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32. Roads Across the Mountains

 

 

 

 

Following his visit to the Cherokee Nation in the summer of 1837, George Featherstonhaugh traveled through western North Carolina.  Featherstonhaugh, an Englishman on a geological survey, traveled roads little changed in the eighteen years since Archibald D. Murphey, North Carolina State Senator from Orange County, had described them in a proposal for their improvement.

 

 

 

Archibald D. Murphey –

 

“Memoir of the Internal Improvements Contemplated by the Legislature of North Carolina and on the Resources and Finances of that State”

 

 

Of Roads across the Mountains.

 

The Yadkin and the Catawba become boatable within fifteen miles of the foot of the Blue Ridge. In planning Public Roads, Wilkesborough may be taken as the point on the Yadkin, from which they diverge in different directions across the Mountains. One Road runs to the North into the Counties of Grayson and Wythe in Virginia, passing the Blue Ridge at the Elk Spur Gap. Two Roads run to the West; one crossing the Ridge at Reddy’s River Gap, passes by Ashe Court-House, and forking, it extends to the North-West into the Counties of Russell and Washington in Virginia, and to the West to Jonesborough in East-Tennessee. The other, called Horton’s Turnpike, passes the Ridge at the Deep Gap, and runs through the South-Western parts of Ashe County, on to Jonesborough—another Road leads from Wilkes­boro to the South-West, passes Morganton, and crosses the Ridge at the Swanannoah Gap.—The Mountain can be easily Passed at each of these Gaps; and if the Roads were good, the inconvenience of crossing the Mountain would be disregarded. The Roads have been badly laid out; they are badly made, and the population in many parts is too weak to keep the Roads in even tolerable repair. All these Roads should be made at the public expense. It will not be necessary to make paved Roads: Such is the quality of the soil, that mere ditching on each side, and throwing up the earth in the middle, will make as good Roads as the public convenience requires. It is believed by those who have turned their attention to the subject, that con­tracts could be made for improving these Roads, in the way sug­gested, at less than one hundred dollars per mile, upon an aver­age distance of an hundred miles. The Principal Engineer should lay out the route for each Road, and confine the ascent and descent within an angle of five degrees. This can be done at all the Gaps. He should make contracts for the Work, and attend to its execution.—When the Roads are made, the people should be compelled to keep them in a state of good repair. The Principal Engineer should appoint the Overseers and assign their hands. It will be very easy for the Board of Public Works to draw up a system of regulations upon this subject, which will ensure the repair of these Roads.

Any man who will look upon the Map, will at once perceive the extensive trade which thus might be concentrated at Wilkes-borough: and these are improvements which -will bring the trade of neighbouring States into our own, whilst they, at the same time, accomodate a large portion of our own population, who can be accomodated in no other way by a system of In­ternal Improvements. All these remarks apply with equal force to the extensive country to the West, the trade of which might be concentrated at the head of Navigation on the Catawba. From that point, run three Roads, one to the middle parts of East-Tennessee, by the way of the Yellow Mountain; another crossing the Blue Ridge at the Swannannoah Gap, passes Bun­combe Court-House, and there forking, one prong takes the valley of French Broad River, passes the Warm Springs, and enters East-Tennessee at the Painted Rock: The other turns to the West and leads to Haywood Court-House. This is de­cidedly the best Road in the State, to the West of the Blue Ridge. It is much better than most of the Roads to the East of the Ridge; and it is said by men acquainted with the country, that it can be extended through the Cherokee Nation, quite to the South-Western Boundary of the State, and be made as good to the West as it is to the East, except at the point where it crosses the Blue Ridge near the Southern Boundary; and a hope is entertained that a good Gap will there be found as soon as the country can be explored. From the head of Navigation on the Catawba, a third Road runs to the South-West into the county of Rutherford, along which much valuable trade will pass to the Catawba, when that River is made navigable. There are two other Roads crossing the Blue Ridge, which claim the attention of the General Assembly. One leading from Buncombe Court-House by the Saluda Gap, forms the great Highway to South-Carolina and Georgia, from the Western parts of this State, and Virginia, from Kentucky and the North­ern part of Tennessee. It is, perhaps, the most public Road in North-Carolina; and a Traveller is astonished on reaching Buncombe Court-House, (called Morristown on the Map, but now called Asheville) to find people from six States in the Union, in the same Hotel. This is the Road along which the people of Buncombe and Haywood trade to Columbia and Augusta. They will find a market much nearer to them, when the Catawba shall be made navigable.

There is another Road leading from Buncombe Court-House to the South, into Rutherford County. The Mountain in this direction has three Gaps, Mill’s to the West, Cooper’s in the Middle, and Shelton’s to the East. The Mountain is difficult to be passed, both at Mills’s and Cooper’s Gaps. Shelton’s Gap is now in the direct route and is said to be much better; but accidental circumstances have heretofore prevented the Road by this Gap from being attended to. This Road is not so im­portant in a commercial point of view as either of the other Roads which have been treated of; but merits attention, from the consideration, that it would open a communication between portions of our people, who, being separated by a high Moun­tain, are in a great degree strangers to each other.  [1]

 

 

 

 

George W. Featherstonhaugh -

 

August 25 [1837].--Having taken a cup of coffee shortly after sunrise, we mounted again and directed our course to the town of Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina, intending from thence to proceed to the Cherokee settlements. Our way led through a succession of vales separated from each other by mountains of highly micaceous gneiss about eight hundred feet high, with innumerable streamlets flowing through them. The country was perfectly wild, without any roads but obscure Indian trails almost hidden by the shrubs and high grass. Unfortunately an obstinate and heavy rain commenced immediately after our departure, and soon drenched us thoroughly, but this was not enough, we at length came to a narrow valley, about two miles long, where the thick alders were eight feet high; all these we had to put aside with our hands as we advanced, and certainly I never received such a continuous and perfect shower bath before or since, for what with the rain and the rifaccimento of it from the bushes, it was difficult to keep my eyes open. As soon as we had passed the Cowee Mountains the rain ceased, and finding a hut at Walnut Creek, we stopped and changed our clothes. From hence we pursued our ride to Sugar-loaf Creek, a pretty meandering mountain stream, flowing not unfrequently through beautiful sequestered valleys.

The country now began to descend, and the valley to widen; at length settlements began to appear, and we came to a tolerably good road for wheels, running through a country remarkable for its beauty. About 5 P.M. we reached Franklin, a small village built on a branch of the Tennessee, called Little Tennessee, and charmingly situated upon a knoll in the centre of an ample valley, flanked by lofty ranges of hills on the east and west sides, and open in front by a break in the mountains, called Rabun's Gap. This valley is probably seven hundred feet lower than the level we left in the morning. The tall maize, called flint corn, ripens here, which it will not do there, and many southern plants began to appear. Hemlock trees abounded, there we saw none, blackberries were over here and there, they were not yet ripe. On our arrival at the tavern we consulted the landlord about sleeping, and requested him to provide us a comfortable supper, which he readily engaged to do; but the moment it was known that travellers were arrived, the room we were in became filled with drunken insolent fellows, who held the authority of the landlord in contempt: he would take no step to relieve us from them, and it being evident that we should get into a quarrel if we remained below, we determined to bully the landlord a little too; without asking his permission, therefore, I went up stairs, and finding there was a tolerably good room, gave a black man some money to make a good fire there, and ordered the supper to be laid in the same place. This new plan of the guests taking the management into their own hands succeeded perfectly well; the landlord saw that we were right and submitted with good grace, and we got over the evening tolerably well.

What a dreadful state of things ! Here was a village most beautifully situated, surrounded by a fertile soil capable of furnishing its inhabitants with every enjoyment, and that might become an earthly Paradise, if education, religion, and manners prevailed. But I could not learn that there was a man of education in the place disposed to set an example of the value of sobriety of life to the community. It appeared to be delivered up to political demagogues, whose only study was to debauch and mislead the people. It exhibited a perfect specimen of that kind of equality which democratic institutions too often lead to. Such is the fatal descent in the scale of human respectability, which at length brings about an equality in ignorance, depravity, vulgarity and drunkenness.

August 26.--All was quiet in the village when I arose at day-break. The landlord informed me that the place is very sickly in September and October, which surprised me considering its elevation. The fog this morning was so dense as to obscure everything; perhaps these exhalations which hang upon the surface in autumn are, in conjunction with the undrained state of the valley, the immediate causes. Having heard that there was a MSS. map of this wild part of the country at the Court-house, executed from actual survey, I went there and made a rough copy of it, as far as the mountains and streams were concerned, and found that we had another elevated chain, called Nantayáyhlay, to cross before we reached Valley River. At 9 A.M. we proceeded on our journey, our course laying up a narrow valley leading westwards through which ran the Warrior branch of the Nantayáyhlay River, a tributary of the Tennessee. The State of North Carolina having got possession of this part of the Cherokee country, was already making a road through it, unfinished sections of which we occasionally fell in with. We proceeded through a most pleasing country, the trail sometimes gliding through narrow vales, then rising to the summit of a lofty ridge, which looked down upon beautiful amphitheatres of low ground, surrounded by lofty hills of eight hundred feet high. At length we reached the Nantayáyhlay chain, the strike of which is about N.N.E. S.S.W. and the elevation eight hundred and fifty feet. This chain runs in the centre of the ancient Cherokee country, being about equidistant from the Oonáykay and the southern edge of the great belt of mountains, and has thus received its name of Nantayáyhlay or "in the middle." The stream called the Warrior ran at its foot. The ascent was very steep, being for a considerable way at an elevation of 50°, and the summit was fourteen miles from the town of Franklin. The whole ridge is formed of compact gneiss, studded with small brilliant garnets. On the west side we found the descent less precipitous, being a sort of gradually descending table land, with occasional dense laurel thickets, almost impenetrable, and forming the appropriate abodes of panthers, and two or three species of wild cats. Some of these laurels were twelve inches in diameter. At the bottom of the descent we found our path full of difficulties, and had continually to cross a rocky branch of the Nantayáyhlay from one side to the other, the old trail being occupied for a great distance by the new road now constructing, and impassable for the present.

I learnt that the contracts for making the road were principally in the hands of white men, who engaged Cherokees to chop the trees down and afterwards to grub up the roots. As we advanced in the bed of the stream, we passed many groups of these Indians at work far above us on the hill side who cheered us repeatedly. It was a very picturesque and strange sight to see such swarthy Tartar countenances with turbans and striped calico hunting shirts, working in this wild district for the men who had robbed them of their country. After pursuing this perplexing road down the stream for a long time, we came to another lofty hill called Valley River Mountain, which it was necessary to ascend, for the bed of the stream was no longer passable. The descent on the other side was extremely bad, and when we reached the bottom, we had to recommence our wanderings in the rocky stream, advancing a few steps and then being obliged to cross to the other side continually. Here we exchanged the gneiss with garnets for an amorphous talcose rock, with the usual quartz lodes running N.N.E., and resembling in their mineral character those in the Gold Region, which this part of the country may probably be included in.

As we got clear of the mountain and entered a pleasant valley, we met a Cherokee on horseback, named John Welsh, whom I remembered seeing at the Council. I attempted to get into conversation with him about the affairs transacted there, and the present temper of the Indians, but he was very reserved. I gathered sufficient from him, however, to understand that the Cherokees were determined not to abandon their country, whatever risk they might run. We were now at the north east termination of the pleasant valley through which Valley River runs, and saw the Oonáykay chain bounding it to the northwest. At sunset we stopped at a very indifferent place called Whitakers about thirty-two miles from Franklin. Here we got a very humble supper, about which I was less anxious than to get a mattrass to myself. The setting in of night always brings its anxieties on this point to me, my travelling companions were more sympathetic, and seemed to prefer "turning in" in pairs.

August 27.--A most beautiful morning found me at early dawn dipping water out of the stream to make my ablution saperto cielo, preparatory to a very scrubby breakfast. The method the Indians adopt of taking fish in this stream is a very destructive one. They cut a channel parallel to the stream, and damming this last up, turn the water into the new channel, seizing all the fish that are left in the shallow pools of the old bed. We continued our course S.W. down the valley on the right bank of the stream, the valley enlarging to a mile of rich bottom land surrounded by lofty and picturesque hills covered with fine woods. This was the Paradise of the Cherokees, their wigwams being built on graceful knolls rising above the level of the river bottom, each of them having its patch of Indian corn with indigenous beans climbing to the top of each plant, and squashes and pumpkins growing on the ground. The valley now contracted as we advanced, but contained a great many thousand acres of the most fertile land. Any thing much more beautiful than this fine scene can scarcely be imagined; two noble lines of mountains enclosing a fertile valley with a lovely stream running through it. The whole vale has formerly been a lake. As I was riding near the river, I perceived some appearance of limestone, and dismounting to examine the rock, found it was statuary marble of the same quality as that I had seen near the Talking Rock Creek. Its course was N.N.E. and S.S.W., and there is every reason to believe that it is a continuation of the calcareous dyke which, near the Talking Rock, laid above the surface in the form of a ridge. The general rock of this valley was talcose micaceous slate, and when crossing one of the streams, I perceived the water was turbid as it usually is below where they wash for gold; a person whom we met explained to me that some Cherokees were engaged washing the mud and gravel in a rude way at the head of that stream.

Valley River is the north branch of the Hiwassee which is the main southern tributary of the Tennessee, and a short distance below where it forks and forms the Hiwassee--which was here about one hundred yards wide, but shallow and very pellucid, as all these mountain streams are--we crossed over to the left bank. The general rock now became a bright lustrous talcose slate. Leaving the river, we met in a defile, at no great distance, a company of mounted Franklin volunteers moving to the mouth of the Nantayáyhlay, a part of the North Carolina State troops employed in a surveillance over the Cherokees until their evacuation of the country should take place. They would have been perfectly in character in the uplands beyond Terracina, on the road to Naples, for I never saw any fellows in my life that came so thoroughly up to the notion entertained of banditti. With their rifles and canteens slung over their dirty and thicket-torn clothes, they had the easy impudent air of fellows that knew no control; and if I had met such a set of physiognomies in the Papal States or in Calabria, I should instantly have thought of compounding with my purse, but several of them were civil, and I got off with nothing worse than some awkward bumps from their grimy camp kettles that were attached to their saddles--a contact with which there was no escaping in the narrow defile. My appearance, that was bad enough before, was not materially improved by rubbing against these vessels.

About 2 P.M., we ascended a hill to Fort Butler, a temporary camp with a block-house built for the State troops upon this occasion: from hence we rode a mile to Hunter's, a tavern kept by a person of that name who had been long in the Cherokee country; it was most beautifully situated upon an eminence commanding a view of the Hiwassee, gracefully winding through the hills, and of the lovely country around. There was a clever little hut in a retired part of the garden belonging to this house, and beds being placed in it, it was assigned to us exclusively, so that we had some prospect of comfort. Perceiving some ladies in the house, one of whom was the wife of an officer of the United States army, we made our toilette rather more carefully. The dinner was excellent, good soup, and a fine large trout from the river. We seemed restored to civilization, an idea that lost nothing by the introduction of a capital bottle of champagne, of which Hunter had brought a basket from Augusta, thinking the officers of the State troops would not sneeze at it; but either the price or something about it did not please them, and there Monsieur Moet was likely to have remained for some time "unknowing and unknown" but for our appearance. As it is not every day that Moet's champagne, and in the finest order, can be drank on the banks of the Hiwassee, in the Cherokee country, we formed the virtuous resolution of appropriating the whole basket to ourselves, and lost no time in putting a taboo upon it.

Here I learnt that Colonel Lindsay and his staff had been here since I was at the Council at Red Clay, and that he had mentioned my intention of visiting this part of the country. Perhaps it is to this circumstance I owed the great civility I received from Mr. Hunter. In the evening I walked out, and found the hill upon which this house was built consisted of mica slate, studded with transparent garnets. At the foot of the hill, the Hiwassee, about one hundred and fifty yards wide, glided between lofty escarpments about four hundred feet high. The river was generally shallow, but at one place it deepened suddenly from the pitch of the rock, a few hundred yards below the point where Valley River empties into the Hiwassee. I found some dead valves of unios at the edges of the river, but no live shells. The same species belong to the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.

 

September 12.--Notwithstanding a natural inclination to indulge in such good quarters, I managed to rise early and take a walk before breakfast. The prevailing rock here is gneiss, with occasional superincumbent beds of micaceous slate. The soil is red, and has been formed by ancient decomposed talcose slate. The forest around was thickly growing up with underwood. In all the districts where I have been, which are now possessed by the Indians, the woods are open, generally with a few trees sparsely growing here and there, in consequence of the Indians firing the woods annually in order to increase the herbage, and that they may better see to pursue their game. But as soon as the Indians abandon a district, and that destructive practice ceases, the underwood begins to grow up again, as it is now doing here. After breakfast, I took leave of this kind and pleasing family, and went in Mr. Ch--'s carriage to Pendleton. At 1 P.M. got into a four-horse stage for Greenville, where I found the Rev. Mr. F--, an agreeable person and a good scholar. A little after sun-set we reached Greenville, and stopped at a low dirty tavern, a sad exchange for the comforts I had left behind me. Here I laid down until midnight, having learnt that a stage-coach would leave the place for the mountains about that time, which would give me an opportunity of crossing them once more in their extreme breadth, through Buncombe County, in North Carolina, to the Oonáykay chain, which separates that State from Tennessee.

At 1 A.M. we started on a beautiful moonlight morning, and rather cold. It took us four hours to make the first ten miles, where there was a good-looking house, called Lynch's; but I was taken to a miserable dirty breakfast at a place two miles further. The country here began to ascend rapidly, and we travelled over the gneiss again. Higher up the rock was an imperfect granite, consisting of quartz and mica, the last mineral being in seams as it is found in gneiss, and sometimes containing feldspar in a state of decomposition. I observed no regular granite. After reaching the summit of the chain called Blue Ridge, the rock changed to what is the equivalent of the Chatuga range, quartz and white mica in large bright plates. At 2 P.M. we reached Flat Rock, where we got a tolerable dinner at a house where persons from the low country resort in the hot season. From hence we continued on table-land to Asheville, which we reached about half-past 8 P.M., and stopped at a hotel, which appeared to be filled with southern people and their black servants. Here I succeeded in getting something to eat and a room for myself to sleep in.

September 14.--What a merry race of people the negroes are. The house was overrun with black servants belonging to southern families, all well dressed and well fed, and more merry, and noisy, and impudent than any servants I had ever seen. At the gentlemen's at whose houses I had lately been staying, every thing announced order, cleanliness, and cheerful refinement; here boisterous disorder, dirt, and coarse vulgarity prevailed. Many of the white gentlemen I met in the breakfast-room seemed to know a little of every thing except genteel society and manners; spitting, smoking, cursing and swearing in the most frightful manner, gave them a bad pre-eminence even over the negroes. By the gold chains about their necks, and the thorough swell manner they put on, it was obvious they were gamblers and blacklegs by profession, which I found out in the course of the day was really the case, being favoured by one of them with an invitation to join them at cards. After a so-and-so breakfast, with a thorough-bass accompaniment of spitting and hawking by those around me, I sallied out and joyfully got into the open air.

This was a pretty place, a table-land of irregular surface, hemmed in by lofty mountains wooded to the summit, with occasional spots of great fertility. The strata of the table-land were on their edges, some of them a fine-grained gneiss, others micaceous and talcose slates and quartzose sandstones, running N.N.E. and S.S.W. All were decomposed to some depth, cohering very little together, and admitting of a sharp iron being thrust down into them. Immediately at the surface, the mica was altogether decomposed, and the soil in consequence had become red for an inch or two, and sometimes to greater depths. A great profusion of pieces of mica slate with garnets was strewed about in a high state of decomposition; the garnets also were decomposed, and nothing left of them occasionally but thin plates, as the gold is sometimes left in auriferous pyrites. The surface of this table-land appeared to have been greatly lowered, and it is probable that the slate with garnets had once been in place here.

From an eminence called Mount Pisgah, which terminated the spur of a ridge running north and south across this table-land to the Oonáykay chain, there was a very fine view of the country to be obtained. In many parts, the surface of the table-land was modified just as that of the Gold Region is, into small valleys separating round hills, with a deposit of clay and gravel in the depressions through which the streams flow. I passed a very pleasant day out of doors, but my miseries began when I returned to my lodgings at night. The house seemed to be crammed full of noisy, spitting, smoking, swearing, Georgia planters and gamblers of the worst class. I, therefore, determined to defer my examination of the mountains in this vicinity to another opportunity, and took my place in a stage-coach, that was to go a little after midnight to the Warm Springs close to the Oonáykay chain. The next step was to secure myself from any interruption during the short time I should remain; so giving a dirty male negro waiter who made the beds a quarter of a dollar to bring me a couple of candles and some supper to my room, and promising him a further fee if he would call me at one in the morning, I retired to my room, and finding there was no lock to the door, I fortified myself there by putting my trunks against it, and drawing my bedstead, which was a low wooden one, to the same place.

As soon as I had supped I laid down, flattering myself that I had nothing to apprehend from intruders. It was well I took these precautions, for about ten I was awoke by somebody pushing against the door from the other side; and calling out to know what was the matter, a voice, which I recognised to be that of the swell who had asked me to play at cards, answered, "Stranger, what in h--l have you got agin the door?" Upon which I said: "You had better not push any harder, for there is a loaded rifle nigh the door and it may go off." He muttered something to another fellow who was with him, and said, "I wish I may be * * * * if I ever seed a man cut sich bl--d shines as this afore." This incomprehensible opposition which they met to the opening of the door completely stumped these worthies, and they went away.

September 15.--The negro called me up faithfully and was as much puzzled as my visitors of last night were when he tried to open the door; but I got up and let him in, and explained my tactics to him, at which he laughed immoderately. "By goly, Massa," said he, "dat beats all de patent locks I nebber seed before. Dems two sharp fellers, dem two gemmen, I tell you, Massa, dey comes here ebery year, and got a big room at de toder end of de house, and dey gives de gemmen what comes from Georgy and Sout Caroliny cegars and brandy, and by goly dey takes it out of em wit de cards. Dey plays all night long and all day too, and dey want you Massa to play, but by goly you lock em out wit de bedstead. If dat don't beat all!" And then he laughed and turned up the whites of his eyes, and diverted me so exceedingly, that I gave him half a dollar.

I now got into the stage-coach again for the Warm Springs, and found a family in it with two young children and three negro women: the morning was cold. The negresses were tolerably well dressed as far as their backs were concerned, but one of them being ordered to get some water at a place where the coach stopped, I observed she had neither shoes, nor stockings, nor hat. This appeared to be the custom, and probably in the low country, where it is so hot, they prefer to be so lightly clad, but the poor creature shivered and evidently suffered very much from the cold air of the mountains.

After leaving Asheville a few miles, we struck the French Broad River, a tributary of the Tennessee, and followed it on the right bank for thirty miles down the channel it had made in the mountains. This was a remarkably interesting part of the country. The gneiss rocks were on their edges dipping S.E. and running from N.N.E. to S.S.E., and the river which is very shallow, and varies in breadth from one hundred and fifty to six hundred feet, crossed them nearly at right angles, so that it was one continuous rapid, the water breaking against the edges of the gneiss and foaming and clamouring during the whole of its descent, which was at least six hundred feet, the fall being more or less about seventeen feet to the mile. The road along the bank was in many places very narrow, scarcely admitting of two carriages to pass. The channel of the river had evidently been worn by the usual agency of pot-holes, numerous vestiges of which appeared.

For the first twenty-nine miles from Asheville, the rock was gneiss, to this succeeded clay slate, and on approaching the Warm Springs a striped sort of quartzose rock appeared. At these springs, which are prettily situated in a valley excavated by the river, a strong bed of inorganic limestone came in, blue with seams of white carbonate. We were near sixteen hours in driving thirty-eight miles, so that I had ample opportunities of walking as much as I pleased, and making observations, and have seldom been more gratified with a day's work. This road through the mountains is the avenue of a great commerce betwixt the Western and Northern States. I met this day no less than six droves of horses and mules in high condition, going from Kentucky to a southern market, and was told that last year seven thousand horses and mules passed through this avenue alone, and about eighty thousand fat hogs.

Kentucky is a fertile country, inhabited by a manly and industrious community, and the immense crops of bread stuffs that they produce exhibit their effects in the shape of horses, mules, and fat hogs. The public attention also was beginning to be turned in that State to breeding the short-horned Durham cattle, introduced by Mr. Clay, who preeminent as a statesman, and the intelligent patron of every branch of agriculture, had seen in what direction the great resources of the State could be profitably turned, and did not confine himself to encouraging the farming interest with precepts embodied in eloquent speeches, but went practically to work, selecting the finest animals from the most celebrated English breeders, and preserving under his own discriminating eye, their fine qualities with great judgment and care. The State was thus annually reaping great benefits from his spirited efforts to advance its interests, and certainly nothing could surpass the affectionate devotion which the Kentuckians seemed to bear to this distinguished man.

This water of the Warm Springs, as the name imported, was thermal, about 95° Fahr. The taste was agreeable, and its properties nearly the same as the other thermal waters in this elevated Belt. The situation had great natural beauties, and in proper hands it would be a very attractive place to retire to during the hot months. But all these places seemed to have fallen into the hands of low ignorant persons, who had neither capital nor even a decent taste in the promotion of human comfort. Certainly, at this hotel, nothing like comfort was to be obtained for money; yet gentlemen of some distinction were here who at home probably live amidst much refinement. I found Judge G--, of North Carolina and his family, and other persons of great merit, submitting to the most abominable filth and dirt, and all sorts of discomfort, without saying one word about it. Probably they had discovered that it was useless to complain. In fact they were very few in number to the overpowering quantity of sheer blackguards and gamblers with whom they were obliged to eat and to mingle pêle-mêle. A room was assigned to me, and the very sight of the walls, covered with tobacco spittle and worse filth, turned my stomach; but it was the only one to be obtained, and I owed this privilege to the interference of a gentleman who had some influence with the landlord, and who conceded it to me with a sort of gracious manner that indicated the intrinsic value of the privilege.

As this was to be my citadel, it was my first care to make as much of it as I could, and having given the dirty negro, with a ragged hat on his head without any brim to it, who shewed me up to the room, half-a-dollar to get me clean sheets and towels, I stood over him directing him how to make the bed. Smelling some tobacco, I asked him who was in the next room, and he answered: "Some gemmilmen, massa." "I suppose they are playing at cards?" said I. "Yes, massa," said he grinning, "De gemmilmen play cards all day, play cards all night sometime." So that I found I had got a room adjoining to that of the professional gamblers. I saw with great satisfaction, however, that there was a lock to my door, so having got my bed made, and water and towels, and a small rickety table and one chair, and my luggage around me, I entered into a close alliance with my black friend with the brimless hat, locked the door, put the key in my pocket, and went down stairs. I was delighted to meet with a gentleman of the respectability and intelligence of Judge G--, and we walked out together on the hills. The rocks alternated a good deal, quartz and decomposing feldspar, and talcose slate were the principal minerals. The view down upon the valleys and river was beautiful, with a very mountainous country all around. The supper-table was better provided than I expected it would be; some ladies were there, and for an hour afterwards we got up a pleasant conversation. As I found the respectable families retired early to their rooms, I followed their example, and getting blacky to give me a couple of candles and a pair of snuffers with one handle, I proceeded to write some letters and bring up my notes, after which feeling sleepy, I got into my bed and soon fell asleep.

September 16.--About day-light I was awoke by shrieks of laughter and loud shouting in the next room. The gamblers were evidently most of them half-drunk, and after listening awhile to their execrations and their bawling, I looked around, but withdrew my eyes as quickly as possible from the bedaubed walls. I could willingly have laid longer in bed, but all my senses were so offended, that I hastened to make my toilette and sallied out to the hills, forgetting as soon as I could, in the balmy air of the morning and in the fine natural scenery, the disgusting objects I had escaped from.

The lime stone here appeared to be a broad vein running N.N.E. across the river. Some of the hills consisted of immense masses of coarse quartz; others had feldspar in them, in which grains of quartz seemed to be imbedded. Varieties of slate alternated with these minerals. On returning to the hotel, I took a bath, the thermometer standing in the water at 95°. It resembled very much the water at the Warm Springs, Virginia. After breakfasted, I sallied out again and had a good stroll in the mountains. The rocks which rise from the eastward appeared to conform to the ordinary succession of the primary beds, gneiss, mica, slate, clay-slate, clouded quartz rocks and huge masses of quartz stained with iron. The feldspar here had the peculiarity of containing grains of quartz imbedded in it, as though the quartz had been exposed to attrition before it was enveloped. The limestone which I had before observed crossing the river N.N.E. and S.S.W. appeared to me to be a continuation of the same limestone dyke I saw near the Hiwassee and in other places. It observed the same course and maintained about the same distance from the Oonáykay chain. Huge bluffs of it stood out near the river, and a voluminous spring issued from it on the left bank of the French Broad; an immense quantity of air came up with the water, which I took to be atmospheric, as it was not sensibly present in the water after dipping it up. The weather was charming, and I returned exceedingly pleased with the country, and quite hungry.

As I approached the house, all the disgusting objects I had fled from in the morning rose to my view, and if I could have found something to eat, I should have been tempted to lay down in the woods all night, for the company of wild beasts is to be preferred to that of human beings when so depraved and filthy. However, I made rather better out than I expected at the tea-table. At this place, tea appeared to be considered as the ladies' meal the table was spruced up a little, there was less dirt and noise, and the tea and sugar were tolerably good, with plenty of good milk. As I did not trouble them at dinner, my ally with the brimless hat brought me something substantial. In fact, it was the only meal where comfort was to be had, for the worst blackguards appeared to be awed by the presence of females. How much society is influenced by them, and how immeasurably superior they are in this country to the men!

September 17.--As usual, I rose early in the morning, and after breakfast, having procured a horse, rode to the outward edge of Oonáykay chain, below the Paint Rock and the Chimney-top. On leaving the western edge of the limestone, a glossy shale came in, then sandstone with loose shale beneath. What they called the Paint Rock, was a huge bluff of sandstone overlying shale, which beetled over the narrow road that was closely hemmed in by the river. The Indians had left some figures on it, as they have done on the sandstone bluffs of the Upper Mississippi. The Chimney-top is another bluff of sandstone with shales intervening, which give it a striped appearance. Limestones appeared now frequently in the hills; but sandstone and shales were the prevailing strata. These beds divide the fossiliferous beds of East Tennessee from the primary rocks, and are the representatives in this country of the Cambrian Rocks of Professor Sedgwick. Having ascertained that the Oonáykay chain was composed of these beds, I returned towards evening to the hotel; but before coming to an anchor, went about two miles up a very pretty but narrow ravine, with a stream coming brawling down it which contained red trout. It was by this ravine, only from twenty to thirty yards broad, that the celebrated Daniel Boon is said to have passed through the mountains for the first time into Kentucky. It was well fitted for his purpose, as it avoids the usual gap through the mountains, and would afford him shelter, wood, and water, and concealment from the Indians. It was perhaps an important consideration too for him, that the smoke of his fire could not be visible to those out of the ravine, who were not very near to him. In the evening, I shook hands with the few pleasant acquaintances I had formed, and retired early to my room to pack my specimens, and bring up my notes preparatory to my departure in the morning.

September 18.--Having got an early breakfast, I walked out to look around me for the last time. The thermal waters here could be traced continuously on a line for about one hundred and fifty yards, coming through the limestone in a N.N.E. direction. On my return in the stage to Asheville, I had an opportunity of again tracing the primary rocks in the descending order. Limestone, quartzose rocks, slates, imperfect gneiss to compact gneiss at Asheville. On reaching the hotel there, I found the same vulgar crowd; but, as I had a friend at Court in the merry negro, who had been so amused with my patent lock, I got a room to myself, and something to eat alone. The stage was to start for Rutherfordton, in North Carolina, a little after midnight, so securing my place in it, I laid down for two or three hours.

September 19.--On taking my place in a corner of the stage-coach at 1 A.M., I found three male passengers besides myself, and certainly they turned out to be three of the most consummate blackguards I ever had the misfortune to be in company with. Their language was infamous; I had not conceived it possible for human beings to make themselves so detestably odious, or to express themselves in such a horribly profane manner as they did. They had been drinking and gambling up to the moment they got into the stage, and when they got tired with screaming and shouting, they began the most beastly practices, and made the stage-coach so offensive, that the instant the dawn began to appear I stopped the coach, just as we entered the defile, or "gap," as it is called, and apprized the driver of my intention to proceed the rest of the way down the mountain on foot. As the descent through the defile was precipitous, the stage-coach was obliged to proceed very slowly, so that I had sufficient leisure to look at the rocks, and enjoy the magnificent scenery for eight miles from the summit of the mountain to Harris's, where we were to breakfast. I had a charming cool walk, free from the offensive noise of those execrable villains, and wished from the bottom of my heart, that this noble defile with its magnificent escarpments, instead of being only eight miles long, had extended all the way to Rutherfordton, where I proposed stopping. The rocks towards the upper part of the "gap" were gneiss, with an imperfect sort of granite at the bottom.

The breakfast-house, which I reached some time before the stage-coach, turned out to be a clean place, and the landlord and landlady consequently respectable people, so true it is that cleanliness is allied to Godliness. My first care was to let them know what sort of wretches were coming on in the stage, and what their conduct had been. I had gathered from their infamous colloquies, that one of them was named Ruff, another Alston, and the third they called Doctor. The landlord knew who they were, and said, "There wasn't one of them was fit to carry guts to a bar." To understand this estimate of their manners, it is necessary to understand that the country people, when they take a bear cub, frequently tame it, and chain it in the yard, where it is the business of some negro-boy to carry the entrails of any other animal to it for its food. I gave the landlord a sketch of the long journey I had performed, and told him that I had not met with such consummate scoundrels on the whole route. This procured me the satisfaction of eating my breakfast alone, and of learning that it was the intention of the landlady (who was a South Carolina woman, and a countrywoman of these worthies, who, I was told, came from Winnsborough, in Fairfield County, of that State) to give them a little of her mind on the subject of their conduct, and to make the lesson more impressive, she began by giving them a very bad breakfast, which calling forth remonstrances, she entered upon the subject, con amore.

On re-entering the stage, I was surprised with an unexpected abatement of their insolence: the most offensive of the three, Ruff, (who was very much in want of three additional letters to his name) got to the top of the stage, and I saw no more of him until we arrived at Rutherfordton. The Doctor and the other fellow, having found out that I was a friend of Mr. C--, in South Carolina, and that I knew who they were, and had it in my power to expose them, were submissive and civil. I was happy to be relieved from their odious society by reaching Rutherfordton at half-past 1 P.M., where, to my great pleasure, I got a good room to myself at Mr. Twitty's, a very intelligent and obliging landlord. Here I made a clean and comfortable repast, during which Twitty crowned my satisfaction by producing a bottle of excellent London brown stout, of which he had received a hamper. Such a long period had elapsed since I had met with such a treat, that this noble bottle, of which I took every drop, made me forget all past annoyances; and after taking a very pleasant walk in the environs of this pleasing village, I retired to a nice clean bed.  [2]