the crowd roaring.  As the combat deepened and the contestants
+strangled and stuffed and sputtered, the crowd went into spasms of
+laughter.  The smallest boy won by a few seconds, holding up his
+empty saucer, with mouth stuffed, vigorously trying to swallow, like
+a chicken with his throat clogged with dry meal, and utterly unable
+to speak.  The impartial John praised the victor in mock heroics, but
+said that the trial was so even that he would divide the prize, ten
+cents to one and five to the other--a stroke of justice that greatly
+increased his popularity.  And then he dismissed the assembly, saying
+that he had promised the mayor to do so early, because he did not
+wish to run an opposition to the political meeting going on in the
+courthouse.
+
+The scene in the large court-room was less animated than that out-
+doors; a half-dozen tallow dips, hung on the wall in sconces and
+stuck on the judge's long desk, feebly illuminated the mixed crowd of
+black and white who sat in, and on the backs of, the benches, and
+cast only a fitful light upon the orator, who paced back and forth
+and pounded the rail.  It was to have been a joint discussion between
+the two presidential electors running in that district, but, the
+Republican being absent, his place was taken by a young man of the
+town.  The Democratic orator took advantage of the absence of his
+opponent to describe the discussion of the night before, and to give
+a portrait of his adversary.  He was represented as a cross between a
+baboon and a jackass, who would be a natural curiosity for Barnum.
+"I intend," said the orator," to put him in a cage and exhibit him
+about the deestrict."  This political hit called forth great
+applause.  All his arguments were of this pointed character, and they
+appeared to be unanswerable.  The orator appeared to prove that there
+wasn't a respectable man in the opposite party who wasn't an office-
+holder, nor a white man of any kind in it who was not an office-
+holder.  If there were any issues or principles in the canvass, he
+paid his audience the compliment of knowing all about them, for he
+never alluded to any.  In another state of society, such a speech of
+personalities might have led to subsequent shootings, but no doubt
+his adversary would pay him in the same coin when next they met, and
+the exhibition seemed to be regarded down here as satisfactory and
+enlightened political canvassing for votes.  The speaker who replied,
+opened his address with a noble tribute to woman (as the first
+speaker had ended his), directed to a dozen of that sex who sat in
+the gloom of a corner.  The young man was moderate in his sarcasm,
+and attempted to speak of national issues, but the crowd had small
+relish for that sort of thing.  At eleven o'clock, when we got away
+from the unsavory room (more than half the candles had gone out), the
+orator was making slow headway against the refished blackguardism of
+the evening.  The german was still "on" at the hotel when we ascended
+to our chamber, satisfied that Asheville was a lively town.
+
+The sojourner at Asheville can amuse himself very well by walking or
+driving to the many picturesque points of view about the town; livery
+stables abound, and the roads are good.  The Beau-catcher Hill is
+always attractive; and Connolly's, a private place a couple of miles
+from town, is ideally situated, being on a slight elevation in the
+valley, commanding the entire circuit of mountains, for it has the
+air of repose which is so seldom experienced in the location of a
+dwelling in America whence an extensive prospect is given.  Or if the
+visitor is disinclined to exertion, he may lounge in the rooms of the
+hospitable Asheville Club; or he may sit on the sidewalk in front of
+the hotels, and talk with the colonels and judges and generals and
+ex-members of Congress, the talk generally drifting to the new
+commercial and industrial life of the South, and only to politics as
+it affects these; and he will be pleased, if the conversation takes a
+reminiscent turn, with the lack of bitterness and the tone of
+friendliness.  The negro problem is commonly discussed
+philosophically and without heat, but there is always discovered,
+underneath, the determination that the negro shall never again get
+the legislative upper hand.  And the gentleman from South Carolina
+who has an upland farm, and is heartily glad slavery is gone, and
+wants the negro educated, when it comes to ascendency in politics--
+such as the State once experienced--asks you what you would do
+yourself.  This is not the place to enter upon the politico-social
+question, but the writer may note one impression gathered from much
+friendly and agreeable conversation.  It is that the Southern whites
+misapprehend and make a scarecrow of "social equality."  When, during
+the war, it was a question at the North of giving the colored people
+of the Northern States the ballot, the argument against it used to be
+stated in the form of a question: "Do you want your daughter to marry
+a negro?"  Well, the negro has his political rights in the North, and
+there has come no change in the social conditions whatever.  And
+there is no doubt that the social conditions would remain exactly as
+they are at the South if the negro enjoyed all the civil rights which
+the Constitution tries to give him.  The most sensible view of this
+whole question was taken by an intelligent colored man, whose brother
+was formerly a representative in Congress.  "Social equality," he
+said in effect, "is a humbug.  We do not expect it, we do not want
+it.  It does not exist among the blacks themselves.  We have our own
+social degrees, and choose our own associates.  We simply want the
+ordinary civil rights, under which we can live and make our way in
+peace and amity.  This is necessary to our self-respect, and if we
+have not self-respect, it is not to be supposed that the race can
+improve.  I'll tell you what I mean.  My wife is a modest,
+intelligent woman, of good manners, and she is always neat, and
+tastefully dressed.  Now, if she goes to take the cars, she is not
+permitted to go into a clean car with decent people, but is ordered
+into one that is repellent, and is forced into company that any
+refined woman would shrink from.  But along comes a flauntingly
+dressed woman, of known disreputable character, whom my wife would be
+disgraced to know, and she takes any place that money will buy.  It
+is this sort of thing that hurts."
+
+We took the eastern train one evening to Round Nob (Henry's Station),
+some thirty miles, in order to see the wonderful railway that
+descends, a distance of eight miles, from the summit of Swannanoa Gap
+(2657 feet elevation) to Round Nob Hotel (1607 feet).  The Swannanoa
+Summit is the dividing line between the waters that flow to the
+Atlantic and those that go to the Gulf of Mexico.  This fact was
+impressed upon us by the inhabitants, who derive a good deal of
+comfort from it.  Such divides are always matter of local pride.
+Unfortunately, perhaps, it was too dark before we reached Henry's to
+enable us to see the road in all its loops and parallels as it
+appears on the map, but we gained a better effect.  The hotel, when
+we first sighted it, all its windows blazing with light, was at the
+bottom of a well.  Beside it--it was sufficiently light to see that--
+a column of water sprang straight into the air to the height, as we
+learned afterwards from two official sources, of 225 and 265 feet;
+and the information was added that it is the highest fountain in the
+world.  This stout column, stiff as a flagstaff, with its feathery
+head of mist gleaming like silver in the failing light, had the most
+charming effect.  We passed out of sight of hotel and fountain, but
+were conscious of being--whirled on a circular descending grade, and
+very soon they were in sight again.  Again and again they disappeared
+and came to view, now on one side and now on the other, until our
+train seemed to be bewitched, making frantic efforts by dodgings and
+turnings, now through tunnels and now over high pieces of trestle, to
+escape the inevitable attraction that was gravitating it down to the
+hospitable lights at the bottom of the well.  When we climbed back up
+the road in the morning, we had an opportunity to see the marvelous
+engineering, but there is little else to see, the view being nearly
+always very limited.
+
+The hotel at the bottom of the ravine, on the side of Round Nob,
+offers little in the way of prospect, but it is a picturesque place,
+and we could understand why it was full of visitors when we came to
+the table.  It was probably the best-kept house of entertainment in
+the State, and being in the midst of the Black Hills, it offers good
+chances for fishing and mountain climbing.
+
+In the morning the fountain, which is, of course, artificial, refused
+to play, the rain in the night having washed in debris which clogged
+the conduit.  But it soon freed itself and sent up for a long time,
+like a sulky geyser, mud and foul water.  When it got freedom and
+tolerable clearness, we noted that the water went up in pulsations,
+which were marked at short distances by the water falling off, giving
+the column the appearance of a spine.  The summit, always beating the
+air in efforts to rise higher, fell over in a veil of mist.
+
+There are certain excursions that the sojourner at Asheville must
+make.  He must ride forty-five miles south through Henderson and
+Transylvania to Caesar's Head, on the South Carolina border, where
+the mountain system abruptly breaks down into the vast southern
+plain; where the observer, standing on the edge of the precipice, has
+behind him and before him the greatest contrast that nature can
+offer.  He must also take the rail to Waynesville, and visit the
+much-frequented White Sulphur Springs, among the Balsam Mountains,
+and penetrate the Great Smoky range by way of Quallatown, and make
+the acquaintance of the remnant of Cherokee Indians living on the
+north slope of Cheoah Mountain.  The Professor could have made it a
+matter of personal merit that he escaped all these encounters with
+wild and picturesque nature, if his horse had not been too disabled
+for such long jaunts.  It is only necessary, however, to explain to
+the public that the travelers are not gormandizers of scenery, and
+were willing to leave some portions of the State to the curiosity of
+future excursionists.
+
+But so much was said about Hickory Nut Gap that a visit to it could
+not be evaded.  The Gap is about twenty-four miles southeast of
+Asheville.  In the opinion of a well-informed colonel, who urged us
+to make the trip, it is the finest piece of scenery it this region.
+We were brought up on the precept "get the best," and it was with
+high anticipations that we set out about eleven o'clock one warm,
+foggy morning.  We followed a very good road through a broken,
+pleasant country, gradually growing wilder and less cultivated.
+There was heavy rain most of the day on the hills, and occasionally a
+shower swept across our path.  The conspicuous object toward which we
+traveled all the morning was a shapely conical hill at the beginning
+of the Gap.
+
+At three o'clock we stopped at the Widow Sherrill's for dinner.  Her
+house, only about a mile from the summit, is most picturesquely
+situated on a rough slope, giving a wide valley and mountain view.
+The house is old rambling, many-roomed, with wide galleries on two
+sides.  If one wanted a retired retreat for a few days, with good air
+and fair entertainment, this could be commended.  It is an excellent
+fruit region; apples especially are sound and of good flavor.  That
+may be said of all this part of the State.  The climate is adapted to
+apples, as the hilly part of New England is.  I fancy the fruit
+ripens slowly, as it does in New England, and is not subject to quick
+decay like much of that grown in the West.  But the grape also can be
+grown in all this mountain region.  Nothing but lack of enterprise
+prevents any farmer from enjoying abundance of fruit.  The industry
+carried on at the moment at the Widow Sherrill's was the artificial
+drying of apples for the market.  The apples are pared, cored, and
+sliced in spirals, by machinery, and dried on tin sheets in a
+patented machine.  The industry appears to be a profitable one
+hereabouts, and is about the only one that calls in the aid of
+invention.
+
+While our dinner was preparing, we studied the well-known pictures of
+"Jane" and "Eliza," the photographs of Confederate boys, who had
+never returned from the war, and the relations, whom the traveling
+photographers always like to pillory in melancholy couples, and some
+stray volumes of the Sunday-school Union.  Madame Sherrill, who
+carries on the farm since the death of her husband, is a woman of
+strong and liberal mind, who informed us that she got small comfort
+in the churches in the neighborhood, and gave us, in fact, a
+discouraging account of the unvital piety of the region.
+
+The descent from the summit of the Gap to Judge Logan's, nine miles,
+is rapid, and the road is wild and occasionally picturesque,
+following the Broad River, a small stream when we first overtook it,
+but roaring, rocky, and muddy, owing to frequent rains, and now and
+then tumbling down in rapids.  The noisy stream made the ride
+animated, and an occasional cabin, a poor farmhouse, a mill, a
+schoolhouse, a store with an assemblage of lean horses tied to the
+hitching rails, gave the Professor opportunity for remarks upon the
+value of life under such circumstances.
+
+The valley which we followed down probably owes its celebrity to the
+uncommon phenomena of occasional naked rocks and precipices.  The
+inclosing mountains are from 3000 to 4000 feet high, and generally
+wooded.  I do not think that the ravine would be famous in a country
+where exposed ledges and buttressing walls of rock are common.  It is
+only by comparison with the local scenery that this is remarkable.
+About a mile above judge Logan's we caught sight, through the trees,
+of the famous waterfall.  From the top of the high ridge on the
+right, a nearly perpendicular cascade pours over the ledge of rocks
+and is lost in the forest.  We could see nearly the whole of it, at a
+great height above us, on the opposite side of the river, and it
+would require an hour's stiff climb to reach its foot.  From where we
+viewed it, it seemed a slender and not very important, but certainly
+a very beautiful cascade, a band of silver in the mass of green
+foliage.  The fall is said to be 1400 feet.  Our colonel insists that
+it is a thousand.  It may be, but the valley where we stood is at
+least at an elevation of 1300 feet; we could not believe that the
+ridge over which the water pours is much higher than 3000 feet, and
+the length of the fall certainly did not appear to be a quarter of
+the height of the mountain from our point of observation.  But we had
+no desire to belittle this pretty cascade, especially when we found
+that Judge Logan would regard a foot abated from the 1400 as a
+personal grievance.  Mr. Logan once performed the functions of local
+judge, a Republican appointment, and he sits around the premises now
+in the enjoyment of that past dignity and of the fact that his wife
+is postmistress.  His house of entertainment is at the bottom of the
+valley, a place shut in, warm, damp, and not inviting to a long stay,
+although the region boasts a good many natural curiosities.
+
+It was here that we encountered again the political current, out of
+which we had been for a month.  The Judge himself was reticent, as
+became a public man, but he had conspicuously posted up a monster
+prospectus, sent out from Augusta, of a campaign life of Blaine and
+Logan, in which the Professor read, with shaking knees, this
+sentence: "Sure to be the greatest and hottest [campaign and civil
+battle] ever known in this world.  The thunder of the supreme
+struggle and its reverberations will shake the continents for months,
+and will be felt from Pole to Pole."
+
+For this and other reasons this seemed a risky place to be in.  There
+was something sinister about the murky atmosphere, and a suspicion of
+mosquitoes besides.  Had there not been other travelers staying here,
+we should have felt still more uneasy.  The house faced Bald
+Mountain, 4000 feet high, a hill that had a very bad reputation some
+years ago, and was visited by newspaper reporters.  This is, in fact,
+the famous Shaking Mountain.  For a long time it had a habit of
+trembling, as if in an earthquake spasm, but with a shivering motion
+very different from that produced by an earthquake.  The only good
+that came of it was that it frightened all the "moonshiners," and
+caused them to join the church.  It is not reported what became of
+the church afterwards.  It is believed now that the trembling was
+caused by the cracking of a great ledge on the mountain, which slowly
+parted asunder.  Bald Mountain is the scene of Mrs. Burnett's
+delightful story of "Louisiana," and of the play of "Esmeralda."
+A rock is pointed out toward the summit, which the beholder is asked
+to see resembles a hut, and which is called "Esmeralda's Cottage."
+But this attractive maiden has departed, and we did not discover any
+woman in the region who remotely answers to her description.
+
+In the morning we rode a mile and a half through the woods and
+followed up a small stream to see the celebrated pools, one of which
+the Judge said was two hundred feet deep, and another bottomless.
+These pools, not round, but on one side circular excavations, some
+twenty feet across, worn in the rock by pebbles, are very good
+specimens, and perhaps remarkable specimens, of "pot-holes."  They
+are, however, regarded here as one of the wonders of the world.  On
+the way to them we saw beautiful wild trumpet-creepers in blossom,
+festooning the trees.
+
+The stream that originates in Hickory Nut Gap is the westernmost
+branch of several forks of the Broad, which unite to the southeast in
+Rutherford County, flow to Columbia, and reach the Atlantic through
+the channel of the Santee.  It is not to be confounded with the
+French Broad, which originates among the hills of Transylvania, runs
+northward past Asheville, and finds its way to the Tennessee through
+the Warm Springs Gap in the Bald Mountains.  As the French claimed
+ownership of all the affluents of the Mississippi, this latter was
+called the French Broad.
+
+It was a great relief the next morning, on our return, to rise out of
+the lifeless atmosphere of the Gap into the invigorating air at the
+Widow Sherrill's, whose country-seat is three hundred feet higher
+than Asheville.  It was a day of heavy showers, and apparently of
+leisure to the scattered population; at every store and mill was a
+congregation of loafers, who had hitched their scrawny horses and
+mules to the fences, and had the professional air of the idler and
+gossip the world over.  The vehicles met on the road were a variety
+of the prairie schooner, long wagons with a top of hoops over which
+is stretched a cotton cloth.  The wagons are without seats, and the
+canvas is too low to admit of sitting upright, if there were.  The
+occupants crawl in at either end, sit or lie on the bottom of the
+wagon, and jolt along in shiftless uncomfortableness.
+
+Riding down the French Broad was one of the original objects of our
+journey.  Travelers with the same intention may be warned that the
+route on horseback is impracticable.  The distance to the Warm
+Springs is thirty-seven miles; to Marshall, more than halfway, the
+road is clear, as it runs on the opposite side of the river from the
+railway, and the valley is something more than river and rails.  But
+below Marshall the valley contracts, and the rails are laid a good
+portion of the way in the old stage road.  One can walk the track,
+but to ride a horse over its sleepers and culverts and occasional
+bridges, and dodge the trains, is neither safe nor agreeable.  We
+sent our horses round--the messenger taking the risk of leading them,
+between trains, over the last six or eight miles,--and took the
+train.
+
+The railway, after crossing a mile or two of meadows, hugs the river
+all the way.  The scenery is the reverse of bold.  The hills are low,
+monotonous in form, and the stream winds through them, with many a
+pretty turn and "reach," with scarcely a ribbon of room to spare on
+either side.  The river is shallow, rapid, stony, muddy, full of
+rocks, with an occasional little island covered with low bushes.  The
+rock seems to be a clay formation, rotten and colored.  As we
+approach Warm Springs the scenery becomes a little bolder, and we
+emerge into the open space about the Springs through a narrower
+defile, guarded by rocks that are really picturesque in color and
+splintered decay, one of them being known, of course, as the "Lover's
+Leap," a name common in every part of the modern or ancient world
+where there is a settlement near a precipice, with always the same
+legend attached to it.
+
+There is a little village at Warm Springs, but the hotel--since
+burned and rebuilt--(which may be briefly described as a palatial
+shanty) stands by itself close to the river, which is here a deep,
+rapid, turbid stream.  A bridge once connected it with the road on
+the opposite bank, but it was carried away three or four years ago,
+and its ragged butments stand as a monument of procrastination, while
+the stream is crossed by means of a flatboat and a cable.  In front
+of the hotel, on the slight slope to the river, is a meager grove of
+locusts.  The famous spring, close to-the stream, is marked only by a
+rough box of wood and an iron pipe, and the water, which has a
+temperature of about one hundred degrees, runs to a shabby bath-house
+below, in which is a pool for bathing.  The bath is very agreeable,
+the tepid water being singularly soft and pleasant.  It has a
+slightly sulphurous taste.  Its good effects are much certified.  The
+grounds, which might be very pretty with care, are ill-kept and
+slatternly, strewn with debris, as if everything was left to the
+easy-going nature of the servants.  The main house is of brick, with
+verandas and galleries all round, and a colonnade of thirteen huge
+brick and stucco columns, in honor of the thirteen States,--a relic
+of post-Revolutionary times, when the house was the resort of
+Southern fashion and romance.  These columns have stood through one
+fire, and perhaps the recent one, which swept away the rest of the
+structure.  The house is extended in a long wooden edifice, with
+galleries and outside stairs, the whole front being nearly seven
+hundred feet long.  In a rear building is a vast, barrack-like
+dining-room, with a noble ball-room above, for dancing is the
+important occupation of visitors.
+
+The situation is very pretty, and the establishment has a
+picturesqueness of its own.  Even the ugly little brick structure
+near the bath-house imposes upon one as Wade Hampton's cottage.  No
+doubt we liked the place better than if it had been smart, and
+enjoyed the neglige condition, and the easy terms on which life is
+taken there.  There was a sense of abundance in the sight of fowls
+tiptoeing about the verandas, and to meet a chicken in the parlor was
+a sort of guarantee that we should meet him later on in the dining-
+room.  There was nothing incongruous in the presence of pigs,
+turkeys, and chickens on the grounds; they went along with the good-
+natured negro-service and the general hospitality; and we had a
+mental rest in the thought that all the gates would have been off the
+hinges, if there had been any gates.  The guests were very well
+treated indeed, and were put under no sort of restraint by
+discipline.  The long colonnade made an admirable promenade and
+lounging-place and point of observation.  It was interesting to watch
+the groups under the locusts, to see the management of the ferry, the
+mounting and dismounting of the riding-parties, and to study the
+colors on the steep hill opposite, halfway up which was a neat
+cottage and flower-garden.  The type of people was very pleasantly
+Southern.  Colonels and politicians stand in groups and tell stories,
+which are followed by explosions of laughter; retire occasionally
+into the saloon, and come forth reminded of more stories, and all
+lift their hats elaborately and suspend the narratives when a lady
+goes past.  A company of soldiers from Richmond had pitched its tents
+near the hotel, and in the evening the ball-room was enlivened with
+uniforms.  Among the graceful dancers--and every one danced well, and
+with spirit was pointed out the young widow of a son of Andrew
+Johnson, whose pretty cottage overlooks the village.  But the
+Professor, to whom this information was communicated, doubted whether
+here it was not a greater distinction to be the daughter of the owner
+of this region than to be connected with a President of the United
+States.
+
+A certain air of romance and tradition hangs about the French Broad
+and the Warm Springs, which the visitor must possess himself of in
+order to appreciate either.  This was the great highway of trade and
+travel.  At certain seasons there was an almost continuous procession
+of herds of cattle and sheep passing to the Eastern markets, and of
+trains of big wagons wending their way to the inviting lands watered
+by the Tennessee.  Here came in the summer-time the Southern planters
+in coach and four, with a great retinue of household servants, and
+kept up for months that unique social life, a mixture of courtly
+ceremony and entire freedom, the civilization which had the drawing-
+room at one end and the negro-quarters at the other,--which has
+passed away.  It was a continuation into our own restless era of the
+manners and the literature of George the Third, with the accompanying
+humor and happy-go-lucky decadence of the negro slaves.  On our way
+down we saw on the river-bank, under the trees, the old hostelry,
+Alexander's, still in decay,--an attractive tavern, that was formerly
+one of the notable stopping-places on the river.  Master, and fine
+lady, and obsequious, larking darky, and lumbering coach, and throng
+of pompous and gay life, have all disappeared.  There was no room in
+this valley for the old institutions and for the iron track.
+
+    "When in the chronicle of wasted time
+     I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
+     And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
+     In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
+     We, which now behold these present days,
+     Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise."
+
+This perverted use of noble verse was all the response the Friend got
+in his attempt to drop into the sentimental vein over the past of the
+French Broad.
+
+The reader must not think there is no enterprise in this sedative and
+idle resort.  The conceited Yankee has to learn that it is not he
+alone who can be accused of the thrift of craft.  There is at the
+Warm Springs a thriving mill for crushing and pulverizing barites,
+known vulgarly as heavy-spar.  It is the weight of this heaviest of
+minerals, and not its lovely crystals, that gives it value.  The rock
+is crushed, washed, sorted out by hand, to remove the foreign
+substances, then ground and subjected to acids, and at the end of the
+process it is as white and fine as the best bolted flour.  This heavy
+adulterant is shipped to the North in large quantities,--the manager
+said he had recently an order for a hundred thousand dollars' worth
+of it.  What is the use of this powder?  Well, it is of use to the
+dealer who sells white lead for paint, to increase the weight of the
+lead, and it is the belief hereabouts that it is mixed with powdered
+sugar.  The industry is profitable to those engaged in it.
+
+It was impossible to get much information about our route into
+Tennessee, except that we should go by Paint Rock, and cross Paint
+Mountain.  Late one morning,--a late start is inevitable here,--
+accompanied by a cavalcade, we crossed the river by the rope ferry,
+and trotted down the pretty road, elevated above the stream and tree-
+shaded, offering always charming glimpses of swift water and
+overhanging foliage (the railway obligingly taking the other side of
+the river), to Paint Rock,--six miles.  This Paint Rock is a naked
+precipice by the roadside, perhaps sixty feet high, which has a large
+local reputation.  It is said that its face shows painting done by
+the Indians, and hieroglyphics which nobody can read.  On this bold,
+crumbling cliff, innumerable visitors have written their names.  We
+stared at it a good while to discover the paint and hieroglyphics,
+but could see nothing except iron stains.  Round the corner is a
+farmhouse and place of call for visitors, a neat cottage, with a
+display of shells and minerals and flower-pots; and here we turned
+north crossed the little stream called Paint River, the only clear
+water we had seen in a month, passed into the State of Tennessee, and
+by a gentle ascent climbed Paint Mountain.  The open forest road,
+with the murmur of the stream below, was delightfully exhilarating,
+and as we rose the prospect opened,--the lovely valley below, Bald
+Mountains behind us, and the Butt Mountains rising as we came over
+the ridge.
+
+Nobody on the way, none of the frowzy women or unintelligent men,
+knew anything of the route, or could give us any information of the
+country beyond.  But as we descended in Tennessee the country and the
+farms decidedly improved,--apple-trees and a grapevine now and then.
+
+A ride of eight miles brought us to Waddle's, hungry and disposed to
+receive hospitality.  We passed by an old farm building to a new two-
+storied, gayly painted house on a hill.  We were deceived by
+appearances.  The new house, with a new couple in it, had nothing to
+offer us except some buttermilk.  Why should anybody be obliged to
+feed roving strangers?  As to our horses, the young woman with a baby
+in her arms declared,
+
+"We've got nothing for stock but roughness; perhaps you can get
+something at the other house."
+
+"Roughness," we found out at the other house, meant hay in this
+region.  We procured for the horses a light meal of green oats, and
+for our own dinner we drank at the brook and the Professor produced a
+few sonnets.  On this sustaining repast we fared on nearly twelve
+miles farther, through a rolling, good farming country, offering
+little for comment, in search of a night's lodging with one of the
+brothers Snap.  But one brother declined our company on the plea that
+his wife was sick, and the other because his wife lived in
+Greenville, and we found ourselves as dusk came on without shelter in
+a tavernless land.  Between the two refusals we enjoyed the most
+picturesque bit of scenery of the day, at the crossing of Camp Creek,
+a swift little stream, that swirled round under the ledge of bold
+rocks before the ford.  This we learned was a favorite camp-meeting
+ground.  Mary was calling the cattle home at the farm of the second
+Snap.  It was a very peaceful scene of rural life, and we were
+inclined to tarry, but Mary, instead of calling us home with the
+cattle, advised us to ride on to Alexander's before it got dark.
+
+It is proper to say that at Alexander's we began to see what this
+pleasant and fruitful country might be, and will be, with thrift and
+intelligent farming.  Mr. Alexander is a well-to-do farmer, with
+plenty of cattle and good barns (always an evidence of prosperity),
+who owes his success to industry and an open mind to new ideas.  He
+was a Unionist during the war, and is a Democrat now, though his
+county (Greene) has been Republican.  We had been riding all the
+afternoon through good land, and encountering a better class of
+farmers.  Peach-trees abounded (though this was an off year for
+fruit), and apples and grapes throve.  It is a land of honey and of
+milk.  The persimmon flourishes; and, sign of abundance generally, we
+believe, great flocks of turkey-buzzards--majestic floaters in the
+high air--hovered about.  This country was ravaged during the war by
+Unionists and Confederates alternately, the impartial patriots as
+they passed scooping in corn, bacon, and good horses, leaving the
+farmers little to live on.  Mr. Alexander's farm cost him forty
+dollars an acre, and yields good crops of wheat and maize.  This was
+the first house on our journey where at breakfast we had grace before
+meat, though there had been many tables that needed it more.  From
+the door the noble range of the Big Bald is in sight and not distant;
+and our host said he had a shanty on it, to which he was accustomed
+to go with his family for a month or six weeks in the summer and
+enjoy a real primitive woods life.
+
+Refreshed by this little touch of civilization, and with horses well
+fed, we rode on next morning towards Jonesboro, over a rolling,
+rather unpicturesque country, but ennobled by the Big Bald and Butt
+ranges, which we had on our right all day.  At noon we crossed the
+Nollechucky River at a ford where the water was up to the saddle
+girth, broad, rapid, muddy, and with a treacherous stony bottom, and
+came to the little hamlet of Boylesville, with a flour-mill, and a
+hospitable old-fashioned house, where we found shelter from the heat
+of the hot day, and where the daughters of the house, especially one
+pretty girl in a short skirt and jaunty cap, contradicted the
+currently received notion that this world is a weary pilgrimage.  The
+big parlor, with its photographs and stereoscope, and bits of shell
+and mineral, a piano and a melodeon, and a coveted old sideboard of
+mahogany, recalled rural New England.  Perhaps these refinements are
+due to the Washington College (a school for both sexes), which is
+near.  We noted at the tables in this region a singular use of the
+word fruit.  When we were asked, Will you have some of the fruit?
+and said Yes, we always got applesauce.
+
+Ten miles more in the late afternoon brought us to Jonesboro, the
+oldest town in the State, a pretty place, with a flavor of antiquity,
+set picturesquely on hills, with the great mountains in sight.
+People from further South find this an agreeable summering place, and
+a fair hotel, with odd galleries in front and rear, did not want
+company.  The Warren Institute for negroes has been flourishing here
+ever since the war.
+
+A ride of twenty miles next day carried us to Union.  Before noon we
+forded the Watauga, a stream not so large as the Nollechucky, and
+were entertained at the big brick house of Mr. Devault, a prosperous
+and hospitable farmer.  This is a rich country.  We had met in the
+morning wagon-loads of watermelons and muskmelons, on the way to
+Jonesboro, and Mr. Devault set abundance of these refreshing fruits
+before us as we lounged on the porch before dinner.
+
+It was here that we made the acquaintance of a colored woman, a
+withered, bent old pensioner of the house, whose industry (she
+excelled any modern patent apple-parer) was unabated, although she
+was by her own confession (a woman, we believe, never owns her age
+till she has passed this point) and the testimony of others a hundred
+years old.  But age had not impaired the brightness of her eyes, nor
+the limberness of her tongue, nor her shrewd good sense.  She talked
+freely about the want of decency and morality in the young colored
+folks of the present day.  It was n't so when she was a girl.  Long,
+long time ago, she and her husband had been sold at sheriff's sale
+and separated, and she never had another husband.  Not that she
+blamed her master so much he could n't help it; he got in debt.  And
+she expounded her philosophy about the rich, and the danger they are
+in.  The great trouble is that when a person is rich, he can borrow
+money so easy, and he keeps drawin' it out of the bank and pilin' up
+the debt, like rails on top of one another, till it needs a ladder to
+get on to the pile, and then it all comes down in a heap, and the man
+has to begin on the bottom rail again.  If she'd to live her life
+over again, she'd lay up money; never cared much about it till now.
+The thrifty, shrewd old woman still walked about a good deal, and
+kept her eye on the neighborhood.  Going out that morning she had
+seen some fence up the road that needed mending, and she told Mr.
+Devault that she didn't like such shiftlessness; she didn't know as
+white folks was much better than colored folks.  Slavery?  Yes,
+slavery was pretty bad--she had seen five hundred niggers in
+handcuffs, all together in a field, sold to be sent South.
+
+About six miles from here is a beech grove of historical interest,
+worth a visit if we could have spared the time.  In it is the large
+beech (six and a half feet around six feet from the ground) on which
+Daniel Boone shot a bear, when he was a rover in this region.  He
+himself cut an inscription on the tree recording his prowess, and it
+is still distinctly legible:
+
+     D. BOONE CILT A BAR ON THIS TREE, 1760.
+
+This tree is a place of pilgrimage, and names of people from all
+parts of the country are cut on it, until there is scarcely room for
+any more records of such devotion.  The grove is ancient looking, the
+trees are gnarled and moss-grown.  Hundreds of people go there, and
+the trees are carved all over with their immortal names.
+
+A pleasant ride over a rich rolling country, with an occasional strip
+of forest, brought us to Union in the evening, with no other
+adventure than the meeting of a steam threshing-machine in the road,
+with steam up, clattering along.  The devil himself could not invent
+any machine calculated to act on the nerves of a horse like this.
+Jack took one look and then dashed into the woods, scraping off his
+rider's hat but did not succeed in getting rid of his burden or
+knocking down any trees.
+
+Union, on the railway, is the forlornest of little villages, with
+some three hundred inhabitants and a forlorn hotel, kept by an ex-
+stage-driver.  The village, which lies on the Holston, has no
+drinking-water in it nor enterprise enough to bring it in; not a well
+nor a spring in its limits; and for drinking-water everybody crosses
+the river to a spring on the other side.  A considerable part of the
+labor of the town is fetching water over the bridge.  On a hill
+overlooking the village is a big, pretentious brick house, with a
+tower, the furniture of which is an object of wonder to those who
+have seen it.  It belonged to the late Mrs. Stover, daughter of
+Andrew Johnson.  The whole family of the ex-President have departed
+this world, but his memory is still green in this region, where he
+was almost worshiped--so the people say in speaking of him.
+
+Forlorn as was the hotel at Union, the landlord's daughters were
+beginning to draw the lines in rural refinement.  One of them had
+been at school in Abingdon.  Another, a mature young lady of fifteen,
+who waited on the table, in the leisure after supper asked the Friend
+for a light for her cigarette, which she had deftly rolled.
+
+"Why do you smoke?"
+
+"So as I shan't get into the habit of dipping.  Do you think dipping
+is nice?"
+
+The traveler was compelled to say that he did not, though he had seen
+a good deal of it wherever he had been.
+
+"All the girls dips round here.  But me and my sisters rather smoke
+than get in a habit of dipping."
+
+To the observation that Union seemed to be a dull place :
+
+"Well, there's gay times here in the winter--dancing.  Like to dance?
+Well, I should say!  Last winter I went over to Blountsville to a
+dance in the court-house; there was a trial between Union and
+Blountsville for the best dancing.  You bet I brought back the cake
+and the blue ribbon."
+
+The country was becoming too sophisticated, and the travelers
+hastened to the end of their journey.  The next morning Bristol, at
+first over a hilly country with magnificent oak-trees,--happily not
+girdled, as these stately monarchs were often seen along the roads in
+North Carolina,--and then up Beaver Creek, a turbid stream, turning
+some mills.  When a closed woolen factory was pointed out to the
+Professor (who was still traveling for Reform), as the result of the
+agitation in Congress, he said, Yes, the effect of agitation was
+evident in all the decayed dams and ancient abandoned mills we had
+seen in the past month.
+
+Bristol is mainly one long street, with some good stores, but
+generally shabby, and on this hot morning sleepy.  One side of the
+street is in Tennessee, the other in Virginia.  How handy for
+fighting this would have been in the war, if Tennessee had gone out
+and Virginia stayed in.  At the hotel--may a kind Providence wake it
+up to its responsibilities--we had the pleasure of reading one of
+those facetious handbills which the great railway companies of the
+West scatter about, the serious humor of which is so pleasing to our
+English friends.  This one was issued by the accredited agents of the
+Ohio and Mississippi Railway, and dated April 1, 1984.  One sentence
+will suffice:
+
+"Allow us to thank our old traveling friends for the many favors in
+our line, and if you are going on your bridal trip, or to see your
+girl out West, drop in at the general office of the Ohio and
+Mississippi Railway and we will fix you up in Queen Anne style.
+Passengers for Dakota, Montana, or the Northwest will have an
+overcoat and sealskin cap thrown in with all tickets sold on or after
+the above date."
+
+The great republic cannot yet take itself seriously.  Let us hope the
+humors of it will last another generation.  Meditating on this, we
+hailed at sundown the spires of Abingdon, and regretted the end of a
+journey that seems to have been undertaken for no purpose.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of On Horseback, by Charles Dudley Warner
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of On Horseback by Charles Dudley Warner
+#30 in our series by Charles Dudley Warner
+
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+Title: On Horseback
+
+Author: Charles Dudley Warner
+
+Release Date: March, 2002  [Etext #3126]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 01/22/01]
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+Edition: 11
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of On Horseback, by Charles Dudley Warner
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+NOTE: This work has been previously published in [Etext #2674]
+The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Volume 4
+Project Gutenberg The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner
+4warn10.txt or 4warn10.zip
+
+
+
+
+
+ON HORSEBACK
+
+By Charles Dudley Warner
+
+
+
+I
+
+"The way to mount a horse"--said the Professor.
+
+"If you have no ladder--put in the Friend of Humanity."
+
+The Professor had ridden through the war for the Union on the right
+side, enjoying a much better view of it than if he had walked, and
+knew as much about a horse as a person ought to know for the sake of
+his character.  The man who can recite the tales of the Canterbury
+Pilgrims, on horseback, giving the contemporary pronunciation, never
+missing an accent by reason of the trot, and at the same time witch
+North Carolina and a strip of East Tennessee with his noble
+horsemanship, is a kind of Literary Centaur of whose double
+instruction any Friend of Humanity may be glad to avail himself.
+
+"The way to mount a horse is to grasp the mane with the left hand
+holding the bridle-rein, put your left foot in the stirrup, with the
+right hand on the back of the saddle, and---"
+
+Just then the horse stepped quickly around on his hind feet, and
+looked the Professor in the face.  The Superintendents of Affairs,
+who occupy the flagging in front of the hotel, seated in cane-
+bottomed chairs tilted back, smiled.  These useful persons appear to
+have a life-lease of this portion of the city pavement, and pretty
+effectually block it up nearly all day and evening.  When a lady
+wishes to make her way through the blockade, it is the habit of these
+observers of life to rise and make room, touching their hats, while
+she picks her way through, and goes down the street with a pretty
+consciousness of the flutter she has caused.  The war has not changed
+the Southern habit of sitting out-of-doors, but has added a new
+element of street picturesqueness in groups of colored people
+lounging about the corners.  There appears to be more leisure than
+ever.
+
+The scene of this little lesson in horsemanship was the old town of
+Abingdon, in southwest Virginia, on the Virginia and East Tennessee
+railway; a town of ancient respectability, which gave birth to the
+Johnstons and Floyds and other notable people; a town, that still
+preserves the flavor of excellent tobacco and, something of the easy-
+going habits of the days of slavery, and is a sort of educational
+center, where the young ladies of the region add the final graces of
+intellectual life in moral philosophy and the use of the globes to
+their natural gifts.  The mansion of the late and left Floyd is now a
+seminary, and not far from it is the Stonewall Jackson Institute, in
+the midst of a grove of splendid oaks, whose stately boles and wide-
+spreading branches give a dignity to educational life.  The
+distinction of the region is its superb oak-trees.  As it was
+vacation in these institutions of learning, the travelers did not see
+any of the vines that traditionally cling to the oak.
+
+The Professor and the Friend of Humanity were about starting on a
+journey, across country southward, through regions about which the
+people of Abingdon could give little useful information.  If the
+travelers had known the capacities and resources of the country, they
+would not have started without a supply train, or the establishment
+of bases of provisions in advance.  But, as the Professor remarked,
+knowledge is something that one acquires when he has no use for it.
+The horses were saddled; the riders were equipped with flannel shirts
+and leather leggings; the saddle-bags were stuffed with clean linen,
+and novels, and sonnets of Shakespeare, and other baggage, it would
+have been well if they had been stuffed with hard-tack, for in real
+life meat is more than raiment.
+
+The hotel, in front of which there is cultivated so much of what the
+Germans call sitzfleisch, is a fair type of the majority of Southern
+hotels, and differs from the same class in the North in being left a
+little more to run itself.  The only information we obtained about it
+was from its porter at the station, who replied to the question, "Is
+it the best?"  "We warrant you perfect satisfaction in every
+respect."  This seems to be only a formula of expression, for we
+found that the statement was highly colored.  It was left to our
+imagination to conjecture how the big chambers of the old house, with
+their gaping fireplaces, might have looked when furnished and filled
+with gay company, and we got what satisfaction we could out of a
+bygone bustle and mint-julep hilarity.  In our struggles with the
+porter to obtain the little items of soap, water, and towels, we were
+convinced that we had arrived too late, and that for perfect
+satisfaction we should have been here before the war.  It was not
+always as now.  In colonial days the accommodations and prices at
+inns were regulated by law.  In the old records in the court-house we
+read that if we had been here in 1777, we could have had a gallon of
+good rum for sixteen shillings; a quart bowl of rum toddy made with
+loaf sugar for two shillings, or with brown sugar for one shilling
+and sixpence.  In 1779 prices had risen.  Good rum sold for four
+pounds a gallon.  It was ordered that a warm dinner should cost
+twelve shillings, a cold dinner nine shillings, and a good breakfast
+twelve shillings.  But the item that pleased us most, and made us
+regret our late advent, was that for two shillings we could have had
+a "good lodging, with clean sheets." The colonists were fastidious
+people.
+
+Abingdon, prettily situated on rolling hills, and a couple of
+thousand feet above the sea, with views of mountain peaks to the
+south, is a cheerful and not too exciting place for a brief sojourn,
+and hospitable and helpful to the stranger.  We had dined--so much,
+at least, the public would expect of us--with a descendant of
+Pocahontas; we had assisted on Sunday morning at the dedication of a
+new brick Methodist church, the finest edifice in the region--
+a dedication that took a long time, since the bishop would not
+proceed with it until money enough was raised in open meeting to pay
+the balance due on it: a religious act, though it did give a business
+aspect to the place at the time; and we had been the light spots in
+the evening service at the most aristocratic church of color.  The
+irresponsibility of this amiable race was exhibited in the tardiness
+with which they assembled: at the appointed time nobody was there
+except the sexton; it was three quarters of an hour before the
+congregation began to saunter in, and the sermon was nearly over
+before the pews were at all filled.  Perhaps the sermon was not new,
+but it was fervid, and at times the able preacher roared so that
+articulate sounds were lost in the general effect.  It was precisely
+these passages of cataracts of sound and hard breathing which excited
+the liveliest responses,--"Yes, Lord," and "Glory to God."  Most of
+these responses came from the "Amen corner."  The sermon contained
+the usual vivid description of the last judgment--ah, and I fancied
+that the congregation did not get the ordinary satisfaction out of
+it.  Fashion had entered the fold, and the singing was mostly
+executed by a choir in the dusky gallery, who thinly and harshly
+warbled the emotional hymns.  It occupied the minister a long time to
+give out the notices of the week, and there was not an evening or
+afternoon that had not its meetings, its literary or social
+gathering, its picnic or fair for the benefit of the church, its
+Dorcas society, or some occasion of religious sociability.  The
+raising of funds appeared to be the burden on the preacher's mind.
+Two collections were taken up.  At the first, the boxes appeared to
+get no supply except from the two white trash present.  But the
+second was more successful.  After the sermon was over, an elder took
+his place at a table within the rails, and the real business of the
+evening began.  Somebody in the Amen corner struck up a tune that had
+no end, but a mighty power of setting the congregation in motion.
+The leader had a voice like the pleasant droning of a bag-pipe, and
+the faculty of emitting a continuous note like that instrument,
+without stopping to breathe.  It went on and on like a Bach fugue,
+winding and whining its way, turning the corners of the lines of the
+catch without a break.  The effect was soon visible in the emotional
+crowd: feet began to move in a regular cadence and voices to join in,
+with spurts of ejaculation; and soon, with an air of martyrdom, the
+members began to leave their seats and pass before the table and
+deposit their contributions.  It was a cent contribution, and we
+found it very difficult, under the contagious influence of the hum
+from the Amen corner, not to rise and go forward and deposit a cent.
+If anything could extract the pennies from a reluctant worldling, it
+would be the buzzing of this tune.  It went on and on, until the
+house appeared to be drained dry of its cash; and we inferred by the
+stopping of the melody that the preacher's salary was secure for the
+time being.  On inquiring, we ascertained that the pecuniary flood
+that evening had risen to the height of a dollar and sixty cents.
+
+All was ready for the start.  It should have been early in the
+morning, but it was not; for Virginia is not only one of the blessed
+regions where one can get a late breakfast, but where it is almost
+impossible to get an early one.  At ten A. M.  the two horsemen rode
+away out of sight of the Abingdon spectators, down the eastern
+turnpike.  The day was warm, but the air was full of vitality and the
+spirit of adventure.  It was the 22d of July.  The horses were not
+ambitious, but went on at an easy fox-trot that permits observation
+and encourages conversation.  It had been stipulated that the horses
+should be good walkers, the one essential thing in a horseback
+journey.  Few horses, even in a country where riding is general, are
+trained to walk fast.  We hear much of horses that can walk five
+miles an hour, but they are as rare as white elephants.  Our horses
+were only fair walkers.  We realized how necessary this
+accomplishment is, for between the Tennessee line and Asheville,
+North Carolina, there is scarcely a mile of trotting-ground.
+
+We soon turned southward and descended into the Holston River Valley.
+Beyond lay the Tennessee hills and conspicuous White-Top Mountain
+(5530 feet), which has a good deal of local celebrity (standing where
+the States of Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina corner), and
+had been pointed out to us at Abingdon.  We had been urged,
+personally and by letter, to ascend this mountain, without fail.
+People recommend mountains to their friends as they do patent
+medicines.  As we leisurely jogged along we discussed this, and
+endeavored to arrive at some rule of conduct for the journey.  The
+Professor expressed at once a feeling about mountain-climbing that
+amounted to hostility,--he would go nowhere that he could not ride.
+Climbing was the most unsatisfactory use to which a mountain could be
+put.  As to White-Top, it was a small mountain, and not worth
+ascending.  The Friend of Humanity, who believes in mountain-climbing
+as a theory, and for other people, and knows the value of being able
+to say, without detection, that he has ascended any high mountain
+about which he is questioned,--since this question is the first one
+asked about an exploration in a new country,--saw that he should have
+to use a good deal of diplomacy to get the Professor over any
+considerable elevation on the trip.  And he had to confess also that
+a view from a mountain is never so satisfactory as a view of a
+mountain, from a moderate height.  The Professor, however, did not
+argue the matter on any such reasonable ground, but took his stand on
+his right as a man not to ascend a mountain.  With this appeal to
+first principles,--a position that could not be confuted on account
+of its vagueness (although it might probably be demonstrated that in
+society man has no such right), there was no way of agreement except
+by a compromise.  It was accordingly agreed that no mountain under
+six thousand feet is worth ascending; that disposed of White-Top.  It
+was further agreed that any mountain that is over six thousand feet
+high is too high to ascend on foot.
+
+With this amicable adjustment we forded the Holston, crossing it
+twice within a few miles.  This upper branch of the Tennessee is a
+noble stream, broad, with a rocky bed and a swift current.  Fording
+it is ticklish business except at comparatively low water, and as it
+is subject to sudden rises, there must be times when it seriously
+interrupts travel.  This whole region, full of swift streams, is
+without a bridge, and, as a consequence, getting over rivers and
+brooks and the dangers of ferries occupy a prominent place in the
+thoughts of the inhabitants.  The life necessarily had the "frontier"
+quality all through, for there can be little solid advance in
+civilization in the uncertainties of a bridgeless condition.  An
+open, pleasant valley, the Holston, but cultivation is more and more
+negligent and houses are few and poorer as we advance.
+
+We had left behind the hotels of "perfect satisfaction," and expected
+to live on the country, trusting to the infrequent but remunerated
+hospitality of the widely scattered inhabitants.  We were to dine at
+Ramsey's.  Ramsey's had been recommended to us as a royal place of
+entertainment the best in all that region; and as the sun grew hot in
+the sandy valley, and the weariness of noon fell upon us, we
+magnified Ramsey's in our imagination,--the nobility of its
+situation, its cuisine, its inviting restfulness,--and half decided
+to pass the night there in the true abandon of plantation life.  Long
+before we reached it, the Holston River which we followed had become
+the Laurel, a most lovely, rocky, winding stream, which we forded
+continually, for the valley became too narrow much of the way to
+accommodate a road and a river.  Eagerly as we were looking out for
+it, we passed the great Ramsey's without knowing it, for it was the
+first of a little settlement of two houses and a saw-mill and barn.
+It was a neat log house of two lower rooms and a summer kitchen,
+quite the best of the class that we saw, and the pleasant mistress of
+it made us welcome.  Across the road and close, to the Laurel was the
+spring-house, the invariable adjunct to every well-to-do house in the
+region, and on the stony margin of the stream was set up the big
+caldron for the family washing; and here, paddling in the shallow
+stream, while dinner was preparing, we established an intimacy with
+the children and exchanged philosophical observations on life with
+the old negress who was dabbling the clothes.  What impressed this
+woman was the inequality in life.  She jumped to the unwarranted
+conclusion that the Professor and the Friend were very rich, and
+spoke with asperity of the difficulty she experienced in getting
+shoes and tobacco.  It was useless to point out to her that her
+alfresco life was singularly blessed and free from care, and the
+happy lot of any one who could loiter all day by this laughing
+stream, undisturbed by debt or ambition.  Everybody about the place
+was barefooted, except the mistress, including the comely daughter of
+eighteen, who served our dinner in the kitchen.  The dinner was
+abundant, and though it seemed to us incongruous at the time, we were
+not twelve hours older when we looked back upon it with longing.  On
+the table were hot biscuit, ham, pork, and green beans, apple-sauce,
+blackberry preserves, cucumbers, coffee, plenty of milk, honey, and
+apple and blackberry pie.  Here we had our first experience, and I
+may say new sensation, of "honey on pie." It has a cloying sound as
+it is written, but the handmaiden recommended it with enthusiasm, and
+we evidently fell in her esteem, as persons from an uncultivated
+society, when we declared our inexperience of "honey on pie."  "Where
+be you from?"  It turned out to be very good, and we have tried to
+introduce it in families since our return, with indifferent success.
+There did not seem to be in this family much curiosity about the
+world at large, nor much stir of social life.  The gayety of madame
+appeared to consist in an occasional visit to paw and maw and
+grandmaw, up the river a few miles, where she was raised.
+
+Refreshed by the honey and fodder at Ramsey's, the pilgrims went
+gayly along the musical Laurel, in the slanting rays of the afternoon
+sun, which played upon the rapids and illumined all the woody way.
+Inspired by the misapprehension of the colored philosopher and the
+dainties of the dinner, the Professor soliloquized:
+
+    "So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
+     Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
+     The which he will not every hour survey,
+     For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
+     Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
+     Since seldom coming, in the long year set,
+     Like stones of wealth they thinly placed are,
+     Or captain jewels in the carcanet."
+
+Five miles beyond Ramsey's the Tennessee line was crossed.  The
+Laurel became more rocky, swift, full of rapids, and the valley
+narrowed down to the riverway, with standing room, however, for
+stately trees along the banks.  The oaks, both black and white, were,
+as they had been all day, gigantic in size and splendid in foliage.
+There is a certain dignity in riding in such stately company, and the
+travelers clattered along over the stony road under the impression of
+possible high adventure in a new world of such freshness.  Nor was
+beauty wanting.  The rhododendrons had, perhaps, a week ago reached
+their climax, and now began to strew the water and the ground with
+their brilliant petals, dashing all the way with color; but they were
+still matchlessly beautiful.  Great banks of pink and white covered
+the steep hillsides; the bending stems, ten to twenty feet high, hung
+their rich clusters over the river; avenues of glory opened away in
+the glade of the stream; and at every turn of the winding way vistas
+glowing with the hues of romance wrenched exclamations of delight and
+wonder from the Shakespearean sonneteer and his humble Friend.  In
+the deep recesses of the forest suddenly flamed to the view, like the
+splashes of splendor on the somber canvas of an old Venetian, these
+wonders of color,--the glowing summer-heart of the woods.
+
+It was difficult to say, meantime, whether the road was laid out in
+the river, or the river in the road.  In the few miles to Egger's
+(this was the destination of our great expectations for the night)
+the stream was crossed twenty-seven times,--or perhaps it would be
+more proper to say that the road was crossed twenty-seven times.
+Where the road did not run in the river, its bed was washed out and
+as stony as the bed of the stream.  This is a general and accurate
+description of all the roads in this region, which wind along and in
+the streams, through narrow valleys, shut in by low and steep hills.
+The country is full of springs and streams, and between Abingdon and
+Egger's is only one (small) bridge.  In a region with scarcely any
+level land or intervale, farmers are at a disadvantage.  All along
+the road we saw nothing but mean shanties, generally of logs, with
+now and then a decent one-story frame, and the people looked
+miserably poor.
+
+As we picked our way along up the Laurel, obliged for the most part
+to ride single-file, or as the Professor expressed it,
+
+    "Let me confess that we two must be twain,
+     Although our undivided loves are one,"
+
+we gathered information about Egger's from the infrequent hovels on
+the road, which inflamed our imaginations.  Egger was the thriving
+man of the region, and lived in style in a big brick house.  We began
+to feel a doubt that Egger would take us in, and so much did his
+brick magnificence impress us that we regretted we had not brought
+apparel fit for the society we were about to enter.
+
+It was half-past six, and we were tired and hungry, when the domain
+of Egger towered in sight,--a gaunt, two-story structure of raw
+brick, unfinished, standing in a narrow intervale.  We rode up to the
+gate, and asked a man who sat in the front-door porch if this was
+Egger's, and if we could be accommodated for the night.  The man,
+without moving, allowed that it was Egger's, and that we could
+probably stay there.  This person, however, exhibited so much
+indifference to our company, he was such a hairy, unkempt man, and
+carried on face, hands, and clothes so much more of the soil of the
+region than a prudent proprietor would divert from raising corn, that
+we set him aside as a poor relation, and asked for Mr. Egger.  But
+the man, still without the least hospitable stir, admitted that that
+was the name he went by, and at length advised us to "lite" and hitch
+our horses, and sit on the porch with him and enjoy the cool of the
+evening.  The horses would be put up by and by, and in fact things
+generally would come round some time.  This turned out to be the easy
+way of the country.  Mr. Egger was far from being inhospitable, but
+was in no hurry, and never had been in a hurry.  He was not exactly a
+gentleman of the old school.  He was better than that.  He dated from
+the time when there were no schools at all, and he lived in that
+placid world which is without information and ideas.  Mr. Egger
+showed his superiority by a total lack of curiosity about any other
+world.
+
+This brick house, magnificent by comparison with other dwellings in
+this country, seemed to us, on nearer acquaintance, only a thin,
+crude shell of a house, half unfinished, with bare rooms, the
+plastering already discolored.  In point of furnishing it had not yet
+reached the "God bless our Home" stage in crewel.  In the narrow
+meadow, a strip of vivid green south of the house, ran a little
+stream, fed by a copious spring, and over it was built the inevitable
+spring-house.  A post, driven into the bank by the stream, supported
+a tin wash-basin, and here we performed our ablutions.  The traveler
+gets to like this freedom and primitive luxury.
+
+The farm of Egger produces corn, wheat, grass, and sheep; it is a
+good enough farm, but most of it lies at an angle of thirty-five to
+forty degrees.  The ridge back of the house, planted in corn, was as
+steep as the roof of his dwelling.  It seemed incredible that it ever
+could have been plowed, but the proprietor assured us that it was
+plowed with mules, and I judged that the harvesting must be done by
+squirrels.  The soil is good enough, if it would stay in place, but
+all the hillsides are seamed with gullies.  The discolored state of
+the streams was accounted for as soon as we saw this cultivated land.
+No sooner is the land cleared of trees and broken up than it begins
+to wash.  We saw more of this later, especially in North Carolina,
+where we encountered no stream of water that was not muddy, and saw
+no cultivated ground that was not washed.  The process of denudation
+is going on rapidly wherever the original forests are girdled (a
+common way of preparing for crops), or cut away.
+
+As the time passed and there was no sign of supper, the question
+became a burning one, and we went to explore the kitchen.  No sign of
+it there.  No fire in the stove, nothing cooked in the house, of
+course.  Mrs. Egger and her comely young barefooted daughter had
+still the milking to attend to, and supper must wait for the other
+chores.  It seemed easier to be Mr. Egger, in this state of
+existence, and sit on the front porch and meditate on the price of
+mules and the prospect of a crop, than to be Mrs. Egger, whose work
+was not limited from sun to sun; who had, in fact, a day's work to do
+after the men-folks had knocked off; whose chances of neighborhood
+gossip were scanty, whose amusements were confined to a religious
+meeting once a fortnight.  Good, honest people these, not unduly
+puffed up by the brick house, grubbing away year in and year out.
+Yes, the young girl said, there was a neighborhood party, now and
+then, in the winter.  What a price to pay for mere life!
+
+Long before supper was ready, nearly nine o'clock, we had almost lost
+interest in it.  Meantime two other guests had arrived, a couple of
+drovers from North Carolina, who brought into the circle--by this
+time a wood-fire had been kindled in the sitting-room, which
+contained a bed, an almanac, and some old copies of a newspaper--a
+rich flavor of cattle, and talk of the price of steers.  As to
+politics, although a presidential campaign was raging, there was
+scarcely an echo of it here.  This was Johnson County, Tennessee, a
+strong Republican county but dog-gone it, says Mr.  Egger, it's no
+use to vote; our votes are overborne by the rest of the State.  Yes,
+they'd got a Republican member of Congress,--he'd heard his name, but
+he'd forgotten it.  The drover said he'd heard it also, but he didn't
+take much interest in such things, though he wasn't any Republican.
+Parties is pretty much all for office, both agreed.  Even the
+Professor, who was traveling in the interest of Reform, couldn't wake
+up a discussion out of such a state of mind.
+
+Alas!  the supper, served in a room dimly lighted with a smoky lamp,
+on a long table covered with oilcloth, was not of the sort to arouse
+the delayed and now gone appetite of a Reformer, and yet it did not
+lack variety: cornpone (Indian meal stirred up with water and heated
+through), hot biscuit, slack-baked and livid, fried salt-pork
+swimming in grease, apple-butter, pickled beets, onions and cucumbers
+raw, coffee (so-called), buttermilk, and sweet milk when specially
+asked for (the correct taste, however, is for buttermilk), and pie.
+This was not the pie of commerce, but the pie of the country,--two
+thick slabs of dough, with a squeezing of apple between.  The
+profusion of this supper staggered the novices, but the drovers
+attacked it as if such cooking were a common occurrence and did
+justice to the weary labors of Mrs. Egger.
+
+Egger is well prepared to entertain strangers, having several rooms
+and several beds in each room.  Upon consultation with the drovers,
+they said they'd just as soon occupy an apartment by themselves, and
+we gave up their society for the night.  The beds in our chamber had
+each one sheet, and the room otherwise gave evidence of the modern
+spirit; for in one corner stood the fashionable aesthetic decoration
+of our Queen Anne drawing-rooms,--the spinning-wheel.  Soothed by
+this concession to taste, we crowded in between the straw and the
+home-made blanket and sheet, and soon ceased to hear the barking of
+dogs and the horned encounters of the drovers' herd.
+
+We parted with Mr. Egger after breakfast (which was a close copy of
+the supper) with more respect than regret.  His total charge for the
+entertainment of two men and two horses--supper, lodging, and
+breakfast--was high or low, as the traveler chose to estimate it.  It
+was $1.20: that is, thirty cents for each individual, or ten cents
+for each meal and lodging.
+
+Our road was a sort of by-way up Gentry Creek and over the Cut Laurel
+Gap to Worth's, at Creston Post Office, in North Carolina,--the next
+available halting place, said to be fifteen miles distant, and
+turning out to be twenty-two, and a rough road.  There is a little
+settlement about Egger's, and the first half mile of our way we had
+the company of the schoolmistress, a modest, pleasant-spoken girl.
+Neither she nor any other people we encountered had any dialect or
+local peculiarity of speech.  Indeed, those we encountered that
+morning had nothing in manner or accent to distinguish them.  The
+novelists had led us to expect something different; and the modest
+and pretty young lady with frank and open blue eyes, who wore gloves
+and used the common English speech, had never figured in the fiction
+of the region.  Cherished illusions vanish often on near approach.
+The day gave no peculiarity of speech to note, except the occasional
+use of "hit" for "it."
+
+The road over Cut Laurel Gap was very steep and stony, the
+thermometer mounted up to 80 deg., and, notwithstanding the beauty of
+the way, the ride became tedious before we reached the summit.  On
+the summit is the dwelling and distillery of a colonel famous in
+these parts.  We stopped at the house for a glass of milk; the
+colonel was absent, and while the woman in charge went after it, we
+sat on the veranda and conversed with a young lady, tall, gent, well
+favored, and communicative, who leaned in the doorway.
+
+"Yes, this house stands on the line.  Where you sit, you are in
+Tennessee; I'm in North Carolina."
+
+"Do you live here?"
+
+"Law, no; I'm just staying a little while at the colonel's.  I live
+over the mountain here, three miles from Taylorsville.  I thought I'd
+be where I could step into North Carolina easy."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Well, they wanted me to go before the grand jury and testify about
+some pistol-shooting down by our house, some friends of mine got into
+a little difficulty,--and I did n't want to.  I never has no
+difficulty with nobody, never says nothing about nobody, has nothing
+against nobody, and I reckon nobody has nothing against me."
+
+"Did you come alone?"
+
+"Why, of course.  I come across the mountain by a path through the
+woods.  That's nothing."
+
+A discreet, pleasant, pretty girl.  This surely must be the Esmeralda
+who lives in these mountains, and adorns low life by her virgin
+purity and sentiment.  As she talked on, she turned from time to time
+to the fireplace behind her, and discharged a dark fluid from her
+pretty lips, with accuracy of aim, and with a nonchalance that was
+not assumed, but belongs to our free-born American girls.  I cannot
+tell why this habit of hers (which is no worse than the sister habit
+of "dipping") should take her out of the romantic setting that her
+face and figure had placed her in; but somehow we felt inclined to
+ride on farther for our heroine.
+
+"And yet," said the Professor, as we left the site of the colonel's
+thriving distillery, and by a winding, picturesque road through a
+rough farming country descended into the valley,--"and yet, why fling
+aside so readily a character and situation so full of romance, on
+account of a habit of this mountain Helen, which one of our best
+poets has almost made poetical, in the case of the pioneer taking his
+westward way, with ox-goad pointing to the sky:
+
+   "'He's leaving on the pictured rock
+     His fresh tobacco stain.'
+
+"To my mind the incident has Homeric elements.  The Greeks would have
+looked at it in a large, legendary way.  Here is Helen, strong and
+lithe of limb, ox-eyed, courageous, but woman-hearted and love-
+inspiring, contended for by all the braves and daring moonshiners of
+Cut Laurel Gap, pursued by the gallants of two States, the prize of a
+border warfare of bowie knives and revolvers.  This Helen,
+magnanimous as attractive, is the witness of a pistol difficulty on
+her behalf, and when wanted by the areopagus, that she may neither
+implicate a lover nor punish an enemy (having nothing, this noble
+type of her sex against nobody), skips away to Mount Ida, and there,
+under the aegis of the flag of her country, in a Licensed Distillery,
+stands with one slender foot in Tennessee and the other in North
+Carolina"
+
+"Like the figure of the Republic itself, superior to state
+sovereignty," interposed the Friend.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the Professor, urging up Laura Matilda (for
+so he called the nervous mare, who fretted herself into a fever in
+the stony path), "I was quite able to get the woman out of that
+position without the aid of a metaphor.  It is a large and Greek
+idea, that of standing in two mighty States, superior to the law,
+looking east and looking west, ready to transfer her agile body to
+either State on the approach of messengers of the court; and I'll be
+hanged if I didn't think that her nonchalant rumination of the weed,
+combined with her lofty moral attitude, added something to the
+picture."
+
+The Friend said that he was quite willing to join in the extremest
+defense of the privileges of beauty,--that he even held in abeyance
+judgment on the practice of dipping; but when it came to chewing, gum
+was as far as he could go as an allowance for the fair sex.
+
+    "When I consider everything that grows
+     Holds in perfection but a little moment..."
+
+The rest of the stanza was lost, for the Professor was splashing
+through the stream.  No sooner had we descended than the fording of
+streams began again.  The Friend had been obliged to stipulate that
+the Professor should go ahead at these crossings, to keep the
+impetuous nag of the latter from throwing half the contents of the
+stream upon his slower and uncomplaining companion.
+
+What a lovely country, but for the heat of noon and the long
+wearisomeness of the way!--not that the distance was great, but miles
+and miles more than expected.  How charming the open glades of the
+river, how refreshing the great forests of oak and chestnut, and what
+a panorama of beauty the banks of rhododendrons, now intermingled
+with the lighter pink and white of the laurel!  In this region the
+rhododendron is called laurel and the laurel (the sheep-laurel of
+New England) is called ivy.
+
+At Worth's, well on in the afternoon, we emerged into a wide, open
+farming intervale, a pleasant place of meadows and streams and decent
+dwellings.  Worth's is the trading center of the region, has a post
+office and a saw-mill and a big country store; and the dwelling of
+the proprietor is not unlike a roomy New England country house.
+Worth's has been immemorially a stopping-place in a region where
+places of accommodation are few.  The proprietor, now an elderly man,
+whose reminiscences are long ante bellum, has seen the world grow up
+about him, he the honored, just center of it, and a family come up
+into the modern notions of life, with a boarding-school education and
+glimpses of city life and foreign travel.  I fancy that nothing but
+tradition and a remaining Southern hospitality could induce this
+private family to suffer the incursions of this wayfaring man.  Our
+travelers are not apt to be surprised at anything in American life,
+but they did not expect to find a house in this region with two
+pianos and a bevy of young ladies, whose clothes were certainly not
+made on Cut Laurel Gap, and to read in the books scattered about the
+house the evidences of the finishing schools with which our country
+is blessed, nor to find here pupils of the Stonewall Jackson
+Institute at Abingdon.  With a flush of local pride, the Professor
+took up, in the roomy, pleasant chamber set apart for the guests, a
+copy of Porter's "Elements of Moral Science."
+
+"Where you see the 'Elements of Moral Science,'" the Friend
+generalized, "there'll be plenty of water and towels;" and the sign
+did not fail.  The friends intended to read this book in the cool of
+the day; but as they sat on the long veranda, the voice of a maiden
+reading the latest novel to a sewing group behind the blinds in the
+drawing-room; and the antics of a mule and a boy in front of the
+store opposite; and the arrival of a spruce young man, who had just
+ridden over from somewhere, a matter of ten miles' gallop, to get a
+medicinal potion for his sick mother, and lingered chatting with the
+young ladies until we began to fear that his mother would recover
+before his return; the coming and going of lean women in shackly
+wagons to trade at the store; the coming home of the cows, splashing
+through the stream, hooking right and left, and lowing for the hand
+of the milker,--all these interruptions, together with the generally
+drowsy quiet of the approach of evening, interfered with the study of
+the Elements.  And when the travelers, after a refreshing rest, went
+on their way next morning, considering the Elements and the pianos
+and the refinement, to say nothing of the cuisine, which is not
+treated of in the text-book referred to, they were content with a
+bill double that of brother Egger, in his brick magnificence.
+
+The simple truth is, that the traveler in this region must be content
+to feed on natural beauties.  And it is an unfortunate truth in
+natural history that the appetite for this sort of diet fails after a
+time, if the inner man is not supplied with other sort of food.
+There is no landscape in the world that is agreeable after two days
+of rusty-bacon and slack biscuit.
+
+"How lovely this would be," exclaimed the Professor, if it had a
+background of beefsteak and coffee!
+
+We were riding along the west fork of the Laurel, distinguished
+locally as Three Top Creek,--or, rather, we were riding in it,
+crossing it thirty-one times within six miles; a charming wood (and
+water) road, under the shade of fine trees with the rhododendron
+illuminating the way, gleaming in the forest and reflected in the
+stream, all the ten miles to Elk Cross Roads, our next destination.
+We had heard a great deal about Elk Cross Roads; it was on the map,
+it was down in the itinerary furnished by a member of the Coast
+Survey.  We looked forward to it as a sweet place of repose from the
+noontide heat.  Alas!  Elk Cross Roads is a dirty grocery store,
+encumbered with dry-goods boxes, fly-blown goods, flies, loafers.  In
+reply to our inquiry we were told that they had nothing to eat, for
+us, and not a grain of feed for the horses.  But there was a man a
+mile farther on, who was well to do and had stores of food,--old man
+Tatern would treat us in bang-up style.  The difficulty of getting
+feed for the horses was chronic all through the journey.  The last
+corn crop had failed, the new oats and corn had not come in, and the
+country was literally barren.  We had noticed all along that the hens
+were taking a vacation, and that chickens were not put forward as an
+article of diet.
+
+We were unable, when we reached the residence of old man Tatem, to
+imagine how the local superstition of his wealth arose.  His house is
+of logs, with two rooms, a kitchen and a spare room, with a low loft
+accessible by a ladder at the side of the chimney.  The chimney is a
+huge construction of stone, separating the two parts of the house; in
+fact, the chimney was built first, apparently, and the two rooms were
+then built against it.  The proprietor sat in a little railed
+veranda.  These Southern verandas give an air to the meanest
+dwelling, and they are much used; the family sit here, and here are
+the washbasin and pail (which is filled from the neighboring spring-
+house), and the row of milk-pans.  The old man Tatern did not welcome
+us with enthusiasm; he had no corn,--these were hard times.  He
+looked like hard times, grizzled times, dirty times.  It seemed time
+out of mind since he had seen comb or razor, and although the lovely
+New River, along which we had ridden to his house,--a broad, inviting
+stream,--was in sight across the meadow, there was no evidence that
+he had ever made acquaintance with its cleansing waters.  As to corn,
+the necessities of the case and pay being dwelt on, perhaps he could
+find a dozen ears.  A dozen small cars he did find, and we trust that
+the horses found them.
+
+We took a family dinner with old man Tatern in the kitchen, where
+there was a bed and a stove,--a meal that the host seemed to enjoy,
+but which we could not make much of, except the milk; that was good.
+A painful meal, on the whole, owing to the presence in the room of a
+grown-up daughter with a graveyard cough, without physician or
+medicine, or comforts.  Poor girl! just dying of "a misery."
+
+In the spare room were two beds; the walls were decorated with the
+gay-colored pictures of patent-medicine advertisements--a favorite
+art adornment of the region; and a pile of ancient illustrated papers
+with the usual patent-office report, the thoughtful gift of the
+member for the district.  The old man takes in the "Blue Ridge
+Baptist," a journal which we found largely taken up with the
+experiences of its editor on his journeys roundabout in search of
+subscribers.  This newspaper was the sole communication of the family
+with the world at large, but the old man thought he should stop it,--
+he did n't seem to get the worth of his money out of it.  And old man
+Tatem was a thrifty and provident man.  On the hearth in this best
+room--as ornaments or memento mori were a couple of marble
+gravestones, a short headstone and foot-stone, mounted on bases and
+ready for use, except the lettering.  These may not have been so
+mournful and significant as they looked, nor the evidence of simple,
+humble faith; they may have been taken for debt.  But as parlor
+ornaments they had a fascination which we could not escape.
+
+It was while we were bathing in the New River, that afternoon, and
+meditating on the grim, unrelieved sort of life of our host, that the
+Professor said, "judging by the face of the 'Blue Ridge Baptist,' he
+will charge us smartly for the few nubbins of corn and the milk."
+The face did not deceive us; the charge was one dollar.  At this rate
+it would have broken us to have tarried with old man Tatem (perhaps
+he is not old, but that is the name he goes by) over night.
+
+It was a hot afternoon, and it needed some courage to mount and climb
+the sandy hill leading us away from the corn-crib of Tatem.  But we
+entered almost immediately into fine stretches of forest, and rode
+under the shade of great oaks.  The way, which began by the New
+River, soon led us over the hills to the higher levels of Watauga
+County.  So far on our journey we had been hemmed in by low hills,
+and without any distant or mountain outlooks.  The excessive heat
+seemed out of place at the elevation of over two thousand feet, on
+which we were traveling.  Boone, the county seat of Watauga County,
+was our destination, and, ever since morning, the guideboards and the
+trend of the roads had notified us that everything in this region
+tends towards Boone as a center of interest.  The simple ingenuity of
+some of the guide-boards impressed us.  If, on coming to a fork, the
+traveler was to turn to the right, the sign read,
+
+      To BOONE 10 M.
+If he was to go to the left, it read,
+      .M 01 ENOOB oT
+
+A short ride of nine miles, on an ascending road, through an open,
+unfenced forest region, brought us long before sundown to this
+capital.  When we had ridden into its single street, which wanders
+over gentle hills, and landed at the most promising of the taverns,
+the Friend informed his comrade that Boone was 3250 feet above
+Albemarle Sound, and believed by its inhabitants to be the highest
+village east of the Rocky Mountains.  The Professor said that it
+might be so, but it was a God-forsaken place.  Its inhabitants
+numbered perhaps two hundred and fifty, a few of them colored.  It
+had a gaunt, shaky court-house and jail, a store or two, and two
+taverns.  The two taverns are needed to accommodate the judges and
+lawyers and their clients during the session of the court.  The court
+is the only excitement and the only amusement.  It is the event from
+which other events date.  Everybody in the county knows exactly when
+court sits, and when court breaks.  During the session the whole
+county is practically in Boone, men, women, and children.  They camp
+there, they attend the trials, they take sides; half of them,
+perhaps, are witnesses, for the region is litigious, and the
+neighborhood quarrels are entered into with spirit.  To be fond of
+lawsuits seems a characteristic of an isolated people in new
+conditions.  The early settlers of New England were.
+
+Notwithstanding the elevation of Boone, which insured a pure air, the
+thermometer that afternoon stood at from 85 to 89 deg.  The flies
+enjoyed it.  How they swarmed in this tavern!  They would have
+carried off all the food from the dining-room table (for flies do not
+mind eating off oilcloth, and are not particular how food is cooked),
+but for the machine with hanging flappers that swept the length of
+it; and they destroy all possibility of sleep except in the dark.
+The mountain regions of North Carolina are free from mosquitoes, but
+the fly has settled there, and is the universal scourge.  This
+tavern, one end of which was a store, had a veranda in front, and a
+back gallery, where there were evidences of female refinement in pots
+of plants and flowers.  The landlord himself kept tavern very much as
+a hostler would, but we had to make a note in his favor that he had
+never heard of a milk punch.  And it might as well be said here, for
+it will have to be insisted on later, that the traveler, who has read
+about the illicit stills till his imagination dwells upon the
+indulgence of his vitiated tastes in the mountains of North Carolina,
+is doomed to disappointment.  If he wants to make himself an
+exception to the sober people whose cooking will make him long for
+the maddening bowl, he must bring his poison with him.  We had found
+no bread since we left Virginia; we had seen cornmeal and water,
+slack-baked; we had seen potatoes fried in grease, and bacon
+incrusted with salt (all thirst-provokers), but nothing to drink
+stronger than buttermilk.  And we can say that, so far as our example
+is concerned, we left the country as temperate as we found it.  How
+can there be mint juleps (to go into details) without ice? and in the
+summer there is probably not a pound of ice in all the State north of
+Buncombe County.
+
+There is nothing special to be said about Boone.  We were anxious to
+reach it, we were glad to leave it; we note as to all these places
+that our joy at departing always exceeds that on arriving, which is a
+merciful provision of nature for people who must keep moving.  This
+country is settled by genuine Americans, who have the aboriginal
+primitive traits of the universal Yankee nation.  The front porch in
+the morning resembled a carpenter's shop; it was literally covered
+with the whittlings of the row of natives who had spent the evening
+there in the sedative occupation of whittling.
+
+We took that morning a forest road to Valle Crusis, seven miles,
+through noble growths of oaks, chestnuts, hemlocks, rhododendrons,--a
+charming wood road, leading to a place that, as usual, did not keep
+the promise of its name.  Valle Crusis has a blacksmith shop and a
+dirty, flyblown store.  While the Professor consulted the blacksmith
+about a loose shoe, the Friend carried his weariness of life without
+provisions up to a white house on the hill, and negotiated for boiled
+milk.  This house was occupied by flies.  They must have numbered
+millions, settled in black swarms, covering tables, beds, walls, the
+veranda; the kitchen was simply a hive of them.  The only book in
+sight, Whewell's--"Elements of Morality," seemed to attract flies.
+Query, Why should this have such a different effect from Porter's?  A
+white house,--a pleasant-looking house at a distance,--amiable,
+kindly people in it,--why should we have arrived there on its dirty
+day?  Alas! if we had been starving, Valle Crusis had nothing to
+offer us.
+
+So we rode away, in the blazing heat, no poetry exuding from the
+Professor, eight miles to Banner's Elk, crossing a mountain and
+passing under Hanging Rock, a conspicuous feature in the landscape,
+and the only outcropping of rock we had seen: the face of a ledge,
+rounded up into the sky, with a green hood on it.  From the summit we
+had the first extensive prospect during our journey.  The road can be
+described as awful,--steep, stony, the horses unable to make two
+miles an hour on it.  Now and then we encountered a rude log cabin
+without barns or outhouses, and a little patch of feeble corn.  The
+women who regarded the passers from their cabin doors were frowzy and
+looked tired.  What with the heat and the road and this discouraged
+appearance of humanity, we reached the residence of Dugger, at
+Banner's Elk, to which we had been directed, nearly exhausted.  It is
+no use to represent this as a dash across country on impatient
+steeds.  It was not so.  The love of truth is stronger than the
+desire of display.  And for this reason it is impossible to say that
+Mr. Dugger, who is an excellent man, lives in a clean and attractive
+house, or that he offers much that the pampered child of civilization
+can eat.  But we shall not forget the two eggs, fresh from the hens,
+whose temperature must have been above the normal, nor the spring-
+house in the glen, where we found a refuge from the flies and the
+heat.  The higher we go, the hotter it is.  Banner's Elk boasts an
+elevation of thirty-five to thirty-seven hundred feet.
+
+We were not sorry, towards sunset, to descend along the Elk River
+towards Cranberry Forge.  The Elk is a lovely stream, and, though not
+very clear, has a reputation for trout; but all this region was under
+operation of a three-years game law, to give the trout a chance to
+multiply, and we had no opportunity to test the value of its
+reputation.  Yet a boy whom we encountered had a good string of
+quarter-pound trout, which he had taken out with a hook and a feather
+rudely tied on it, to resemble a fly.  The road, though not to be
+commended, was much better than that of the morning, the forests grew
+charming in the cool of the evening, the whippoorwill sang, and as
+night fell the wanderers, in want of nearly everything that makes
+life desirable, stopped at the Iron Company's hotel, under the
+impression that it was the only comfortable hotel in North Carolina.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Cranberry Forge is the first wedge of civilization fairly driven into
+the northwest mountains of North Carolina.  A narrow-gauge railway,
+starting from Johnson City, follows up the narrow gorge of the Doe
+River, and pushes into the heart of the iron mines at Cranberry,
+where there is a blast furnace; and where a big company store, rows
+of tenement houses, heaps of slag and refuse ore, interlacing tracks,
+raw embankments, denuded hillsides, and a blackened landscape, are
+the signs of a great devastating American enterprise.  The Cranberry
+iron is in great esteem, as it has the peculiar quality of the
+Swedish iron.  There are remains of old furnaces lower down the
+stream, which we passed on our way.  The present "plant" is that of a
+Philadelphia company, whose enterprise has infused new life into all
+this region, made it accessible, and spoiled some pretty scenery.
+
+When we alighted, weary, at the gate of the pretty hotel, which
+crowns a gentle hill and commands a pleasing, evergreen prospect of
+many gentle hills, a mile or so below the works, and wholly removed
+from all sordid associations, we were at the point of willingness
+that the whole country should be devastated by civilization.  In the
+local imagination this hotel of the company is a palace of unequaled
+magnificence, but probably its good taste, comfort, and quiet
+elegance are not appreciated after all.  There is this to be said
+about Philadelphia,--and it will go far in pleading for it in the
+Last Day against its monotonous rectangularity and the babel-like
+ambition of its Public Building,--that wherever its influence
+extends, there will be found comfortable lodgings and the luxury of
+an undeniably excellent cuisine.  The visible seal that Philadelphia
+sets on its enterprise all through the South is a good hotel.
+
+This Cottage Beautiful has on two sides a wide veranda, set about
+with easy chairs; cheerful parlors and pretty chambers, finished in
+native woods, among which are conspicuous the satin stripes of the
+cucumber-tree; luxurious beds, and an inviting table ordered by a
+Philadelphia landlady, who knows a beefsteak from a boot-tap.  Is it
+"low" to dwell upon these things of the senses, when one is on a tour
+in search of the picturesque?  Let the reader ride from Abingdon
+through a wilderness of cornpone and rusty bacon, and then judge.
+There were, to be sure, novels lying about, and newspapers, and
+fragments of information to be picked up about a world into which the
+travelers seemed to emerge.  They, at least, were satisfied, and went
+off to their rooms with the restful feeling that they had arrived
+somewhere and no unquiet spirit at morn would say "to horse."  To
+sleep, perchance to dream of Tatem and his household cemetery; and
+the Professor was heard muttering in his chamber,
+
+    "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
+     The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
+     But then begins a journey in my head,
+     To work my mind, when body's work's expir'd."
+
+The morning was warm (the elevation of the hotel must be between
+twenty-five hundred and three thousand feet), rainy, mildly rainy;
+and the travelers had nothing better to do than lounge upon the
+veranda, read feeble ten-cent fictions, and admire the stems of the
+white birches, glistening in the moisture, and the rhododendron-
+trees, twenty feet high, which were shaking off their last pink
+blossoms, and look down into the valley of the Doe.  It is not an
+exciting landscape, nothing bold or specially wild in it, but restful
+with the monotony of some of the wooded Pennsylvania hills.
+
+Sunday came up smiling, a lovely day, but offering no church
+privileges, for the ordinance of preaching is only occasional in this
+region.  The ladies of the hotel have, however, gathered in the
+valley a Sunday-school of fifty children from the mountain cabins.  A
+couple of rainy days, with the thermometer rising to 80 deg.,
+combined with natural laziness to detain the travelers in this
+cottage of ease.  They enjoyed this the more because it was on their
+consciences that they should visit Linville Falls, some twenty-five
+miles eastward, long held up before them as the most magnificent
+feature of this region, and on no account to be omitted.  Hence,
+naturally, a strong desire to omit it.  The Professor takes bold
+ground against these abnormal freaks of nature, and it was nothing to
+him that the public would demand that we should see Linville Falls.
+In the first place, we could find no one who had ever seen them, and
+we spent two days in catechizing natives and strangers.  The nearest
+we came to information was from a workman at the furnace, who was
+born and raised within three miles of the Falls.  He had heard of
+people going there.  He had never seen them himself.  It was a good
+twenty-five miles there, over the worst road in the State we'd think
+it thirty before we got there.  Fifty miles of such travel to see a
+little water run down-hill!  The travelers reflected.  Every country
+has a local waterfall of which it boasts; they had seen a great many.
+One more would add little to the experience of life.  The vagueness
+of information, to be sure, lured the travelers to undertake the
+journey; but the temptation was resisted--something ought to be left
+for the next explorer--and so Linville remains a thing of the
+imagination.
+
+Towards evening, July 29, between showers, the Professor and the
+Friend rode along the narrow-gauge road, down Johnson's Creek, to
+Roan Station, the point of departure for ascending Roan Mountain.  It
+was a ride of an hour and a half over a fair road, fringed with
+rhododendrons, nearly blossomless; but at a point on the stream this
+sturdy shrub had formed a long bower where under a table might have
+been set for a temperance picnic, completely overgrown with wild
+grape, and still gay with bloom.  The habitations on the way are
+mostly board shanties and mean frame cabins, but the railway is
+introducing ambitious architecture here and there in the form of
+ornamental filigree work on flimsy houses; ornamentation is apt to
+precede comfort in our civilization.
+
+Roan Station is on the Doe River (which flows down from Roan
+Mountain), and is marked at 1265 feet above the sea.  The visitor
+will find here a good hotel, with open wood fires (not ungrateful in
+a July evening), and obliging people.  This railway from Johnson
+City, hanging on the edge of the precipices that wall the gorge of
+the Doe, is counted in this region by the inhabitants one of the
+engineering wonders of the world.  The tourist is urged by all means
+to see both it and Linville Falls.
+
+The tourist on horseback, in search of exercise and recreation, is
+not probably expected to take stock of moral conditions.  But this
+Mitchell County, although it was a Union county during the war and is
+Republican in politics (the Southern reader will perhaps prefer
+another adverb to "although"), has had the worst possible reputation.
+The mountains were hiding-places of illicit distilleries; the woods
+were full of grog-shanties, where the inflaming fluid was sold as
+"native brandy," quarrels and neighborhood difficulties were
+frequent, and the knife and pistol were used on the slightest
+provocation.  Fights arose about boundaries and the title to mica
+mines, and with the revenue officers; and force was the arbiter of
+all disputes.  Within the year four murders were committed in the
+sparsely settled county.  Travel on any of the roads was unsafe.  The
+tone of morals was what might be expected with such lawlessness.  A
+lady who came up on the road on the 4th of July, when an excursion
+party of country people took possession of the cars, witnessed a
+scene and heard language past belief.  Men, women, and children drank
+from whisky bottles that continually circulated, and a wild orgy
+resulted.  Profanity, indecent talk on topics that even the license
+of the sixteenth century would not have tolerated, and freedom of
+manners that even Teniers would have shrunk from putting on canvas,
+made the journey horrible.
+
+The unrestrained license of whisky and assault and murder had
+produced a reaction a few months previous to our visit.  The people
+had risen up in their indignation and broken up the groggeries.  So
+far as we observed temperance prevailed, backed by public-opinion.
+In our whole ride through the mountain region we saw only one or two
+places where liquor was sold.
+
+It is called twelve miles from Roan Station to Roan Summit.  The
+distance is probably nearer fourteen, and our horses were five hours
+in walking it.  For six miles the road runs by Doe River, here a
+pretty brook shaded with laurel and rhododendron, and a few
+cultivated patches of ground, and infrequent houses.  It was a blithe
+morning, and the horsemen would have given full indulgence to the
+spirit of adventure but for the attitude of the Professor towards
+mountains.  It was not with him a matter of feeling, but of
+principle, not to ascend them.  But here lay Roan, a long, sprawling
+ridge, lifting itself 6250 feet up into the sky.  Impossible to go
+around it, and the other side must be reached.  The Professor was
+obliged to surrender, and surmount a  difficulty which he could not
+philosophize out of his mind.
+
+>From the base of the mountain a road is very well engineered, in easy
+grades for carriages, to the top; but it was in poor repair and
+stony.  We mounted slowly through splendid forests, specially of fine
+chestnuts and hemlocks.  This big timber continues till within a mile
+and a half of the summit by the winding road, really within a short
+distance of the top.  Then there is a narrow belt of scrubby
+hardwood, moss-grown, and then large balsams, which crown the
+mountain.  As soon as we came out upon the southern slope we found
+great open spaces, covered with succulent grass, and giving excellent
+pasturage to cattle.  These rich mountain meadows are found on all
+the heights of this region.  The surface of Roan is uneven, and has
+no one culminating peak that commands the country, like the peak of
+Mount Washington, but several eminences within its range of probably
+a mile and a half, where various views can be had.  Near the highest
+point, sheltered from the north by balsams, stands a house of
+entertainment, with a detached cottage, looking across the great
+valley to the Black Mountain range.  The surface of the mountain is
+pebbly, but few rocks crop out; no ledges of any size are seen except
+at a distance from the hotel, on the north side, and the mountain
+consequently lacks that savage, unsubduable aspect which the White
+Hills of New Hampshire have.  It would, in fact, have been difficult
+to realize that we were over six thousand feet above the sea, except
+for that pallor in the sunlight, that atmospheric thinness and want
+of color which is an unpleasant characteristic of high altitudes.  To
+be sure, there is a certain brilliancy in the high air,--it is apt to
+be foggy on Roan,--and objects appear in sharp outline, but I have
+often experienced on such places that feeling of melancholy, which
+would, of course, deepen upon us all if we were sensible that the sun
+was gradually withdrawing its power of warmth and light.  The black
+balsam is neither a cheerful nor a picturesque tree; the frequent
+rains and mists on Roan keep the grass and mosses green, but the
+ground damp.  Doubtless a high mountain covered with vegetation has
+its compensation, but for me the naked granite rocks in sun and
+shower are more cheerful.
+
+The advantage of Roan is that one can live there and be occupied for
+a long time in mineral and botanical study.  Its mild climate,
+moisture, and great elevation make it unique in this country for the
+botanist.  The variety of plants assembled there is very large, and
+there are many, we were told, never or rarely found elsewhere in the
+United States.  At any rate, the botanists rave about Roan Mountain,
+and spend weeks at a time on it.  We found there ladies who could
+draw for us Grey's lily (then passed), and had kept specimens of the
+rhododendron (not growing elsewhere in this region) which has a deep
+red, almost purple color.
+
+The hotel (since replaced by a good house) was a rude mountain
+structure, with a couple of comfortable rooms for office and sitting-
+room, in which big wood fires were blazing; for though the
+thermometer might record 60 deg., as it did when we arrived, fire was
+welcome.  Sleeping-places partitioned off in the loft above gave the
+occupants a feeling of camping out, all the conveniences being
+primitive; and when the wind rose in the night and darkness, and the
+loose boards rattled and the timbers creaked, the sensation was not
+unlike that of being at sea.  The hotel was satisfactorily kept, and
+Southern guests, from as far south as New Orleans, were spending the
+season there, and not finding time hang heavy on their hands.  This
+statement is perhaps worth more than pages of description as to the
+character of Roan, and its contrast to Mount Washington.
+
+The summer weather is exceedingly uncertain on all these North
+Carolina mountains; they are apt at any moment to be enveloped in
+mist; and it would rather rain on them than not.  On the afternoon of
+our arrival there was fine air and fair weather, but not a clear sky.
+The distance was hazy, but the outlines were preserved.  We could see
+White Top, in Virginia; Grandfather Mountain, a long serrated range;
+the twin towers of Linville; and the entire range of the Black
+Mountains, rising from the valley, and apparently lower than we were.
+They get the name of Black from the balsams which cover the summits.
+
+The rain on Roan was of less annoyance by reason of the delightful
+company assembled at the hotel, which was in a manner at home there,
+and, thrown upon its own resources, came out uncommonly strong in
+agreeableness.  There was a fiddle in the house, which had some of
+the virtues of that celebrated in the history of old Mark Langston;
+the Professor was enabled to produce anything desired out of the
+literature of the eighteenth century; and what with the repartee of
+bright women, big wood fires, reading, and chat, there was no dull
+day or evening on Roan.  I can fancy, however, that it might tire in
+time, if one were not a botanist, without the resource of women's
+society.  The ladies staying here were probably all accomplished
+botanists, and the writer is indebted to one of them for a list of
+plants found on Roan, among which is an interesting weed, catalogued
+as Humana, perplexia negligens.  The species is, however, common
+elsewhere.
+
+The second morning opened, after a night of high wind, with a
+thunder-shower.  After it passed, the visitors tried to reach Eagle
+Cliff, two miles off, whence an extensive western prospect is had,
+but were driven back by a tempest, and rain practically occupied the
+day.  Now and then through the parted clouds we got a glimpse of a
+mountain-side, or the gleam of a valley.  On the lower mountains, at
+wide intervals apart, were isolated settlements, commonly a wretched
+cabin and a spot of girdled trees.  A clergyman here, not long ago,
+undertook to visit some of these cabins and carry his message to
+them.  In one wretched hut of logs he found a poor woman, with whom,
+after conversation on serious subjects, he desired to pray.  She
+offered no objection, and he kneeled down and prayed.  The woman
+heard him, and watched him for some moments with curiosity, in an
+effort to ascertain what he was doing, and then said:
+
+"Why, a man did that when he put my girl in a hole."
+
+Towards night the wind hauled round from the south to the northwest,
+and we went to High Bluff, a point on the north edge, where some
+rocks are piled up above the evergreens, to get a view of the sunset.
+In every direction the mountains were clear, and a view was obtained
+of the vast horizon and the hills and lowlands of several States--a
+continental prospect, scarcely anywhere else equaled for variety or
+distance.  The grandeur of mountains depends mostly on the state of
+the atmosphere.  Grandfather loomed up much more loftily than the day
+before, the giant range of the Blacks asserted itself in grim
+inaccessibility, and we could see, a small pyramid on the southwest
+horizon, King's Mountain in South Carolina, estimated to be distant
+one hundred and fifty miles.  To the north Roan falls from this point
+abruptly, and we had, like a map below us, the low country all the
+way into Virginia.  The clouds lay like lakes in the valleys of the
+lower hills, and in every direction were ranges of mountains wooded
+to the summits.  Off to the west by south lay the Great Smoky
+Mountains, disputing eminence with the Blacks.
+
+Magnificent and impressive as the spectacle was, we were obliged to
+contrast it unfavorably with that of the White Hills.  The rock here
+is a sort of sand or pudding stone; there is no limestone or granite.
+And all the hills are tree-covered.  To many this clothing of verdure
+is most restful and pleasing.  I missed the sharp outlines, the
+delicate artistic sky lines, sharply defined in uplifted bare granite
+peaks and ridges, with the purple and violet color of the northern
+mountains, and which it seems to me that limestone and granite
+formations give.  There are none of the great gorges and awful
+abysses of the White Mountains, both valleys and mountains here being
+more uniform in outline.  There are few precipices and jutting crags,
+and less is visible of the giant ribs and bones of the planet.
+
+Yet Roan is a noble mountain.  A lady from Tennessee asked me if I
+had ever seen anything to compare with it--she thought there could be
+nothing in the world.  One has to dodge this sort of question in the
+South occasionally, not to offend a just local pride.  It is
+certainly one of the most habitable of big mountains.  It is roomy on
+top, there is space to move about without too great fatigue, and one
+might pleasantly spend a season there, if he had agreeable company
+and natural tastes.
+
+Getting down from Roan on the south side is not as easy as ascending
+on the north; the road for five miles to the foot of the mountain is
+merely a river of pebbles, gullied by the heavy rains, down which the
+horses picked their way painfully.  The travelers endeavored to
+present a dashing and cavalier appearance to the group of ladies who
+waved good-by from the hotel, as they took their way over the waste
+and wind-blown declivities, but it was only a show, for the horses
+would neither caracole nor champ the bit (at a dollar a day) down-
+hill over the slippery stones, and, truth to tell, the wanderers
+turned with regret from the society of leisure and persiflage to face
+the wilderness of Mitchell County.
+
+"How heavy," exclaimed the Professor, pricking Laura Matilda to call
+her attention sharply to her footing
+
+    "How heavy do I journey on the way,
+     When what I seek--my weary travel's end
+     Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
+     Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend!
+     The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
+     Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
+     As if by some instinct the wretch did know
+     His rider loved not speed, being made from thee:
+     The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
+     That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
+     Which heavily he answers with a groan,
+     More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
+     For that same groan doth put this in my mind;
+     My grief lies onward and my joy behind."
+
+This was not spoken to the group who fluttered their farewells, but
+poured out to the uncomplaining forest, which rose up in ever
+statelier--and grander ranks to greet the travelers as they
+descended--the silent, vast forest, without note of bird or chip of
+squirrel, only the wind tossing the great branches high overhead in
+response to the sonnet.  Is there any region or circumstance of life
+that the poet did not forecast and provide for?  But what would have
+been his feelings if he could have known that almost three centuries
+after these lines were penned, they would be used to express the
+emotion of an unsentimental traveler in the primeval forests of the
+New World?  At any rate, he peopled the New World with the children
+of his imagination.  And, thought the Friend, whose attention to his
+horse did not permit him to drop into poetry, Shakespeare might have
+had a vision of this vast continent, though he did not refer to it,
+when he exclaimed:
+
+    "What is your substance, whereof are you made,
+     That millions of strange shadows on you tend?"
+
+Bakersville, the capital of Mitchell County, is eight miles from the
+top of Roan, and the last three miles of the way the horsemen found
+tolerable going, over which the horses could show their paces.  The
+valley looked fairly thrifty and bright, and was a pleasing
+introduction to Bakersville, a pretty place in the hills, of some six
+hundred inhabitants, with two churches, three indifferent hotels, and
+a court-house.  This mountain town, 2550 feet above the sea, is said
+to have a decent winter climate, with little snow, favorable to
+fruit-growing, and, by contrast with New England, encouraging to
+people with weak lungs.
+
+This is the center of the mica mining, and of considerable excitement
+about minerals.  All around, the hills are spotted with "diggings."
+Most of the mines which yield well show signs of having been worked
+before, a very long time ago, no doubt by the occupants before the
+Indians.  The mica is of excellent quality and easily mined.  It is
+got out in large irregular-shaped blocks and transported to the
+factories, where it is carefully split by hand, and the laminae, of
+as large size as can be obtained, are trimmed with shears and tied up
+in packages for market.  The quantity of refuse, broken, and rotten
+mica piled up about the factories is immense, and all the roads round
+about glisten with its scales.  Garnets are often found imbedded in
+the laminae, flattened by the extreme pressure to which the mass was
+subjected.  It is fascinating material, this mica, to handle, and we
+amused ourselves by experimenting on the thinness to which its scales
+could be reduced by splitting.  It was at Bakersville that we saw
+specimens of mica that resembled the delicate tracery in the moss-
+agate and had the iridescent sheen of the rainbow colors--the most
+delicate greens, reds, blues, purples, and gold, changing from one to
+the other in the reflected light.  In the texture were the tracings
+of fossil forms of ferns and the most exquisite and delicate
+vegetable beauty of the coal age.  But the magnet shows this tracery
+to be iron.  We were shown also emeralds and "diamonds," picked up in
+this region, and there is a mild expectation in all the inhabitants
+of great mineral treasure.  A singular product of the region is the
+flexible sandstone.  It is a most uncanny stone.  A slip of it a
+couple of feet long and an inch in diameter each way bends in the
+hand like a half-frozen snake.  This conduct of a substance that we
+have been taught to regard as inflexible impairs one's confidence in
+the stability of nature and affects him as an earthquake does.
+
+This excitement over mica and other minerals has the usual effect of
+starting up business and creating bad blood.  Fortunes have been
+made, and lost in riotous living; scores of visionary men have been
+disappointed; lawsuits about titles and claims have multiplied, and
+quarrels ending in murder have been frequent in the past few years.
+The mica and the illicit whisky have worked together to make this
+region one of lawlessness and violence.  The travelers were told
+stories of the lack of common morality and decency in the region, but
+they made no note of them.  And, perhaps fortunately, they were not
+there during court week to witness the scenes of license that were
+described.  This court week, which draws hither the whole population,
+is a sort of Saturnalia.  Perhaps the worst of this is already a
+thing of the past; for the outrages a year before had reached such a
+pass that by a common movement the sale of whisky was stopped (not
+interdicted, but stopped), and not a drop of liquor could be bought
+in Bakersville nor within three miles of it.
+
+The jail at Bakersville is a very simple residence.  The main
+building is brick, two stories high and about twelve feet square.
+The walls are so loosely laid up that it seems as if a colored
+prisoner might butt his head through.  Attached to this is a room for
+the jailer.  In the lower room is a wooden cage, made of logs bolted
+together and filled with spikes, nine feet by ten feet square and
+perhaps seven or eight feet high.  Between this cage and the wall is
+a space of eighteen inches in width.  It has a narrow door, and an
+opening through which the food is passed to the prisoners, and a
+conduit leading out of it.  Of course it soon becomes foul, and in
+warm weather somewhat warm.  A recent prisoner, who wanted more
+ventilation than the State allowed him, found some means, by a loose
+plank, I think, to batter a hole in the outer wall opposite the
+window in the cage, and this ragged opening, seeming to the jailer a
+good sanitary arrangement, remains.  Two murderers occupied this
+apartment at the time of our visit.  During the recent session of
+court, ten men had been confined in this narrow space, without room
+enough for them to lie down together.  The cage in the room above, a
+little larger, had for tenant a person who was jailed for some
+misunderstanding about an account, and who was probably innocent--
+from the jailer's statement.  This box is a wretched residence, month
+after month, while awaiting trial.
+
+We learned on inquiry that it is practically impossible to get a jury
+to convict of murder in this region, and that these admitted felons
+would undoubtedly escape.  We even heard that juries were purchasable
+here, and that a man's success in court depended upon the length of
+his purse.  This is such an unheard-of thing that we refused to
+credit it.  When the Friend attempted to arouse the indignation of
+the Professor about the barbarity of this jail, the latter defended
+it on the ground that as confinement was the only punishment that
+murderers were likely to receive in this region, it was well to make
+their detention disagreeable to them.  But the Friend did not like
+this wild-beast cage for men, and could only exclaim,
+
+"Oh, murder!  what crimes are done in thy name."
+
+If the comrades wished an adventure, they had a small one, more
+interesting to them than to the public, the morning they left
+Bakersville to ride to Burnsville, which sets itself up as the
+capital of Yancey.  The way for the first three miles lay down a
+small creek and in a valley fairly settled, the houses, a store, and
+a grist-mill giving evidence of the new enterprise of the region.
+When Toe River was reached, there was a choice of routes.  We might
+ford the Toe at that point, where the river was wide, but shallow,
+and the crossing safe, and climb over the mountain by a rough but
+sightly road, or descend the stream by a better road and ford the
+river at a place rather dangerous to those unfamiliar with it.  The
+danger attracted us, but we promptly chose the hill road on account
+of the views, for we were weary of the limited valley prospects.
+
+The Toe River, even here, where it bears westward, is a very
+respectable stream in size, and not to be trifled with after a
+shower.  It gradually turns northward, and, joining the Nollechucky,
+becomes part of the Tennessee system.  We crossed it by a long,
+diagonal ford, slipping and sliding about on the round stones, and
+began the ascent of a steep hill.  The sun beat down unmercifully,
+the way was stony, and the horses did not relish the weary climbing.
+The Professor, who led the way, not for the sake of leadership, but
+to be the discoverer of laden blackberry bushes, which began to offer
+occasional refreshment, discouraged by the inhospitable road and
+perhaps oppressed by the moral backwardness of things in general,
+cried out:
+
+    "Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,--
+     As, to behold desert a beggar born,
+     And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
+     And purest faith unhappily foresworn,
+     And gilded honor shamefully misplaced,
+     And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
+     And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
+     And strength by limping sway disabled,
+     And art made tongue-tied by authority,
+     And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
+     And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
+     And captive good attending captain ill:
+     Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
+     Save that, to die, I leave my love alone."
+
+In the midst of a lively discussion of this pessimistic view of the
+inequalities of life, in which desert and capacity are so often put
+at disadvantage by birth in beggarly conditions, and brazen
+assumption raises the dust from its chariot wheels for modest merit
+to plod along in, the Professor swung himself off his horse to attack
+a blackberry bush, and the Friend, representing simple truth, and
+desirous of getting a wider prospect, urged his horse up the hill.
+At the top he encountered a stranger, on a sorrel horse, with whom he
+entered into conversation and extracted all the discouragement the
+man had as to the road to Burnsville.
+
+Nevertheless, the view opened finely and extensively.  There are few
+exhilarations comparable to that of riding or walking along a high
+ridge, and the spirits of the traveler rose many degrees above the
+point of restful death, for which the Professor was crying when he
+encountered the blackberry bushes.  Luckily the Friend soon fell in
+with a like temptation, and dismounted.  He discovered something that
+spoiled his appetite for berries.  His coat, strapped on behind the
+saddle, had worked loose, the pocket was open, and the pocket-book
+was gone.  This was serious business.  For while the Professor was
+the cashier, and traveled like a Rothschild, with large drafts, the
+Friend represented the sub-treasury.  That very morning, in response
+to inquiry as to the sinews of travel, the Friend had displayed,
+without counting, a roll of bills.  These bills had now disappeared,
+and when the Friend turned back to communicate his loss, in the
+character of needy nothing not trimm'd in jollity, he had a
+sympathetic listener to the tale of woe.
+
+Going back on such a journey is the woefulest experience, but retrace
+our steps we must.  Perhaps the pocket-book lay in the road not half
+a mile back.  But not in half a mile, or a mile, was it found.
+Probably, then, the man on the sorrel horse had picked it up.  But
+who was the man on the sorrel horse, and where had he gone?  Probably
+the coat worked loose in crossing Toe River and the pocket-book had
+gone down-stream.  The number of probabilities was infinite, and each
+more plausible than the others as it occurred to us.  We inquired at
+every house we had passed on the way, we questioned every one we met.
+At length it began to seem improbable that any one would remember if
+he had picked up a pocketbook that morning.  This is just the sort of
+thing that slips an untrained memory.
+
+At a post office or doctor's shop, or inn for drovers, it might be
+either or neither, where several horses were tied to the fence, and
+a group of men were tilted back in cane chairs on the veranda, we
+unfolded our misfortune and made particular inquiries for a man on a
+sorrel horse.  Yes, such a man, David Thomas by name, had just ridden
+towards Bakersville.  If he had found the pocket-book, we would
+recover it.  He was an honest man.  It might, however, fall into
+hands that would freeze to it.
+
+Upon consultation, it was the general verdict that there were men in
+the county who would keep it if they had picked it up.  But the
+assembly manifested the liveliest interest in the incident.  One
+suggested Toe River.  Another thought it risky to drop a purse on any
+road.  But there was a chorus of desire expressed that we should find
+it, and in this anxiety was exhibited a decided sensitiveness about
+the honor of Mitchell County.  It seemed too bad that a stranger
+should go away with the impression that it was not safe to leave
+money anywhere in it.  We felt very much obliged for this genuine
+sympathy, and we told them that if a pocket-book were lost in this
+way on a Connecticut road, there would be felt no neighborhood
+responsibility for it, and that nobody would take any interest in the
+incident except the man who lost, and the man who found.
+
+By the time the travelers pulled up at a store in Bakersville they
+had lost all expectation of recovering the missing article, and were
+discussing the investment of more money in an advertisement in the
+weekly newspaper of the capital.  The Professor, whose reform
+sentiments agreed with those of the newspaper, advised it.  There was
+a group of idlers, mica acquaintances of the morning, and
+philosophers in front of the store, and the Friend opened the
+colloquy by asking if a man named David Thomas had been seen in town.
+He was in town, had ridden in within an hour, and his brother, who
+was in the group, would go in search of him.  The information was
+then given of the loss, and that the rider had met David Thomas just
+before it was discovered, on the mountain beyond the Toe.  The news
+made a sensation, and by the time David Thomas appeared a crowd of a
+hundred had drawn around the horsemen eager for further developments.
+Mr. Thomas was the least excited of the group as he took his position
+on the sidewalk, conscious of the dignity of the occasion and that he
+was about to begin a duel in which both reputation and profit were
+concerned.  He recollected meeting the travelers in the morning.
+
+The Friend said, "I discovered that I had lost my purse just after
+meeting you; it may have been dropped in Toe River, but I was told
+back here that if David Thomas had picked it up, it was as safe as if
+it were in the bank."
+
+"What sort of a pocket-book was it?"  asked Mr. Thomas.
+
+"It was of crocodile skin, or what is sold for that, very likely it
+is an imitation, and about so large indicating the size."
+
+"What had it in it?"
+
+"Various things.  Some specimens of mica; some bank checks, some
+money."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Yes, a photograph.  And, oh, something that I presume is not in
+another pocket-book in North Carolina,--in an envelope, a lock of the
+hair of George Washington, the Father of his Country."  Sensation
+mixed with incredulity.  Washington's hair did seem such an odd part
+of an outfit for a journey of this kind.
+
+"How much money was in it?"
+
+"That I cannot say, exactly.  I happen to remember four twenty-dollar
+United States notes, and a roll of small bills, perhaps something
+over a hundred dollars."
+
+"Is that the pocket-book?"  asked David Thomas, slowly pulling the
+loved and lost out of his trousers pocket.
+
+"It is."
+
+"You'd be willing to take your oath on it?"
+
+"I should be delighted to."
+
+"Well, I guess there ain't so much money in it.  You can count it
+[handing it over]; there hain't been nothing taken out.  I can't
+read, but my friend here counted it over, and he says there ain't as
+much as that."
+
+Intense interest in the result of the counting.  One hundred and ten
+dollars!  The Friend selected one of the best engraved of the notes,
+and appealed to the crowd if they thought that was the square thing
+to do.  They did so think, and David Thomas said it was abundant.
+And then said the Friend:
+
+"I'm exceedingly grateful to you besides.  Washington's hair is
+getting scarce, and I did not want to lose these few hairs, gray as
+they are.  You've done the honest thing, Mr. Thomas, as was expected
+of you.  You might have kept the whole.  But I reckon if there had
+been five hundred dollars in the book and you had kept it, it
+wouldn't have done you half as much good as giving it up has done;
+and your reputation as an honest man is worth a good deal more than
+this pocket-book.  [The Professor was delighted with this sentiment,
+because it reminded him of a Sunday-school.]  I shall go away with a
+high opinion of the honesty of Mitchell County."
+
+"Oh, he lives in Yancey," cried two or three voices.  At which there
+was a great laugh.
+
+"Well, I wondered where he came from."  And the Mitchell County
+people laughed again at their own expense, and the levee broke up.
+It was exceedingly gratifying, as we spread the news of the recovered
+property that afternoon at every house on our way to the Toe, to see
+what pleasure it gave.  Every man appeared to feel that the honor of
+the region had been on trial--and had stood the test.
+
+The eighteen miles to Burnsville had now to be added to the morning
+excursion, but the travelers were in high spirits, feeling the truth
+of the adage that it is better to have loved and lost, than never to
+have lost at all.  They decided, on reflection, to join company with
+the mail-rider, who was going to Burnsville by the shorter route, and
+could pilot them over the dangerous ford of the Toe.
+
+The mail-rider was a lean, sallow, sinewy man, mounted on a sorry
+sorrel nag, who proved, however, to have blood in her, and to be a
+fast walker and full of endurance.  The mail-rider was taciturn, a
+natural habit for a man who rides alone the year round, over a lonely
+road, and has nothing whatever to think of.  He had been in the war
+sixteen months, in Hugh White's regiment,--reckon you've heerd of
+him?
+
+"Confederate?"
+
+"Which?"
+
+"Was he on the Union or Confederate side?"
+
+"Oh, Union."
+
+"Were you in any engagements?"
+
+"Which?"
+
+"Did you have any fighting?"
+
+"Not reg'lar."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Which?"
+
+"What did you do in Hugh White's regiment?"
+
+"Oh, just cavorted round the mountains."
+
+"You lived on the country?"
+
+"Which?"
+
+"Picked up what you could find, corn, bacon, horses?"
+
+"That's about so.  Did n't make much difference which side was round,
+the country got cleaned out."
+
+"Plunder seems to have been the object?"
+
+"Which?"
+
+"You got a living out of the farmers?"
+
+"You bet."
+
+Our friend and guide seemed to have been a jayhawker and mountain
+marauder--on the right side.  His attachment to the word "which"
+prevented any lively flow of conversation, and there seemed to be
+only two trains of ideas running in his mind: one was the subject of
+horses and saddles, and the other was the danger of the ford we were
+coming to, and he exhibited a good deal of ingenuity in endeavoring
+to excite our alarm.  He returned to the ford from every other
+conversational excursion, and after every silence.
+
+"I do' know's there 's any great danger; not if you know the ford.
+Folks is carried away there.  The Toe gits up sudden.  There's been
+right smart rain lately.
+
+"If you're afraid, you can git set over in a dugout, and I'll take
+your horses across.  Mebbe you're used to fording?  It's a pretty bad
+ford for them as don't know it.  But you'll get along if you mind
+your eye.  There's some rocks you'll have to look out for.  But
+you'll be all right if you follow me."
+
+Not being very successful in raising an interest in the dangers of
+his ford, although he could not forego indulging a malicious pleasure
+in trying to make the strangers uncomfortable, he finally turned his
+attention to a trade.  "This hoss of mine," he said, "is just the
+kind of brute-beast you want for this country.  Your hosses is too
+heavy.  How'll you swap for that one o' yourn?"  The reiterated
+assertion that the horses were not ours, that they were hired, made
+little impression on him.  All the way to Burnsville he kept
+referring to the subject of a trade.  The instinct of "swap" was
+strong in him.  When we met a yoke of steers, he turned round and
+bantered the owner for a trade.  Our saddles took his fancy.  They
+were of the army pattern, and he allowed that one of them would just
+suit him.  He rode a small flat English pad, across which was flung
+the United States mail pouch, apparently empty.  He dwelt upon the
+fact that his saddle was new and ours were old, and the advantages
+that would accrue to us from the exchange.  He did n't care if they
+had been through the war, as they had, for he fancied an army saddle.
+The Friend answered for himself that the saddle he rode belonged to a
+distinguished Union general, and had a bullet in it that was put
+there by a careless Confederate in the first battle of Bull Run, and
+the owner would not part with it for money.  But the mail-rider said
+he did n't mind that.  He would n't mind swapping his new saddle for
+my old one and the rubber coat and leggings.  Long before we reached
+the ford we thought we would like to swap the guide, even at the,
+risk of drowning.  The ford was passed, in due time, with no
+inconvenience save that of wet feet, for the stream was breast high
+to the horses; but being broad and swift and full of sunken rocks and
+slippery stones, and the crossing tortuous, it is not a ford to be
+commended.  There is a curious delusion that a rider has in crossing
+a swift broad stream.  It is that he is rapidly drifting up-stream,
+while in fact the tendency of the horse is to go with the current.
+
+The road in the afternoon was not unpicturesque, owing to the streams
+and the ever noble forests, but the prospect was always very limited.
+Agriculturally, the country was mostly undeveloped.  The travelers
+endeavored to get from the rider an estimate of the price of land.
+Not much sold, he said.  "There was one sale of a big piece last
+year; the owner enthorited Big Tom Wilson to sell it, but I d'know
+what he got for it,"
+
+All the way along, the habitations were small log cabins, with one
+room, chinked with mud, and these were far between; and only
+occasionally thereby a similar log structure, unchinked, laid up like
+a cob house, that served for a stable.  Not much cultivation, except
+now and then a little patch of poor corn on a steep hillside,
+occasionally a few apple-trees, and a peach-tree without fruit.  Here
+and there was a house that had been half finished and then abandoned,
+or a shanty in which a couple of young married people were just
+beginning life.  Generally the cabins (confirming the accuracy of the
+census of 1880) swarmed with children, and nearly all the women were
+thin and sickly.
+
+In the day's ride we did not see a wheeled vehicle, and only now and
+then a horse.  We met on the road small sleds, drawn by a steer,
+sometimes by a cow, on which a bag of grist was being hauled to the
+mill, and boys mounted on steers gave us good-evening with as much
+pride as if they were bestriding fiery horses.
+
+In a house of the better class, which was a post-house, and where the
+rider and the woman of the house had a long consultation over a
+letter to be registered, we found the rooms decorated with patent-
+medicine pictures, which were often framed in strips of mica, an
+evidence of culture that was worth noting.  Mica was the rage.  Every
+one with whom we talked, except the rider, had more or less the
+mineral fever.  The impression was general that the mountain region
+of North Carolina was entering upon a career of wonderful mineral
+development, and the most extravagant expectations were entertained.
+Mica was the shining object of most "prospecting," but gold was also
+on the cards.
+
+The country about Burnsville is not only mildly picturesque, but very
+pleasing.  Burnsville, the county-seat of Yancey, at an elevation of
+2840 feet, is more like a New England village than any hitherto seen.
+Most of the houses stand about a square, which contains the shabby
+court-house; around it are two small churches, a jail, an inviting
+tavern) with a long veranda, and a couple of stores.  On an
+overlooking hill is the seminary.  Mica mining is the exciting
+industry, but it is agriculturally a good country.  The tavern had
+recently been enlarged to meet the new demands for entertainment and
+is a roomy structure, fresh with paint and only partially organized.
+The travelers were much impressed with the brilliant chambers, the
+floors of which were painted in alternate stripes of vivid green and
+red.  The proprietor, a very intelligent and enterprising man, who
+had traveled often in the North, was full of projects for the
+development of his region and foremost in its enterprises, and had
+formed a considerable collection of minerals.  Besides, more than any
+one else we met, he appreciated the beauty of his country, and took
+us to a neighboring hill, where we had a view of Table Mountain to
+the east and the nearer giant Blacks.  The elevation of Burnsville
+gives it a delightful summer climate, the gentle undulations of the
+country are agreeable, the views noble, the air is good, and it is
+altogether a "livable" and attractive place.  With facilities of
+communication, it would be a favorite summer resort.  Its nearness to
+the great mountains (the whole Black range is in Yancey County), its
+fine pure air, its opportunity for fishing and hunting, commend it to
+those in search of an interesting and restful retreat in summer.
+
+But it should be said that before the country can attract and retain
+travelers, its inhabitants must learn something about the preparation
+of food.  If, for instance, the landlord's wife at Burnsville had
+traveled with her husband, her table would probably have been more on
+a level with his knowledge of the world, and it would have contained
+something that the wayfaring man, though a Northerner, could eat.  We
+have been on the point several times in this journey of making the
+observation, but have been restrained by a reluctance to touch upon
+politics, that it was no wonder that a people with such a cuisine
+should have rebelled.  The travelers were in a rebellious mood most
+of the time.
+
+The evidences of enterprise in this region were pleasant to see, but
+the observers could not but regret, after all, the intrusion of the
+money-making spirit, which is certain to destroy much of the present
+simplicity.  It is as yet, to a degree, tempered by a philosophic
+spirit.  The other guest of the house was a sedate, long-bearded
+traveler for some Philadelphia house, and in the evening he and the
+landlord fell into a conversation upon what Socrates calls the
+disadvantage of the pursuit of wealth to the exclusion of all noble
+objects, and they let their fancy play about Vanderbilt, who was
+agreed to be the richest man in the world, or that ever lived.
+
+"All I want," said the long-bearded man, "is enough to be
+comfortable.  I would n't have Vanderbilt's wealth if he'd give it to
+me."
+
+"Nor I," said the landlord.  "Give me just enough to be comfortable."
+[The tourist couldn't but note that his ideas of enough to be
+comfortable had changed a good deal since he had left his little farm
+and gone into the mica business, and visited New York, and enlarged
+and painted his tavern.]  I should like to know what more Vanderbilt
+gets out of his money than I get out of mine.  I heard tell of a
+young man who went to Vanderbilt to get employment.  Vanderbilt
+finally offered to give the young man, if he would work for him, just
+what he got himself.  The young man jumped at that--he'd be perfectly
+satisfied with that pay.  And Vanderbilt said that all he got was
+what he could eat and wear, and offered to give the young man his
+board and clothes."
+
+"I declare" said the long-bearded man.  "That's just it.  Did you
+ever see Vanderbilt's house?  Neither did I, but I heard he had a
+vault built in it five feet thick, solid.  He put in it two hundred
+millions of dollars, in gold.  After a year, he opened it and put in
+twelve millions more, and called that a poor year.  They say his
+house has gold shutters to the windows, so I've heard."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," said the landlord.  "I heard he had one door in
+his house cost forty thousand dollars.  I don't know what it is made
+of, unless it's made of gold."
+
+Sunday was a hot and quiet day.  The stores were closed and the two
+churches also, this not being the Sunday for the itinerant preacher.
+The jail also showed no sign of life, and when we asked about it, we
+learned that it was empty, and had been for some time.  No liquor is
+sold in the place, nor within at least three miles of it.  It is not
+much use to try to run a jail without liquor.
+
+In the course of the morning a couple of stout fellows arrived,
+leading between them a young man whom they had arrested,--it didn't
+appear on any warrant, but they wanted to get him committed and
+locked up.  The offense charged was carrying a pistol; the boy had
+not used it against anybody, but he had flourished it about and
+threatened, and the neighbors wouldn't stand that; they were bound to
+enforce the law against carrying concealed weapons.
+
+The captors were perfectly good-natured and on friendly enough terms
+with the young man, who offered no resistance, and seemed not
+unwilling to go to jail.  But a practical difficulty arose.  The jail
+was locked up, the sheriff had gone away into the country with the
+key, and no one could get in.  It did not appear that there was any
+provision for boarding the man in jail; no one in fact kept it.  The
+sheriff was sent for, but was not to be found, and the prisoner and
+his captors loafed about the square all day, sitting on the fence,
+rolling on the grass, all of them sustained by a simple trust that
+the jail would be open some time.
+
+Late in the afternoon we left them there, trying to get into the
+jail.  But we took a personal leaf out of this experience.  Our
+Virginia friends, solicitous for our safety in this wild country, had
+urged us not to venture into it without arms--take at least, they
+insisted, a revolver each.  And now we had to congratulate ourselves
+that we had not done so.  If we had, we should doubtless on that
+Sunday have been waiting, with the other law-breaker, for admission
+into the Yancey County jail.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+>From Burnsville the next point in our route was Asheville, the most
+considerable city in western North Carolina, a resort of fashion, and
+the capital of Buncombe County.  It is distant some forty to forty-
+five miles, too long a journey for one day over such roads.  The
+easier and common route is by the Ford of Big Ivy, eighteen miles,
+the first stopping-place; and that was a long ride for the late
+afternoon when we were in condition to move.
+
+The landlord suggested that we take another route, stay that night on
+Caney River with Big Tom Wilson, only eight miles from Burnsville,
+cross Mount Mitchell, and go down the valley of the Swannanoa to
+Asheville.  He represented this route as shorter and infinitely more
+picturesque.  There was nothing worth seeing on the Big Ivy way.
+With scarcely a moment's reflection and while the horses were
+saddling, we decided to ride to Big Tom Wilson's.  I could not at the
+time understand, and I cannot now, why the Professor consented.  I
+should hardly dare yet confess to my fixed purpose to ascend Mount
+Mitchell.  It was equally fixed in the Professor's mind not to do it.
+We had not discussed it much.  But it is safe to say that if he had
+one well-defined purpose on this trip, it was not to climb Mitchell.
+"Not," as he put it,--
+
+    "Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
+     Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,"
+
+had suggested the possibility that he could do it.
+
+But at the moment the easiest thing to do seemed to be to ride down
+to Wilson's.  When there we could turn across country to the Big Ivy,
+although, said the landlord, you can ride over Mitchell just as easy
+as anywhere--a lady rode plump over the peak of it last week, and
+never got off her horse.  You are not obliged to go; at Big Tom's,
+you can go any way you please.
+
+Besides, Big Tom himself weighed in the scale more than Mount
+Mitchell, and not to see him was to miss one of the most
+characteristic productions of the country, the typical backwoodsman,
+hunter, guide.  So we rode down Bolling Creek, through a pretty,
+broken country, crossed the Caney River, and followed it up a few
+miles to Wilson's plantation.  There are little intervales along the
+river, where hay is cut and corn grown, but the region is not much
+cleared, and the stock browse about in the forest.  Wilson is the
+agent of the New York owner of a tract of some thirteen thousand
+acres of forest, including the greater portion of Mount Mitchell, a
+wilderness well stocked with bears and deer, and full of streams
+abounding in trout.  It is also the playground of the rattlesnake.
+With all these attractions Big Tom's life is made lively in watching
+game poachers, and endeavoring to keep out the foraging cattle of the
+few neighbors.  It is not that the cattle do much injury in the
+forest, but the looking after them is made a pretense for roaming
+around, and the roamers are liable to have to defend themselves
+against the deer, or their curiosity is excited about the bears, and
+lately they have taken to exploding powder in the streams to kill the
+fish.
+
+Big Tom's plantation has an openwork stable, an ill-put-together
+frame house, with two rooms and a kitchen, and a veranda in front, a
+loft, and a spring-house in the rear.  Chickens and other animals
+have free run of the premises.  Some fish-rods hung in the porch, and
+hunter's gear depended on hooks in the passage-way to the kitchen.
+In one room were three beds, in the other two, only one in the
+kitchen.  On the porch was a loom, with a piece of cloth in process.
+The establishment had the air of taking care of itself.  Neither Big
+Tom nor his wife was at home.  Sunday seemed to be a visiting day,
+and the travelers had met many parties on horseback.  Mrs.  Wilson
+was away for a visit of a day or two.  One of the sons, who was
+lounging on the veranda, was at last induced to put up the horses; a
+very old woman, who mumbled and glared at the visitors, was found in
+the kitchen, but no intelligible response could be got out of her.
+Presently a bright little girl, the housekeeper in charge, appeared.
+She said that her paw had gone up to her brother's (her brother was
+just married and lived up the river in the house where Mr. Murchison
+stayed when he was here) to see if he could ketch a bear that had
+been rootin' round in the corn-field the night before.  She expected
+him back by sundown--by dark anyway.  'Les he'd gone after the bear,
+and then you could n't tell when he would come.
+
+It appeared that Big Tom was a thriving man in the matter of family.
+More boys appeared.  Only one was married, but four had "got their
+time."  As night approached, and no Wilson, there was a good deal of
+lively and loud conversation about the stock and the chores, in all
+of which the girl took a leading and intelligent part, showing a
+willingness to do her share, but not to have all the work put upon
+her.  It was time to go down the road and hunt up the cows; the mule
+had disappeared and must be found before dark; a couple of steers
+hadn't turned up since the day before yesterday, and in the midst of
+the gentle contention as to whose business all this was, there was an
+alarm of cattle in the corn-patch, and the girl started off on a run
+in that direction.  It was due to the executive ability of this small
+girl, after the cows had been milked and the mule chased and the boys
+properly stirred up, that we had supper.  It was of the oilcloth,
+iron fork, tin spoon, bacon, hot bread and honey variety,
+distinguished, however, from all meals we had endured or enjoyed
+before by the introduction of fried eggs (as the breakfast next
+morning was by the presence of chicken), and it was served by the
+active maid with right hearty good-will and genuine hospitable
+intent.
+
+While it was in progress, after nine o'clock, Big Tom arrived, and,
+with a simple greeting, sat down and attacked the supper and began to
+tell about the bear.  There was not much to tell except that he
+hadn't seen the bear, and that, judged by his tracks and his sloshing
+around, he must be a big one.  But a trap had been set for him, and
+he judged it wouldn't be long before we had some bear meat.  Big Tom
+Wilson, as he is known all over this part of the State, would not
+attract attention from his size.  He is six feet and two inches tall,
+very spare and muscular, with sandy hair, long gray beard, and honest
+blue eyes.  He has a reputation for great strength and endurance; a
+man of native simplicity and mild manners.  He had been rather
+expecting us from what Mr. Murchison wrote; he wrote (his son had
+read out the letter) that Big Tom was to take good care of us, and
+anybody that Mr. Murchison sent could have the best he'd got.
+
+Big Tom joined us in our room after supper.  This apartment, with two
+mighty feather-beds, was hung about with all manner of stuffy family
+clothes, and had in one end a vast cavern for a fire.  The floor was
+uneven, and the hearthstones billowy.  When the fire was lighted, the
+effect of the bright light in the cavern and the heavy shadows in the
+room was Rembrandtish.  Big Tom sat with us before the fire and told
+bear stories.  Talk?  Why, it was not the least effort.  The stream
+flowed on without a ripple.  "Why, the old man," one of the sons
+confided to us next morning, "can begin and talk right over Mount
+Mitchell and all the way back, and never make a break."  Though Big
+Tom had waged a lifelong warfare with the bears, and taken the hide
+off at least a hundred of them, I could not see that he had any
+vindictive feeling towards the varmint, but simply an insatiable love
+of killing him, and he regarded him in that half-humorous light in
+which the bear always appears to those who study him.  As to deer--he
+couldn't tell how many of them he had slain.  But Big Tom was a
+gentleman: he never killed deer for mere sport.  With rattlesnakes,
+now, it was different.  There was the skin of one hanging upon a tree
+by the route we would take in the morning, a buster, he skinned him
+yesterday.  There was an entire absence, of braggadocio in Big Tom's
+talk, but somehow, as he went on, his backwoods figure loomed larger
+and larger in our imagination, and he seemed strangely familiar.  At
+length it came over us where we had met him before.  It was in
+Cooper's novels.  He was the Leather-Stocking exactly.  And yet he
+was an original; for he assured us that he had never read the
+Leather-Stocking Tales.  What a figure, I was thinking, he must have
+made in the late war!  Such a shot, such a splendid physique, such
+iron endurance!  I almost dreaded to hear his tales of the havoc he
+had wrought on the Union army.  Yes, he was in the war, he was
+sixteen months in the Confederate army, this Homeric man.  In what
+rank?"  Oh, I was a fifer!"
+
+But hunting and war did not by any means occupy the whole of Big
+Tom's life.  He was also engaged in "lawin'."  He had a long-time
+feud with a neighbor about a piece of land and alleged trespass, and
+they'd been "lawin'" for years, with no definite result; but as a
+topic of conversation it was as fully illustrative of frontier life
+as the bear-fighting.
+
+Long after we had all gone to bed, we heard Big Tom's continuous
+voice, through the thin partition that separated us from the kitchen,
+going on to his little boy about the bear; every circumstance of how
+he tracked him, and what corner of the field he entered, and where he
+went out, and his probable size and age, and the prospect of his
+coming again; these were the details of real everyday life, and
+worthy to be dwelt on by the hour.  The boy was never tired of
+pursuing them.  And Big Tom was just a big boy, also, in his delight
+in it all.
+
+Perhaps it was the fascination of Big Tom, perhaps the representation
+that we were already way off the Big Ivy route, and that it would, in
+fact, save time to go over the mountain and we could ride all the
+way, that made the Professor acquiesce, with no protest worth
+noticing, in the preparations that went on, as by a natural
+assumption, for going over Mitchell.  At any rate, there was an early
+breakfast, luncheon was put up, and by half-past seven we were riding
+up the Caney,--a half-cloudy day,--Big Tom swinging along on foot
+ahead, talking nineteen to the dozen.  There was a delightful
+freshness in the air, the dew-laden bushes, and the smell of the
+forest.  In half an hour we called at the hunting shanty of Mr.
+Murchison, wrote our names on the wall, according to custom, and
+regretted that we could not stay for a day in that retreat and try
+the speckled trout.  Making our way through the low growth and bushes
+of the valley, we came into a fine open forest, watered by a noisy
+brook, and after an hour's easy going reached the serious ascent.
+
+>From Wilson's to the peak of Mitchell it is seven and a half miles;
+we made it in five and a half hours.  A bridle path was cut years
+ago, but it has been entirely neglected.  It is badly washed, it is
+stony, muddy, and great trees have fallen across it which wholly
+block the way for horses.  At these places long detours were
+necessary, on steep hillsides and through gullies, over treacherous
+sink-holes in the rocks, through quaggy places, heaps of brush, and
+rotten logs.  Those who have ever attempted to get horses over such
+ground will not wonder at the slow progress we made.  Before we were
+halfway up the ascent, we realized the folly of attempting it on
+horseback; but then to go on seemed as easy as to go back.  The way
+was also exceedingly steep in places, and what with roots, and logs,
+and slippery rocks and stones, it was a desperate climb for the
+horses.
+
+What a magnificent forest!  Oaks, chestnuts, Poplars, hemlocks, the
+cucumber (a species of magnolia, with a pinkish, cucumber-like cone),
+and all sorts of northern and southern growths meeting here in
+splendid array.  And this gigantic forest, with little diminution in
+size of trees, continued two thirds of the way up.  We marked, as we
+went on, the maple, the black walnut, the buckeye, the hickory, the
+locust, and the guide pointed out in one section the largest cherry-
+trees we had ever seen; splendid trunks, each worth a large sum if it
+could be got to market.  After the great trees were left behind, we
+entered a garden of white birches, and then a plateau of swamp, thick
+with raspberry bushes, and finally the ridges, densely crowded with
+the funereal black balsam.
+
+Halfway up, Big Tom showed us his favorite, the biggest tree he knew.
+It was a poplar, or tulip.  It stands more like a column than a tree,
+rising high into the air, with scarcely a perceptible taper, perhaps
+sixty, more likely a hundred, feet before it puts out a limb.
+
+Its girth six feet from the ground is thirty-two feet!  I think it
+might be called Big Tom.  It stood here, of course, a giant, when
+Columbus sailed from Spain, and perhaps some sentimental traveler
+will attach the name of Columbus to it.
+
+In the woods there was not much sign of animal life, scarcely the
+note of a bird, but we noticed as we rode along in the otherwise
+primeval silence a loud and continuous humming overhead, almost like
+the sound of the wind in pine tops.  It was the humming of bees!  The
+upper branches were alive with these industrious toilers, and Big Tom
+was always on the alert to discover and mark a bee-gum, which he
+could visit afterwards.  Honey hunting is one of his occupations.
+Collecting spruce gum is another, and he was continually hacking off
+with his hatchet knobs of the translucent secretion.  How rich and
+fragrant are these forests!  The rhododendron was still in occasional
+bloom' and flowers of brilliant hue gleamed here and there.
+
+The struggle was more severe as we neared the summit, and the footing
+worse for the horses.  Occasionally it was safest to dismount and
+lead them up slippery ascents; but this was also dangerous, for it
+was difficult to keep them from treading on our heels, in their
+frantic flounderings, in the steep, wet, narrow, brier-grown path.
+At one uncommonly pokerish place, where the wet rock sloped into a
+bog, the rider of Jack thought it prudent to dismount, but Big Tom
+insisted that Jack would "make it" all right, only give him his head.
+The rider gave him his head, and the next minute Jack's four heels
+were in the air, and he came down on his side in a flash.  The rider
+fortunately extricated his leg without losing it, Jack scrambled out
+with a broken shoe, and the two limped along.  It was a wonder that
+the horses' legs were not broken a dozen times.
+
+As we approached the top, Big Tom pointed out the direction, a half
+mile away, of a small pond, a little mountain tarn, overlooked by a
+ledge of rock, where Professor Mitchell lost his life.  Big Tom was
+the guide that found his body.  That day, as we sat on the summit, he
+gave in great detail the story, the general outline of which is well
+known.
+
+The first effort to measure the height of the Black Mountains was
+made in 1835, by Professor Elisha Mitchell, professor of mathematics
+and chemistry in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
+Mr. Mitchell was a native of Connecticut, born in Washington,
+Litchfield County, in 1793; graduated at Yale, ordained a
+Presbyterian minister, and was for a time state surveyor; and became
+a professor at Chapel Hill in 1818.  He first ascertained and
+published the fact that the Black Mountains are the highest land east
+of the Rocky Mountains.  In 1844 he visited the locality again.
+Measurements were subsequently made by Professor Guyot and by Senator
+Clingman.  One of the peaks was named for the senator (the one next
+in height to Mitchell is described as Clingman on the state map), and
+a dispute arose as to whether Mitchell had really visited and
+measured the highest peak.  Senator Clingman still maintains that he
+did not, and that the peak now known as Mitchell is the one that
+Clingman first described.  The estimates of altitudes made by the
+three explorers named differed considerably.  The height now fixed
+for Mount Mitchell is 6711; that of Mount Washington is 6285.  There
+are twelve peaks in this range higher than Mount Washington, and if
+we add those in the Great Smoky Mountains which overtop it, there are
+some twenty in this State higher than the granite giant of New
+Hampshire.
+
+In order to verify his statement, Professor Mitchell (then in his
+sixty-fourth year) made a third ascent in June, 1857.  He was alone,
+and went up from the Swannanoa side.  He did not return.  No anxiety
+was felt for two or three days, as he was a good mountaineer, and it
+was supposed he had crossed the mountain and made his way out by the
+Caney River.  But when several days passed without tidings of him, a
+search party was formed.  Big Tom Wilson was with it.  They explored
+the mountain in all directions unsuccessfully.  At length Big Tom
+separated himself from his companions and took a course in accordance
+with his notion of that which would be pursued by a man lost in the
+clouds or the darkness.  He soon struck the trail of the wanderer,
+and, following it, discovered Mitchell's body lying in a pool at the
+foot of a rocky precipice some thirty feet high.  It was evident that
+Mitchell, making his way along the ridge in darkness or fog, had
+fallen off.  It was the ninth (or the eleventh) day of his
+disappearance, but in the pure mountain air the body had suffered no
+change.  Big Tom brought his companions to the place, and on
+consultation it was decided to leave the body undisturbed till
+Mitchell's friends could be present.
+
+There was some talk of burying him on the mountain, but the friends
+decided otherwise, and the remains, with much difficulty, were got
+down to Asheville and there interred.
+
+Some years afterwards, I believe at the instance of a society of
+scientists, it was resolved to transport the body to the summit of
+Mount Mitchell; for the tragic death of the explorer had forever
+settled in the popular mind the name of the mountain.  The task was
+not easy.  A road had to be cut, over which a sledge could be hauled,
+and the hardy mountaineers who undertook the removal were three days
+in reaching the summit with their burden.  The remains were
+accompanied by a considerable concourse, and the last rites on the
+top were participated in by a hundred or more scientists and
+prominent men from different parts of the State.  Such a strange
+cortege had never before broken the silence of this lonely
+wilderness, nor was ever burial more impressive than this wild
+interment above the clouds.
+
+We had been preceded in our climb all the way by a huge bear.  That
+he was huge, a lunker, a monstrous old varmint, Big Tom knew by the
+size of his tracks; that he was making the ascent that morning ahead
+of us, Big Tom knew by the freshness of the trail.  We might come
+upon him at any moment; he might be in the garden; was quite likely
+to be found in the raspberry patch.  That we did not encounter him I
+am convinced was not the fault of Big Tom, but of the bear.
+
+After a struggle of five hours we emerged from the balsams and briers
+into a lovely open meadow, of lush clover, timothy, and blue grass.
+We unsaddled the horses and turned them loose to feed in it.  The
+meadow sloped up to a belt of balsams and firs, a steep rocky knob,
+and climbing that on foot we stood upon the summit of Mitchell at one
+o'clock.  We were none too soon, for already the clouds were
+preparing for what appears to be a daily storm at this season.
+
+The summit is a nearly level spot of some thirty or forty feet in
+extent either way, with a floor of rock and loose stones.  The
+stunted balsams have been cut away so as to give a view.  The sweep
+of prospect is vast, and we could see the whole horizon except in the
+direction of Roan, whose long bulk was enveloped in cloud.  Portions
+of six States were in sight, we were told, but that is merely a
+geographical expression.  What we saw, wherever we looked, was an
+inextricable tumble of mountains, without order or leading line of
+direction,--domes, peaks, ridges, endless and countless, everywhere,
+some in shadow, some tipped with shafts of sunlight, all wooded and
+green or black, and all in more softened contours than our Northern
+hills, but still wild, lonesome, terrible.  Away in the southwest,
+lifting themselves up in a gleam of the western sky, the Great Smoky
+Mountains loomed like a frowning continental fortress, sullen and
+remote.  With Clingman and Gibbs and Holdback peaks near at hand and
+apparently of equal height, Mitchell seemed only a part and not
+separate from the mighty congregation of giants.
+
+In the center of the stony plot on the summit lie the remains of
+Mitchell.  To dig a grave in the rock was impracticable, but the
+loose stones were scooped away to the depth of a foot or so, the body
+was deposited, and the stones were replaced over it.  It was the
+original intention to erect a monument, but the enterprise of the
+projectors of this royal entombment failed at that point.  The grave
+is surrounded by a low wall of loose stones, to which each visitor
+adds one, and in the course of ages the cairn may grow to a good
+size.  The explorer lies there without name or headstone to mark his
+awful resting-place.  The mountain is his monument.  He is alone with
+its majesty.  He is there in the clouds, in the tempests, where the
+lightnings play, and thunders leap, amid the elemental tumult, in the
+occasional great calm and silence and the pale sunlight.  It is the
+most majestic, the most lonesome grave on earth.
+
+As we sat there, awed a little by this presence, the clouds were
+gathering from various quarters and drifting towards us.  We could
+watch the process of thunder-storms and the manufacture of tempests.
+I have often noticed on other high mountains how the clouds, forming
+like genii released from the earth, mount into the upper air, and in
+masses of torn fragments of mist hurry across the sky as to a
+rendezvous of witches.  This was a different display.  These clouds
+came slowly sailing from the distant horizon, like ships on an aerial
+voyage.  Some were below us, some on our level; they were all in
+well-defined, distinct masses, molten silver on deck, below trailing
+rain, and attended on earth by gigantic shadows that moved with them.
+This strange fleet of battle-ships, drifted by the shifting currents,
+was maneuvering for an engagement.  One after another, as they came
+into range about our peak of observation, they opened fire.  Sharp
+flashes of lightning darted from one to the other; a jet of flame
+from one leaped across the interval and was buried in the bosom of
+its adversary; and at every discharge the boom of great guns echoed
+through the mountains.  It was something more than a royal salute to
+the tomb of the mortal at our feet, for the masses of cloud were rent
+in the fray, at every discharge the rain was precipitated in
+increasing torrents, and soon the vast hulks were trailing torn
+fragments and wreaths of mist, like the shot-away shrouds and sails
+of ships in battle.  Gradually, from this long-range practice with
+single guns and exchange of broadsides, they drifted into closer
+conflict, rushed together, and we lost sight of the individual
+combatants in the general tumult of this aerial war.
+
+We had barely twenty minutes for our observations, when it was time
+to go; and had scarcely left the peak when the clouds enveloped it.
+We hastened down under the threatening sky to the saddles and the
+luncheon.  Just off from the summit, amid the rocks, is a complete
+arbor, or tunnel, of rhododendrons.  This cavernous place a Western
+writer has made the scene of a desperate encounter between Big Tom
+and a catamount, or American panther, which had been caught in a trap
+and dragged it there, pursued by Wilson.  It is an exceedingly
+graphic narrative, and is enlivened by the statement that Big Tom had
+the night before drunk up all the whisky of the party which had spent
+the night on the summit.  Now Big Tom assured us that the whisky part
+of the story was an invention; he was not (which is true) in the
+habit of using it; if he ever did take any, it might be a drop on
+Mitchell; in fact, when he inquired if we had a flask, he remarked
+that a taste of it would do him good then and there.  We regretted
+the lack of it in our baggage.  But what inclined Big Tom to
+discredit the Western writer's story altogether was the fact that he
+never in his life had had a difficulty with a catamount, and never
+had seen one in these mountains.
+
+Our lunch was eaten in haste.  Big Tom refused the chicken he had
+provided for us, and strengthened himself with slices of raw salt
+pork, which he cut from a hunk with his clasp-knife.  We caught and
+saddled our horses, who were reluctant to leave the rich feed,
+enveloped ourselves in waterproofs, and got into the stony path for
+the descent just as the torrent came down.  It did rain.  It
+lightened, the thunder crashed, the wind howled and twisted the
+treetops.  It was as if we were pursued by the avenging spirits of
+the mountains for our intrusion.  Such a tempest on this height had
+its terrors even for our hardy guide.  He preferred to be lower down
+while it was going on.  The crash and reverberation of the thunder
+did not trouble us so much as the swish of the wet branches in our
+faces and the horrible road, with its mud, tripping roots, loose
+stones, and slippery rocks.  Progress was slow.  The horses were in
+momentary danger of breaking their legs.  In the first hour there was
+not much descent.  In the clouds we were passing over Clingman,
+Gibbs, and Holdback.  The rain had ceased, but the mist still shut
+off all view, if any had been attainable, and bushes and paths were
+deluged.  The descent was more uncomfortable than the ascent, and we
+were compelled a good deal of the way to lead the jaded horses down
+the slippery rocks.
+
+>From the peak to the Widow Patten's, where we proposed to pass the
+night, is twelve miles, a distance we rode or scrambled down, every
+step of the road bad, in five and a half hours.  Halfway down we came
+out upon a cleared place, a farm, with fruit-trees and a house in
+ruins.  Here had been a summer hotel much resorted to before the war,
+but now abandoned.  Above it we turned aside for the view from
+Elizabeth rock, named from the daughter of the proprietor of the
+hotel, who often sat here, said Big Tom, before she went out of this
+world.  It is a bold rocky ledge, and the view from it, looking
+south, is unquestionably the finest, the most pleasing and picture-
+like, we found in these mountains.  In the foreground is the deep
+gorge of a branch of the Swannanoa, and opposite is the great wall of
+the Blue Ridge (the Blue Ridge is the most capricious and
+inexplicable system) making off to the Blacks.  The depth of the
+gorge, the sweep of the sky line, and the reposeful aspect of the
+scene to the sunny south made this view both grand and charming.
+Nature does not always put the needed dash of poetry into her
+extensive prospects.
+
+Leaving this clearing and the now neglected spring, where fashion
+used to slake its thirst, we zigzagged down the mountain-side through
+a forest of trees growing at every step larger and nobler, and at
+length struck a small stream, the North Fork of the Swannanoa, which
+led us to the first settlement.  Just at night,--it was nearly seven
+o'clock,--we entered one of the most stately forests I have ever
+seen, and rode for some distance in an alley of rhododendrons that
+arched overhead and made a bower.  It was like an aisle in a temple;
+high overhead was the somber, leafy roof, supported by gigantic
+columns.  Few widows have such an avenue of approach to their domain
+as the Widow Patten has.
+
+Cheering as this outcome was from the day's struggle and storm, the
+Professor seemed sunk in a profound sadness.  The auguries which the
+Friend drew from these signs of civilization of a charming inn and a
+royal supper did not lighten the melancholy of his mind.  "Alas," he
+said,
+
+    "Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
+     And make me travel forth without my cloak,
+     To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
+     Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
+     'T is not enough that through the cloud thou break,
+     To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
+     For no man well of such a salve can speak
+     That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
+     Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief:
+     Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss."
+
+"Loss of what?"  cried the Friend, as he whipped up his halting
+steed.
+
+"Loss of self-respect.  I feel humiliated that I consented to climb
+this mountain."
+
+"Nonsense!  You'll live to thank me for it, as the best thing you
+ever did.  It's over and done now, and you've got it to tell your
+friends."
+
+"That's just the trouble.  They'll ask me if I went up Mitchell, and
+I shall have to say I did.  My character for consistency is gone.
+Not that I care much what they think, but my own self-respect is
+gone.  I never believed I would do it.  A man ca'nt afford to lower
+himself in his own esteem, at my time of life."
+
+The Widow Patten's was only an advanced settlement in this narrow
+valley on the mountain-side, but a little group of buildings, a
+fence, and a gate gave it the air of a place, and it had once been
+better cared for than it is now.  Few travelers pass that way, and
+the art of entertaining, if it ever existed, is fallen into
+desuetude.  We unsaddled at the veranda, and sat down to review our
+adventure, make the acquaintance of the family, and hear the last
+story from Big Tom.  The mountaineer, though wet, was as fresh as a
+daisy, and fatigue in no wise checked the easy, cheerful flow of his
+talk.  He was evidently a favorite with his neighbors, and not
+unpleasantly conscious of the extent of his reputation.  But he
+encountered here another social grade.  The Widow Patten was highly
+connected.  We were not long in discovering that she was an
+Alexander.  She had been a schoolmate of Senator Vance,--" Zeb Vance
+"he still was to her,--and the senator and his wife had stayed at her
+house.  I wish I could say that the supper, for which we waited till
+nine o'clock, was as "highly connected" as the landlady.  It was,
+however, a supper that left its memory.  We were lodged in a detached
+house, which we had to ourselves, where a roaring wood fire made
+amends for other things lacking.  It was necessary to close the doors
+to keep out the wandering cows and pigs, and I am bound to say that,
+notwithstanding the voices of the night, we slept there the sleep of
+peace.
+
+In the morning a genuine surprise awaited us; it seemed impossible,
+but the breakfast was many degrees worse than the supper; and when we
+paid our bill, large for the region, we were consoled by the thought
+that we paid for the high connection as well as for the
+accommodations.  This is a regular place of entertainment, and one is
+at liberty to praise it without violation of delicacy.
+
+The broken shoe of Jack required attention, and we were all the
+morning hunting a blacksmith, as we rode down the valley.  Three
+blacksmith's shanties were found, and after long waiting to send for
+the operator it turned out in each case that he had no shoes, no
+nails, no iron to make either of.  We made a detour of three miles to
+what was represented as a regular shop.  The owner had secured the
+service of a colored blacksmith for a special job, and was, not
+inclined to accommodate us; he had no shoes, no nails.  But the
+colored blacksmith, who appreciated the plight we were in, offered to
+make a shoe, and to crib four nails from those he had laid aside for
+a couple of mules; and after a good deal of delay, we were enabled to
+go on.  The incident shows, as well as anything, the barrenness and
+shiftlessness of the region.  A horseman with whom we rode in the
+morning gave us a very low estimate of the trustworthiness of the
+inhabitants.  The valley is wild and very pretty all the way down to
+Colonel Long's,--twelve miles,--but the wretched-looking people along
+the way live in a wretched manner.
+
+Just before reaching Colonel Long's we forded the stream (here of
+good size), the bridge having tumbled down, and encountered a party
+of picnickers under the trees--signs of civilization; a railway
+station is not far off.  Colonel Long's is a typical Southern
+establishment: a white house, or rather three houses, all of one
+story, built on to each other as beehives are set in a row, all
+porches and galleries.  No one at home but the cook, a rotund, broad-
+faced woman, with a merry eye, whose very appearance suggested good
+cooking and hospitality; the Missis and the children had gone up to
+the river fishing; the Colonel was somewhere about the place; always
+was away when he was wanted.  Guess he'd take us in, mighty fine man
+the Colonel; and she dispatched a child from a cabin in the rear to
+hunt him up.  The Colonel was a great friend of her folks down to
+Greenville; they visited here.  Law, no, she didn't live here.  Was
+just up here spending the summer, for her health.  God-forsaken lot
+of people up here, poor trash.  She wouldn't stay here a day, but the
+Colonel was a friend of her folks, the firstest folks in Greenville.
+Nobody round here she could 'sociate with.  She was a Presbyterian,
+the folks round here mostly Baptists and Methodists.  More style
+about the Presbyterians.  Married?  No, she hoped not.  She did n't
+want to support no husband.  Got 'nuff to do to take care of herself.
+That her little girl?  No; she'd only got one child, down to
+Greenville, just the prettiest boy ever was, as white as anybody.
+How did she what? reconcile this state of things with not being
+married and being a Presbyterian?  Sho! she liked to carry some
+religion along; it was mighty handy occasionally, mebbe not all the
+time.  Yes, indeed, she enjoyed her religion.
+
+The Colonel appeared and gave us a most cordial welcome.  The fat and
+merry cook blustered around and prepared a good dinner, memorable for
+its "light" bread, the first we had seen since Cranberry Forge.  The
+Colonel is in some sense a public man, having been a mail agent, and
+a Republican.  He showed us photographs and engravings of Northern
+politicians, and had the air of a man who had been in Washington.
+This was a fine country for any kind of fruit,--apples, grapes,
+pears; it needed a little Northern enterprise to set things going.
+The travelers were indebted to the Colonel for a delightful noonday
+rest, and with regret declined his pressing invitation to pass the
+night with him.
+
+The ride down the Swannanoa to Asheville was pleasant, through a
+cultivated region, over a good road.  The Swannanoa is, however, a
+turbid stream.  In order to obtain the most impressive view of
+Asheville we approached it by the way of Beaucatcher Hill, a sharp
+elevation a mile west of the town.  I suppose the name is a
+corruption of some descriptive French word, but it has long been a
+favorite resort of the frequenters of Asheville, and it may be
+traditional that it is a good place to catch beaux.  The summit is
+occupied by a handsome private residence, and from this ridge the
+view, which has the merit of "bursting" upon the traveler as he comes
+over the hill, is captivating in its extent and variety.  The pretty
+town of Asheville is seen to cover a number of elevations gently
+rising out of the valley, and the valley, a rich agricultural region,
+well watered and fruitful, is completely inclosed by picturesque
+hills, some of them rising to the dignity of mountains.  The most
+conspicuous of these is Mount Pisgah, eighteen miles distant to the
+southwest, a pyramid of the Balsam range, 5757 feet high.  Mount
+Pisgah, from its shape, is the most attractive mountain in this
+region.
+
+The sunset light was falling upon the splendid panorama and softening
+it.  The windows of the town gleamed as if on fire.  From the steep
+slope below came the mingled sounds of children shouting, cattle
+driven home, and all that hum of life that marks a thickly peopled
+region preparing for the night.  It was the leisure hour of an August
+afternoon, and Asheville was in all its watering-place gayety, as we
+reined up at the Swannanoa hotel.  A band was playing on the balcony.
+We had reached ice-water, barbers, waiters, civilization.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Ashville, delightful for situation, on small hills that rise above
+the French Broad below its confluence with the Swannanoa, is a sort
+of fourteenth cousin to Saratoga.  It has no springs, but lying 2250
+feet above the sea and in a lovely valley, mountain girt, it has pure
+atmosphere and an equable climate; and being both a summer and winter
+resort, it has acquired a watering-place air.  There are Southerners
+who declare that it is too hot in summer, and that the complete
+circuit of mountains shuts out any lively movement of air.  But the
+scenery is so charming and noble, the drives are so varied, the roads
+so unusually passable for a Southern country, and the facilities for
+excursions so good, that Asheville is a favorite resort.
+
+Architecturally the place is not remarkable, but its surface is so
+irregular, there are so many acclivities and deep valleys that
+improvements can never obliterate, that it is perforce picturesque.
+It is interesting also, if not pleasing, in its contrasts--the
+enterprise of taste and money-making struggling with the laissez
+faire of the South.  The negro, I suppose, must be regarded as a
+conservative element; he has not much inclination to change his
+clothes or his cabin, and his swarming presence gives a ragged aspect
+to the new civilization.  And to say the truth, the new element of
+Southern smartness lacks the trim thrift the North is familiar with;
+though the visitor who needs relaxation is not disposed to quarrel
+with the easy-going terms on which life is taken.
+
+Asheville, it is needless to say, appeared very gay and stimulating
+to the riders from the wilderness.  The Professor, who does not even
+pretend to patronize Nature, had his revenge as we strolled about the
+streets (there is but one of much consideration), immensely
+entertained by the picturesque contrasts.  There was more life and
+amusement here in five minutes, he declared, than in five days of
+what people called scenery--the present rage for scenery, anyway,
+being only a fashion and a modern invention.  The Friend suspected
+from this penchant for the city that the Professor must have been
+brought up in the country.
+
+There was a kind of predetermined and willful gayety about Asheville
+however, that is apt to be present in a watering-place, and gave to
+it the melancholy tone that is always present in gay places.  We
+fancied that the lively movement in the streets had an air of
+unreality.  A band of musicians on the balcony of the Swannanoa were
+scraping and tooting and twanging with a hired air, and on the
+opposite balcony of the Eagle a rival band echoed and redoubled the
+perfunctory joyousness.  The gayety was contagious: the horses felt
+it; those that carried light burdens of beauty minced and pranced,
+the pony in the dog-cart was inclined to dash, the few passing
+equipages had an air of pleasure; and the people of color, the comely
+waitress and the slouching corner-loafer, responded to the animation
+of the festive strains.  In the late afternoon the streets were full
+of people, wagons, carriages, horsemen, all with a holiday air,
+dashed with African color and humor--the irresponsibility of the most
+insouciant and humorous race in the world, perhaps more comical than
+humorous; a mixture of recent civilization and rudeness, peculiar and
+amusing; a happy coming together, it seemed, of Southern abandon and
+Northern wealth, though the North was little represented at this
+season.
+
+As evening came on, the streets, though wanting gas, were still more
+animated; the shops were open, some very good ones, and the white and
+black throng increasing, especially the black, for the negro is
+preeminently a night bird.  In the hotels dancing was promised--the
+german was announced; on the galleries and in the corridors were
+groups of young people, a little loud in manner and voice,--the young
+gentleman, with his over-elaborate manner to ladies in bowing and
+hat-lifting, and the blooming girls from the lesser Southern cities,
+with the slight provincial note, and yet with the frank and engaging
+cordiality which is as charming as it is characteristic.  I do not
+know what led the Professor to query if the Southern young women were
+not superior to the Southern young men, but he is always asking
+questions nobody can answer.  At the Swannanoa were half a dozen
+bridal couples, readily recognizable by the perfect air they had of
+having been married a long time.  How interesting such young voyagers
+are, and how interesting they are to each other!  Columbus never
+discovered such a large world as they have to find out and possess
+each in the other.
+
+Among the attractions of the evening it was difficult to choose.
+There was a lawn-party advertised at Battery Point (where a fine
+hotel has since been built) and we walked up to that round knob after
+dark.  It is a hill with a grove, which commands a charming view, and
+was fortified during the war.  We found it illuminated with Chinese
+lanterns; and little tables set about under the trees, laden with
+cake and ice-cream, offered a chance to the stranger to contribute
+money for the benefit of the Presbyterian Church.  I am afraid it was
+not a profitable entertainment, for the men seemed to have business
+elsewhere, but the ladies about the tables made charming groups in
+the lighted grove.  Man is a stupid animal at best, or he would not
+make it so difficult for the womenkind to scrape together a little
+money for charitable purposes.  But probably the women like this
+method of raising money better than the direct one.
+
+The evening gayety of the town was well distributed.  When we
+descended to the Court-House Square, a great crowd had collected,
+black, white, and yellow, about a high platform, upon which four
+glaring torches lighted up the novel scene, and those who could read
+might decipher this legend on a standard at the back of the stage:
+
+                      HAPPY JOHN.
+            ONE OF THE SLAVES OF WADE HAMPTON.
+                   COME AND SEE HIM!
+
+Happy John, who occupied the platform with Mary, a "bright" yellow
+girl, took the comical view of his race, which was greatly enjoyed by
+his audience.  His face was blackened to the proper color of the
+stage-darky, and he wore a flaming suit of calico, the trousers and
+coat striped longitudinally according to Punch's idea of "Uncle Sam,"
+the coat a swallow-tail bound and faced with scarlet, and a bell-
+crowned white hat.  This conceit of a colored Yankee seemed to tickle
+all colors in the audience amazingly.  Mary, the "bright" woman (this
+is the universal designation of the light mulatto), was a pleasing
+but bold yellow girl, who wore a natty cap trimmed with scarlet, and
+had the assured or pert manner of all traveling sawdust performers.
+
+"Oh, yes," exclaimed a bright woman in the crowd, "Happy John was
+sure enough one of Wade Hampton's slaves, and he's right good looking
+when he's not blackened up."
+
+Happy John sustained the promise of his name by spontaneous gayety
+and enjoyment of the fleeting moment; he had a glib tongue and a
+ready, rude wit, and talked to his audience with a delicious mingling
+of impudence, deference, and patronage, commenting upon them
+generally, administering advice and correction in a strain of humor
+that kept his hearers in a pleased excitement.  He handled the banjo
+and the guitar alternately, and talked all the time when he was not
+singing.  Mary (how much harder featured and brazen a woman is in
+such a position than a man of the same caliber!) sang, in an
+untutored treble, songs of sentiment, often risque, in solo and in
+company with John, but with a cold, indifferent air, in contrast to
+the rollicking enjoyment of her comrade.
+
+The favorite song, which the crowd compelled her to repeat, touched
+lightly the uncertainties of love, expressed in the falsetto pathetic
+refrain:
+
+    "Mary's gone away wid de coon."
+
+All this, with the moon, the soft summer night, the mixed crowd of
+darkies and whites, the stump eloquence of Happy John, the singing,
+the laughter, the flaring torches, made a wild scene.  The
+entertainment was quite free, with a "collection" occasionally during
+the performance.
+
+What most impressed us, however, was the turning to account by Happy
+John of the "nigger" side of the black man as a means of low comedy,
+and the enjoyment of it by all the people of color.  They appeared to
+appreciate as highly as anybody the comic element in themselves, and
+Happy John had emphasized it by deepening his natural color and
+exaggerating the "nigger" peculiarities.  I presume none of them
+analyzed the nature of his infectious gayety, nor thought of the
+pathos that lay so close to it, in the fact of his recent slavery,
+and the distinction of being one of Wade Hampton's niggers, and the
+melancholy mirth of this light-hearted race's burlesque of itself.
+
+A performance followed which called forth the appreciation of the
+crowd more than the wit of Happy John or the faded songs of the
+yellow girl.  John took two sweet-cakes and broke each in fine pieces
+into a saucer, and after sugaring and eulogizing the dry messes,
+called for two small darky volunteers from the audience to come up on
+the platform and devour them.  He offered a prize of fifteen cents to
+the one who should first eat the contents of his dish, not using his
+hands, and hold up the saucer empty in token of his victory.  The
+cake was tempting, and the fifteen cents irresistible, and a couple
+of boys in ragged shirts and short trousers and a suspender apiece
+came up shamefacedly to enter for the prize.  Each one grasped his
+saucer in both hands, and with face over the dish awaited the word
+"go," which John gave, and started off the contest with a banjo
+accompaniment.  To pick up with the mouth the dry cake and choke it
+down was not so easy as the boys apprehended, but they went into the
+task with all their might, gobbling and swallowing as if they loved
+cake, occasionally rolling an eye to the saucer of the contestant to
+see the relative progress, John strumming, ironically encouraging,
+and the crowd roaring.  As the combat deepened and the contestants
+strangled and stuffed and sputtered, the crowd went into spasms of
+laughter.  The smallest boy won by a few seconds, holding up his
+empty saucer, with mouth stuffed, vigorously trying to swallow, like
+a chicken with his throat clogged with dry meal, and utterly unable
+to speak.  The impartial John praised the victor in mock heroics, but
+said that the trial was so even that he would divide the prize, ten
+cents to one and five to the other--a stroke of justice that greatly
+increased his popularity.  And then he dismissed the assembly, saying
+that he had promised the mayor to do so early, because he did not
+wish to run an opposition to the political meeting going on in the
+courthouse.
+
+The scene in the large court-room was less animated than that out-
+doors; a half-dozen tallow dips, hung on the wall in sconces and
+stuck on the judge's long desk, feebly illuminated the mixed crowd of
+black and white who sat in, and on the backs of, the benches, and
+cast only a fitful light upon the orator, who paced back and forth
+and pounded the rail.  It was to have been a joint discussion between
+the two presidential electors running in that district, but, the
+Republican being absent, his place was taken by a young man of the
+town.  The Democratic orator took advantage of the absence of his
+opponent to describe the discussion of the night before, and to give
+a portrait of his adversary.  He was represented as a cross between a
+baboon and a jackass, who would be a natural curiosity for Barnum.
+"I intend," said the orator," to put him in a cage and exhibit him
+about the deestrict."  This political hit called forth great
+applause.  All his arguments were of this pointed character, and they
+appeared to be unanswerable.  The orator appeared to prove that there
+wasn't a respectable man in the opposite party who wasn't an office-
+holder, nor a white man of any kind in it who was not an office-
+holder.  If there were any issues or principles in the canvass, he
+paid his audience the compliment of knowing all about them, for he
+never alluded to any.  In another state of society, such a speech of
+personalities might have led to subsequent shootings, but no doubt
+his adversary would pay him in the same coin when next they met, and
+the exhibition seemed to be regarded down here as satisfactory and
+enlightened political canvassing for votes.  The speaker who replied,
+opened his address with a noble tribute to woman (as the first
+speaker had ended his), directed to a dozen of that sex who sat in
+the gloom of a corner.  The young man was moderate in his sarcasm,
+and attempted to speak of national issues, but the crowd had small
+relish for that sort of thing.  At eleven o'clock, when we got away
+from the unsavory room (more than half the candles had gone out), the
+orator was making slow headway against the refished blackguardism of
+the evening.  The german was still "on" at the hotel when we ascended
+to our chamber, satisfied that Asheville was a lively town.
+
+The sojourner at Asheville can amuse himself very well by walking or
+driving to the many picturesque points of view about the town; livery
+stables abound, and the roads are good.  The Beau-catcher Hill is
+always attractive; and Connolly's, a private place a couple of miles
+from town, is ideally situated, being on a slight elevation in the
+valley, commanding the entire circuit of mountains, for it has the
+air of repose which is so seldom experienced in the location of a
+dwelling in America whence an extensive prospect is given.  Or if the
+visitor is disinclined to exertion, he may lounge in the rooms of the
+hospitable Asheville Club; or he may sit on the sidewalk in front of
+the hotels, and talk with the colonels and judges and generals and
+ex-members of Congress, the talk generally drifting to the new
+commercial and industrial life of the South, and only to politics as
+it affects these; and he will be pleased, if the conversation takes a
+reminiscent turn, with the lack of bitterness and the tone of
+friendliness.  The negro problem is commonly discussed
+philosophically and without heat, but there is always discovered,
+underneath, the determination that the negro shall never again get
+the legislative upper hand.  And the gentleman from South Carolina
+who has an upland farm, and is heartily glad slavery is gone, and
+wants the negro educated, when it comes to ascendency in politics--
+such as the State once experienced--asks you what you would do
+yourself.  This is not the place to enter upon the politico-social
+question, but the writer may note one impression gathered from much
+friendly and agreeable conversation.  It is that the Southern whites
+misapprehend and make a scarecrow of "social equality."  When, during
+the war, it was a question at the North of giving the colored people
+of the Northern States the ballot, the argument against it used to be
+stated in the form of a question: "Do you want your daughter to marry
+a negro?"  Well, the negro has his political rights in the North, and
+there has come no change in the social conditions whatever.  And
+there is no doubt that the social conditions would remain exactly as
+they are at the South if the negro enjoyed all the civil rights which
+the Constitution tries to give him.  The most sensible view of this
+whole question was taken by an intelligent colored man, whose brother
+was formerly a representative in Congress.  "Social equality," he
+said in effect, "is a humbug.  We do not expect it, we do not want
+it.  It does not exist among the blacks themselves.  We have our own
+social degrees, and choose our own associates.  We simply want the
+ordinary civil rights, under which we can live and make our way in
+peace and amity.  This is necessary to our self-respect, and if we
+have not self-respect, it is not to be supposed that the race can
+improve.  I'll tell you what I mean.  My wife is a modest,
+intelligent woman, of good manners, and she is always neat, and
+tastefully dressed.  Now, if she goes to take the cars, she is not
+permitted to go into a clean car with decent people, but is ordered
+into one that is repellent, and is forced into company that any
+refined woman would shrink from.  But along comes a flauntingly
+dressed woman, of known disreputable character, whom my wife would be
+disgraced to know, and she takes any place that money will buy.  It
+is this sort of thing that hurts."
+
+We took the eastern train one evening to Round Nob (Henry's Station),
+some thirty miles, in order to see the wonderful railway that
+descends, a distance of eight miles, from the summit of Swannanoa Gap
+(2657 feet elevation) to Round Nob Hotel (1607 feet).  The Swannanoa
+Summit is the dividing line between the waters that flow to the
+Atlantic and those that go to the Gulf of Mexico.  This fact was
+impressed upon us by the inhabitants, who derive a good deal of
+comfort from it.  Such divides are always matter of local pride.
+Unfortunately, perhaps, it was too dark before we reached Henry's to
+enable us to see the road in all its loops and parallels as it
+appears on the map, but we gained a better effect.  The hotel, when
+we first sighted it, all its windows blazing with light, was at the
+bottom of a well.  Beside it--it was sufficiently light to see that--
+a column of water sprang straight into the air to the height, as we
+learned afterwards from two official sources, of 225 and 265 feet;
+and the information was added that it is the highest fountain in the
+world.  This stout column, stiff as a flagstaff, with its feathery
+head of mist gleaming like silver in the failing light, had the most
+charming effect.  We passed out of sight of hotel and fountain, but
+were conscious of being--whirled on a circular descending grade, and
+very soon they were in sight again.  Again and again they disappeared
+and came to view, now on one side and now on the other, until our
+train seemed to be bewitched, making frantic efforts by dodgings and
+turnings, now through tunnels and now over high pieces of trestle, to
+escape the inevitable attraction that was gravitating it down to the
+hospitable lights at the bottom of the well.  When we climbed back up
+the road in the morning, we had an opportunity to see the marvelous
+engineering, but there is little else to see, the view being nearly
+always very limited.
+
+The hotel at the bottom of the ravine, on the side of Round Nob,
+offers little in the way of prospect, but it is a picturesque place,
+and we could understand why it was full of visitors when we came to
+the table.  It was probably the best-kept house of entertainment in
+the State, and being in the midst of the Black Hills, it offers good
+chances for fishing and mountain climbing.
+
+In the morning the fountain, which is, of course, artificial, refused
+to play, the rain in the night having washed in debris which clogged
+the conduit.  But it soon freed itself and sent up for a long time,
+like a sulky geyser, mud and foul water.  When it got freedom and
+tolerable clearness, we noted that the water went up in pulsations,
+which were marked at short distances by the water falling off, giving
+the column the appearance of a spine.  The summit, always beating the
+air in efforts to rise higher, fell over in a veil of mist.
+
+There are certain excursions that the sojourner at Asheville must
+make.  He must ride forty-five miles south through Henderson and
+Transylvania to Caesar's Head, on the South Carolina border, where
+the mountain system abruptly breaks down into the vast southern
+plain; where the observer, standing on the edge of the precipice, has
+behind him and before him the greatest contrast that nature can
+offer.  He must also take the rail to Waynesville, and visit the
+much-frequented White Sulphur Springs, among the Balsam Mountains,
+and penetrate the Great Smoky range by way of Quallatown, and make
+the acquaintance of the remnant of Cherokee Indians living on the
+north slope of Cheoah Mountain.  The Professor could have made it a
+matter of personal merit that he escaped all these encounters with
+wild and picturesque nature, if his horse had not been too disabled
+for such long jaunts.  It is only necessary, however, to explain to
+the public that the travelers are not gormandizers of scenery, and
+were willing to leave some portions of the State to the curiosity of
+future excursionists.
+
+But so much was said about Hickory Nut Gap that a visit to it could
+not be evaded.  The Gap is about twenty-four miles southeast of
+Asheville.  In the opinion of a well-informed colonel, who urged us
+to make the trip, it is the finest piece of scenery it this region.
+We were brought up on the precept "get the best," and it was with
+high anticipations that we set out about eleven o'clock one warm,
+foggy morning.  We followed a very good road through a broken,
+pleasant country, gradually growing wilder and less cultivated.
+There was heavy rain most of the day on the hills, and occasionally a
+shower swept across our path.  The conspicuous object toward which we
+traveled all the morning was a shapely conical hill at the beginning
+of the Gap.
+
+At three o'clock we stopped at the Widow Sherrill's for dinner.  Her
+house, only about a mile from the summit, is most picturesquely
+situated on a rough slope, giving a wide valley and mountain view.
+The house is old rambling, many-roomed, with wide galleries on two
+sides.  If one wanted a retired retreat for a few days, with good air
+and fair entertainment, this could be commended.  It is an excellent
+fruit region; apples especially are sound and of good flavor.  That
+may be said of all this part of the State.  The climate is adapted to
+apples, as the hilly part of New England is.  I fancy the fruit
+ripens slowly, as it does in New England, and is not subject to quick
+decay like much of that grown in the West.  But the grape also can be
+grown in all this mountain region.  Nothing but lack of enterprise
+prevents any farmer from enjoying abundance of fruit.  The industry
+carried on at the moment at the Widow Sherrill's was the artificial
+drying of apples for the market.  The apples are pared, cored, and
+sliced in spirals, by machinery, and dried on tin sheets in a
+patented machine.  The industry appears to be a profitable one
+hereabouts, and is about the only one that calls in the aid of
+invention.
+
+While our dinner was preparing, we studied the well-known pictures of
+"Jane" and "Eliza," the photographs of Confederate boys, who had
+never returned from the war, and the relations, whom the traveling
+photographers always like to pillory in melancholy couples, and some
+stray volumes of the Sunday-school Union.  Madame Sherrill, who
+carries on the farm since the death of her husband, is a woman of
+strong and liberal mind, who informed us that she got small comfort
+in the churches in the neighborhood, and gave us, in fact, a
+discouraging account of the unvital piety of the region.
+
+The descent from the summit of the Gap to Judge Logan's, nine miles,
+is rapid, and the road is wild and occasionally picturesque,
+following the Broad River, a small stream when we first overtook it,
+but roaring, rocky, and muddy, owing to frequent rains, and now and
+then tumbling down in rapids.  The noisy stream made the ride
+animated, and an occasional cabin, a poor farmhouse, a mill, a
+schoolhouse, a store with an assemblage of lean horses tied to the
+hitching rails, gave the Professor opportunity for remarks upon the
+value of life under such circumstances.
+
+The valley which we followed down probably owes its celebrity to the
+uncommon phenomena of occasional naked rocks and precipices.  The
+inclosing mountains are from 3000 to 4000 feet high, and generally
+wooded.  I do not think that the ravine would be famous in a country
+where exposed ledges and buttressing walls of rock are common.  It is
+only by comparison with the local scenery that this is remarkable.
+About a mile above judge Logan's we caught sight, through the trees,
+of the famous waterfall.  From the top of the high ridge on the
+right, a nearly perpendicular cascade pours over the ledge of rocks
+and is lost in the forest.  We could see nearly the whole of it, at a
+great height above us, on the opposite side of the river, and it
+would require an hour's stiff climb to reach its foot.  From where we
+viewed it, it seemed a slender and not very important, but certainly
+a very beautiful cascade, a band of silver in the mass of green
+foliage.  The fall is said to be 1400 feet.  Our colonel insists that
+it is a thousand.  It may be, but the valley where we stood is at
+least at an elevation of 1300 feet; we could not believe that the
+ridge over which the water pours is much higher than 3000 feet, and
+the length of the fall certainly did not appear to be a quarter of
+the height of the mountain from our point of observation.  But we had
+no desire to belittle this pretty cascade, especially when we found
+that Judge Logan would regard a foot abated from the 1400 as a
+personal grievance.  Mr. Logan once performed the functions of local
+judge, a Republican appointment, and he sits around the premises now
+in the enjoyment of that past dignity and of the fact that his wife
+is postmistress.  His house of entertainment is at the bottom of the
+valley, a place shut in, warm, damp, and not inviting to a long stay,
+although the region boasts a good many natural curiosities.
+
+It was here that we encountered again the political current, out of
+which we had been for a month.  The Judge himself was reticent, as
+became a public man, but he had conspicuously posted up a monster
+prospectus, sent out from Augusta, of a campaign life of Blaine and
+Logan, in which the Professor read, with shaking knees, this
+sentence: "Sure to be the greatest and hottest [campaign and civil
+battle] ever known in this world.  The thunder of the supreme
+struggle and its reverberations will shake the continents for months,
+and will be felt from Pole to Pole."
+
+For this and other reasons this seemed a risky place to be in.  There
+was something sinister about the murky atmosphere, and a suspicion of
+mosquitoes besides.  Had there not been other travelers staying here,
+we should have felt still more uneasy.  The house faced Bald
+Mountain, 4000 feet high, a hill that had a very bad reputation some
+years ago, and was visited by newspaper reporters.  This is, in fact,
+the famous Shaking Mountain.  For a long time it had a habit of
+trembling, as if in an earthquake spasm, but with a shivering motion
+very different from that produced by an earthquake.  The only good
+that came of it was that it frightened all the "moonshiners," and
+caused them to join the church.  It is not reported what became of
+the church afterwards.  It is believed now that the trembling was
+caused by the cracking of a great ledge on the mountain, which slowly
+parted asunder.  Bald Mountain is the scene of Mrs. Burnett's
+delightful story of "Louisiana," and of the play of "Esmeralda."
+A rock is pointed out toward the summit, which the beholder is asked
+to see resembles a hut, and which is called "Esmeralda's Cottage."
+But this attractive maiden has departed, and we did not discover any
+woman in the region who remotely answers to her description.
+
+In the morning we rode a mile and a half through the woods and
+followed up a small stream to see the celebrated pools, one of which
+the Judge said was two hundred feet deep, and another bottomless.
+These pools, not round, but on one side circular excavations, some
+twenty feet across, worn in the rock by pebbles, are very good
+specimens, and perhaps remarkable specimens, of "pot-holes."  They
+are, however, regarded here as one of the wonders of the world.  On
+the way to them we saw beautiful wild trumpet-creepers in blossom,
+festooning the trees.
+
+The stream that originates in Hickory Nut Gap is the westernmost
+branch of several forks of the Broad, which unite to the southeast in
+Rutherford County, flow to Columbia, and reach the Atlantic through
+the channel of the Santee.  It is not to be confounded with the
+French Broad, which originates among the hills of Transylvania, runs
+northward past Asheville, and finds its way to the Tennessee through
+the Warm Springs Gap in the Bald Mountains.  As the French claimed
+ownership of all the affluents of the Mississippi, this latter was
+called the French Broad.
+
+It was a great relief the next morning, on our return, to rise out of
+the lifeless atmosphere of the Gap into the invigorating air at the
+Widow Sherrill's, whose country-seat is three hundred feet higher
+than Asheville.  It was a day of heavy showers, and apparently of
+leisure to the scattered population; at every store and mill was a
+congregation of loafers, who had hitched their scrawny horses and
+mules to the fences, and had the professional air of the idler and
+gossip the world over.  The vehicles met on the road were a variety
+of the prairie schooner, long wagons with a top of hoops over which
+is stretched a cotton cloth.  The wagons are without seats, and the
+canvas is too low to admit of sitting upright, if there were.  The
+occupants crawl in at either end, sit or lie on the bottom of the
+wagon, and jolt along in shiftless uncomfortableness.
+
+Riding down the French Broad was one of the original objects of our
+journey.  Travelers with the same intention may be warned that the
+route on horseback is impracticable.  The distance to the Warm
+Springs is thirty-seven miles; to Marshall, more than halfway, the
+road is clear, as it runs on the opposite side of the river from the
+railway, and the valley is something more than river and rails.  But
+below Marshall the valley contracts, and the rails are laid a good
+portion of the way in the old stage road.  One can walk the track,
+but to ride a horse over its sleepers and culverts and occasional
+bridges, and dodge the trains, is neither safe nor agreeable.  We
+sent our horses round--the messenger taking the risk of leading them,
+between trains, over the last six or eight miles,--and took the
+train.
+
+The railway, after crossing a mile or two of meadows, hugs the river
+all the way.  The scenery is the reverse of bold.  The hills are low,
+monotonous in form, and the stream winds through them, with many a
+pretty turn and "reach," with scarcely a ribbon of room to spare on
+either side.  The river is shallow, rapid, stony, muddy, full of
+rocks, with an occasional little island covered with low bushes.  The
+rock seems to be a clay formation, rotten and colored.  As we
+approach Warm Springs the scenery becomes a little bolder, and we
+emerge into the open space about the Springs through a narrower
+defile, guarded by rocks that are really picturesque in color and
+splintered decay, one of them being known, of course, as the "Lover's
+Leap," a name common in every part of the modern or ancient world
+where there is a settlement near a precipice, with always the same
+legend attached to it.
+
+There is a little village at Warm Springs, but the hotel--since
+burned and rebuilt--(which may be briefly described as a palatial
+shanty) stands by itself close to the river, which is here a deep,
+rapid, turbid stream.  A bridge once connected it with the road on
+the opposite bank, but it was carried away three or four years ago,
+and its ragged butments stand as a monument of procrastination, while
+the stream is crossed by means of a flatboat and a cable.  In front
+of the hotel, on the slight slope to the river, is a meager grove of
+locusts.  The famous spring, close to-the stream, is marked only by a
+rough box of wood and an iron pipe, and the water, which has a
+temperature of about one hundred degrees, runs to a shabby bath-house
+below, in which is a pool for bathing.  The bath is very agreeable,
+the tepid water being singularly soft and pleasant.  It has a
+slightly sulphurous taste.  Its good effects are much certified.  The
+grounds, which might be very pretty with care, are ill-kept and
+slatternly, strewn with debris, as if everything was left to the
+easy-going nature of the servants.  The main house is of brick, with
+verandas and galleries all round, and a colonnade of thirteen huge
+brick and stucco columns, in honor of the thirteen States,--a relic
+of post-Revolutionary times, when the house was the resort of
+Southern fashion and romance.  These columns have stood through one
+fire, and perhaps the recent one, which swept away the rest of the
+structure.  The house is extended in a long wooden edifice, with
+galleries and outside stairs, the whole front being nearly seven
+hundred feet long.  In a rear building is a vast, barrack-like
+dining-room, with a noble ball-room above, for dancing is the
+important occupation of visitors.
+
+The situation is very pretty, and the establishment has a
+picturesqueness of its own.  Even the ugly little brick structure
+near the bath-house imposes upon one as Wade Hampton's cottage.  No
+doubt we liked the place better than if it had been smart, and
+enjoyed the neglige condition, and the easy terms on which life is
+taken there.  There was a sense of abundance in the sight of fowls
+tiptoeing about the verandas, and to meet a chicken in the parlor was
+a sort of guarantee that we should meet him later on in the dining-
+room.  There was nothing incongruous in the presence of pigs,
+turkeys, and chickens on the grounds; they went along with the good-
+natured negro-service and the general hospitality; and we had a
+mental rest in the thought that all the gates would have been off the
+hinges, if there had been any gates.  The guests were very well
+treated indeed, and were put under no sort of restraint by
+discipline.  The long colonnade made an admirable promenade and
+lounging-place and point of observation.  It was interesting to watch
+the groups under the locusts, to see the management of the ferry, the
+mounting and dismounting of the riding-parties, and to study the
+colors on the steep hill opposite, halfway up which was a neat
+cottage and flower-garden.  The type of people was very pleasantly
+Southern.  Colonels and politicians stand in groups and tell stories,
+which are followed by explosions of laughter; retire occasionally
+into the saloon, and come forth reminded of more stories, and all
+lift their hats elaborately and suspend the narratives when a lady
+goes past.  A company of soldiers from Richmond had pitched its tents
+near the hotel, and in the evening the ball-room was enlivened with
+uniforms.  Among the graceful dancers--and every one danced well, and
+with spirit was pointed out the young widow of a son of Andrew
+Johnson, whose pretty cottage overlooks the village.  But the
+Professor, to whom this information was communicated, doubted whether
+here it was not a greater distinction to be the daughter of the owner
+of this region than to be connected with a President of the United
+States.
+
+A certain air of romance and tradition hangs about the French Broad
+and the Warm Springs, which the visitor must possess himself of in
+order to appreciate either.  This was the great highway of trade and
+travel.  At certain seasons there was an almost continuous procession
+of herds of cattle and sheep passing to the Eastern markets, and of
+trains of big wagons wending their way to the inviting lands watered
+by the Tennessee.  Here came in the summer-time the Southern planters
+in coach and four, with a great retinue of household servants, and
+kept up for months that unique social life, a mixture of courtly
+ceremony and entire freedom, the civilization which had the drawing-
+room at one end and the negro-quarters at the other,--which has
+passed away.  It was a continuation into our own restless era of the
+manners and the literature of George the Third, with the accompanying
+humor and happy-go-lucky decadence of the negro slaves.  On our way
+down we saw on the river-bank, under the trees, the old hostelry,
+Alexander's, still in decay,--an attractive tavern, that was formerly
+one of the notable stopping-places on the river.  Master, and fine
+lady, and obsequious, larking darky, and lumbering coach, and throng
+of pompous and gay life, have all disappeared.  There was no room in
+this valley for the old institutions and for the iron track.
+
+    "When in the chronicle of wasted time
+     I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
+     And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
+     In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
+     We, which now behold these present days,
+     Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise."
+
+This perverted use of noble verse was all the response the Friend got
+in his attempt to drop into the sentimental vein over the past of the
+French Broad.
+
+The reader must not think there is no enterprise in this sedative and
+idle resort.  The conceited Yankee has to learn that it is not he
+alone who can be accused of the thrift of craft.  There is at the
+Warm Springs a thriving mill for crushing and pulverizing barites,
+known vulgarly as heavy-spar.  It is the weight of this heaviest of
+minerals, and not its lovely crystals, that gives it value.  The rock
+is crushed, washed, sorted out by hand, to remove the foreign
+substances, then ground and subjected to acids, and at the end of the
+process it is as white and fine as the best bolted flour.  This heavy
+adulterant is shipped to the North in large quantities,--the manager
+said he had recently an order for a hundred thousand dollars' worth
+of it.  What is the use of this powder?  Well, it is of use to the
+dealer who sells white lead for paint, to increase the weight of the
+lead, and it is the belief hereabouts that it is mixed with powdered
+sugar.  The industry is profitable to those engaged in it.
+
+It was impossible to get much information about our route into
+Tennessee, except that we should go by Paint Rock, and cross Paint
+Mountain.  Late one morning,--a late start is inevitable here,--
+accompanied by a cavalcade, we crossed the river by the rope ferry,
+and trotted down the pretty road, elevated above the stream and tree-
+shaded, offering always charming glimpses of swift water and
+overhanging foliage (the railway obligingly taking the other side of
+the river), to Paint Rock,--six miles.  This Paint Rock is a naked
+precipice by the roadside, perhaps sixty feet high, which has a large
+local reputation.  It is said that its face shows painting done by
+the Indians, and hieroglyphics which nobody can read.  On this bold,
+crumbling cliff, innumerable visitors have written their names.  We
+stared at it a good while to discover the paint and hieroglyphics,
+but could see nothing except iron stains.  Round the corner is a
+farmhouse and place of call for visitors, a neat cottage, with a
+display of shells and minerals and flower-pots; and here we turned
+north crossed the little stream called Paint River, the only clear
+water we had seen in a month, passed into the State of Tennessee, and
+by a gentle ascent climbed Paint Mountain.  The open forest road,
+with the murmur of the stream below, was delightfully exhilarating,
+and as we rose the prospect opened,--the lovely valley below, Bald
+Mountains behind us, and the Butt Mountains rising as we came over
+the ridge.
+
+Nobody on the way, none of the frowzy women or unintelligent men,
+knew anything of the route, or could give us any information of the
+country beyond.  But as we descended in Tennessee the country and the
+farms decidedly improved,--apple-trees and a grapevine now and then.
+
+A ride of eight miles brought us to Waddle's, hungry and disposed to
+receive hospitality.  We passed by an old farm building to a new two-
+storied, gayly painted house on a hill.  We were deceived by
+appearances.  The new house, with a new couple in it, had nothing to
+offer us except some buttermilk.  Why should anybody be obliged to
+feed roving strangers?  As to our horses, the young woman with a baby
+in her arms declared,
+
+"We've got nothing for stock but roughness; perhaps you can get
+something at the other house."
+
+"Roughness," we found out at the other house, meant hay in this
+region.  We procured for the horses a light meal of green oats, and
+for our own dinner we drank at the brook and the Professor produced a
+few sonnets.  On this sustaining repast we fared on nearly twelve
+miles farther, through a rolling, good farming country, offering
+little for comment, in search of a night's lodging with one of the
+brothers Snap.  But one brother declined our company on the plea that
+his wife was sick, and the other because his wife lived in
+Greenville, and we found ourselves as dusk came on without shelter in
+a tavernless land.  Between the two refusals we enjoyed the most
+picturesque bit of scenery of the day, at the crossing of Camp Creek,
+a swift little stream, that swirled round under the ledge of bold
+rocks before the ford.  This we learned was a favorite camp-meeting
+ground.  Mary was calling the cattle home at the farm of the second
+Snap.  It was a very peaceful scene of rural life, and we were
+inclined to tarry, but Mary, instead of calling us home with the
+cattle, advised us to ride on to Alexander's before it got dark.
+
+It is proper to say that at Alexander's we began to see what this
+pleasant and fruitful country might be, and will be, with thrift and
+intelligent farming.  Mr. Alexander is a well-to-do farmer, with
+plenty of cattle and good barns (always an evidence of prosperity),
+who owes his success to industry and an open mind to new ideas.  He
+was a Unionist during the war, and is a Democrat now, though his
+county (Greene) has been Republican.  We had been riding all the
+afternoon through good land, and encountering a better class of
+farmers.  Peach-trees abounded (though this was an off year for
+fruit), and apples and grapes throve.  It is a land of honey and of
+milk.  The persimmon flourishes; and, sign of abundance generally, we
+believe, great flocks of turkey-buzzards--majestic floaters in the
+high air--hovered about.  This country was ravaged during the war by
+Unionists and Confederates alternately, the impartial patriots as
+they passed scooping in corn, bacon, and good horses, leaving the
+farmers little to live on.  Mr. Alexander's farm cost him forty
+dollars an acre, and yields good crops of wheat and maize.  This was
+the first house on our journey where at breakfast we had grace before
+meat, though there had been many tables that needed it more.  From
+the door the noble range of the Big Bald is in sight and not distant;
+and our host said he had a shanty on it, to which he was accustomed
+to go with his family for a month or six weeks in the summer and
+enjoy a real primitive woods life.
+
+Refreshed by this little touch of civilization, and with horses well
+fed, we rode on next morning towards Jonesboro, over a rolling,
+rather unpicturesque country, but ennobled by the Big Bald and Butt
+ranges, which we had on our right all day.  At noon we crossed the
+Nollechucky River at a ford where the water was up to the saddle
+girth, broad, rapid, muddy, and with a treacherous stony bottom, and
+came to the little hamlet of Boylesville, with a flour-mill, and a
+hospitable old-fashioned house, where we found shelter from the heat
+of the hot day, and where the daughters of the house, especially one
+pretty girl in a short skirt and jaunty cap, contradicted the
+currently received notion that this world is a weary pilgrimage.  The
+big parlor, with its photographs and stereoscope, and bits of shell
+and mineral, a piano and a melodeon, and a coveted old sideboard of
+mahogany, recalled rural New England.  Perhaps these refinements are
+due to the Washington College (a school for both sexes), which is
+near.  We noted at the tables in this region a singular use of the
+word fruit.  When we were asked, Will you have some of the fruit?
+and said Yes, we always got applesauce.
+
+Ten miles more in the late afternoon brought us to Jonesboro, the
+oldest town in the State, a pretty place, with a flavor of antiquity,
+set picturesquely on hills, with the great mountains in sight.
+People from further South find this an agreeable summering place, and
+a fair hotel, with odd galleries in front and rear, did not want
+company.  The Warren Institute for negroes has been flourishing here
+ever since the war.
+
+A ride of twenty miles next day carried us to Union.  Before noon we
+forded the Watauga, a stream not so large as the Nollechucky, and
+were entertained at the big brick house of Mr. Devault, a prosperous
+and hospitable farmer.  This is a rich country.  We had met in the
+morning wagon-loads of watermelons and muskmelons, on the way to
+Jonesboro, and Mr. Devault set abundance of these refreshing fruits
+before us as we lounged on the porch before dinner.
+
+It was here that we made the acquaintance of a colored woman, a
+withered, bent old pensioner of the house, whose industry (she
+excelled any modern patent apple-parer) was unabated, although she
+was by her own confession (a woman, we believe, never owns her age
+till she has passed this point) and the testimony of others a hundred
+years old.  But age had not impaired the brightness of her eyes, nor
+the limberness of her tongue, nor her shrewd good sense.  She talked
+freely about the want of decency and morality in the young colored
+folks of the present day.  It was n't so when she was a girl.  Long,
+long time ago, she and her husband had been sold at sheriff's sale
+and separated, and she never had another husband.  Not that she
+blamed her master so much he could n't help it; he got in debt.  And
+she expounded her philosophy about the rich, and the danger they are
+in.  The great trouble is that when a person is rich, he can borrow
+money so easy, and he keeps drawin' it out of the bank and pilin' up
+the debt, like rails on top of one another, till it needs a ladder to
+get on to the pile, and then it all comes down in a heap, and the man
+has to begin on the bottom rail again.  If she'd to live her life
+over again, she'd lay up money; never cared much about it till now.
+The thrifty, shrewd old woman still walked about a good deal, and
+kept her eye on the neighborhood.  Going out that morning she had
+seen some fence up the road that needed mending, and she told Mr.
+Devault that she didn't like such shiftlessness; she didn't know as
+white folks was much better than colored folks.  Slavery?  Yes,
+slavery was pretty bad--she had seen five hundred niggers in
+handcuffs, all together in a field, sold to be sent South.
+
+About six miles from here is a beech grove of historical interest,
+worth a visit if we could have spared the time.  In it is the large
+beech (six and a half feet around six feet from the ground) on which
+Daniel Boone shot a bear, when he was a rover in this region.  He
+himself cut an inscription on the tree recording his prowess, and it
+is still distinctly legible:
+
+     D. BOONE CILT A BAR ON THIS TREE, 1760.
+
+This tree is a place of pilgrimage, and names of people from all
+parts of the country are cut on it, until there is scarcely room for
+any more records of such devotion.  The grove is ancient looking, the
+trees are gnarled and moss-grown.  Hundreds of people go there, and
+the trees are carved all over with their immortal names.
+
+A pleasant ride over a rich rolling country, with an occasional strip
+of forest, brought us to Union in the evening, with no other
+adventure than the meeting of a steam threshing-machine in the road,
+with steam up, clattering along.  The devil himself could not invent
+any machine calculated to act on the nerves of a horse like this.
+Jack took one look and then dashed into the woods, scraping off his
+rider's hat but did not succeed in getting rid of his burden or
+knocking down any trees.
+
+Union, on the railway, is the forlornest of little villages, with
+some three hundred inhabitants and a forlorn hotel, kept by an ex-
+stage-driver.  The village, which lies on the Holston, has no
+drinking-water in it nor enterprise enough to bring it in; not a well
+nor a spring in its limits; and for drinking-water everybody crosses
+the river to a spring on the other side.  A considerable part of the
+labor of the town is fetching water over the bridge.  On a hill
+overlooking the village is a big, pretentious brick house, with a
+tower, the furniture of which is an object of wonder to those who
+have seen it.  It belonged to the late Mrs. Stover, daughter of
+Andrew Johnson.  The whole family of the ex-President have departed
+this world, but his memory is still green in this region, where he
+was almost worshiped--so the people say in speaking of him.
+
+Forlorn as was the hotel at Union, the landlord's daughters were
+beginning to draw the lines in rural refinement.  One of them had
+been at school in Abingdon.  Another, a mature young lady of fifteen,
+who waited on the table, in the leisure after supper asked the Friend
+for a light for her cigarette, which she had deftly rolled.
+
+"Why do you smoke?"
+
+"So as I shan't get into the habit of dipping.  Do you think dipping
+is nice?"
+
+The traveler was compelled to say that he did not, though he had seen
+a good deal of it wherever he had been.
+
+"All the girls dips round here.  But me and my sisters rather smoke
+than get in a habit of dipping."
+
+To the observation that Union seemed to be a dull place:
+
+"Well, there's gay times here in the winter--dancing.  Like to dance?
+Well, I should say!  Last winter I went over to Blountsville to a
+dance in the court-house; there was a trial between Union and
+Blountsville for the best dancing.  You bet I brought back the cake
+and the blue ribbon."
+
+The country was becoming too sophisticated, and the travelers
+hastened to the end of their journey.  The next morning Bristol, at
+first over a hilly country with magnificent oak-trees,--happily not
+girdled, as these stately monarchs were often seen along the roads in
+North Carolina,--and then up Beaver Creek, a turbid stream, turning
+some mills.  When a closed woolen factory was pointed out to the
+Professor (who was still traveling for Reform), as the result of the
+agitation in Congress, he said, Yes, the effect of agitation was
+evident in all the decayed dams and ancient abandoned mills we had
+seen in the past month.
+
+Bristol is mainly one long street, with some good stores, but
+generally shabby, and on this hot morning sleepy.  One side of the
+street is in Tennessee, the other in Virginia.  How handy for
+fighting this would have been in the war, if Tennessee had gone out
+and Virginia stayed in.  At the hotel--may a kind Providence wake it
+up to its responsibilities--we had the pleasure of reading one of
+those facetious handbills which the great railway companies of the
+West scatter about, the serious humor of which is so pleasing to our
+English friends.  This one was issued by the accredited agents of the
+Ohio and Mississippi Railway, and dated April 1, 1984.  One sentence
+will suffice:
+
+"Allow us to thank our old traveling friends for the many favors in
+our line, and if you are going on your bridal trip, or to see your
+girl out West, drop in at the general office of the Ohio and
+Mississippi Railway and we will fix you up in Queen Anne style.
+Passengers for Dakota, Montana, or the Northwest will have an
+overcoat and sealskin cap thrown in with all tickets sold on or after
+the above date."
+
+The great republic cannot yet take itself seriously.  Let us hope the
+humors of it will last another generation.  Meditating on this, we
+hailed at sundown the spires of Abingdon, and regretted the end of a
+journey that seems to have been undertaken for no purpose.
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of On Horseback
+by Charles Dudley Warner
+
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