Appalachian Summit

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Exploration ] [ Resources ] [ Contact Us ]

 

 

43.   Among the Mountains

 

 

 

 

In 1874 the journalist Edward King visited Western North Carolina and traveled extensively throughout the countryside.  His account of his travels was published in Scribner’s Monthly and later incorporated in his book The Great South.

 

 

 

 

 

Scribner’s Monthly

March 1874

 

“Among the Mountains of Western North Carolina”

by Edward King

 

 

. . . We had come from Morristown, in Eastern Tennessee, where we left the rail road and met our cheery companions, the Judge, the Colonel, and Jonas, and started across country, along the highways in the mountains. Through the thick rain-veil we had seen the noble outlines of English Mountain, and the distant and rugged sides of the Smoky; had passed over hill-sides covered with corn, where the white tree trunks in the deadenings stood like specters protesting against sacrilege to the forest; along banks of streams where intense and richly-colored foliage sent forth perfume, and past log farm houses, where tall, gaunt farmers, clad in homespun, were patiently waiting for the rain to cease until we came to the “Mouth of Chucky”, as the ford just above the junction of the Nolichucky and French Broad Rivers is called. Time was when all the country bordering the rivers at their junction was romantic ground. The great Indian war trail, upon which so many scenes of violence and murder were enacted, ran not far from the banks of the Nolichucky, and the war-ford  upon the French Broad was but a short distance from Clifton, where we had halted for the night. From the time of the settlement along the banks of the two rivers, one hundred years ago, until early in the present century, the settler took his life in his hands daily, and the war-cry of the Indian was a familiar sound to his ears. The Nolichucky at the ford ran rapidly between great mountain banks, whose sides were so steep as to be inaccessible on foot, and just below gave its waters to the racing and roaring rapids of the French Broad, whose unquiet wavelets seemed angry at being pent up among the cliffs. A long halloo brought the ferry- man with his flat-boat from the opposite bank; the clumsy ark drifted us safely over to the stretch of winding road which finally led us through a still old town, hidden and moldering at the base of a hill; then along picturesque paths until we reached the placid Pigeon River, with the mountains near it mirrored in its rain- rippled breast; crossed it, and dismounted at Clifton, to be confronted by the small boy with the abnormal appetite for shows.  When we were safely housed, and our drenched garments were drying before the lire, while suppers perfume hinted at bacon and biscuits, flanked by molasses syrup and blackest of coffee, the rain ceased, and we could catch a glimpse of the prosperous little town set down in a nook in the mountains, with one railroad line giving it a hold on the outer world, ud running directly through the main street. The river was fringed with trees, and over- hanging vines and creepers; in every direction was the blue stretch of far away hills, or the shadow of luxuriant woods. Our lullaby that night was the murmur of the river and the cry of the whip-poor-will. Before dawn we were astir, and while the dwellers in cities were still asleep our little cavalcade was vigorously en route for the North Carolina line. Ahead, caracoling merrily from side to side of the highway on his coquettishly-pacing mare Cricket, whose very~ motions were poetry, rode Jonas of the blond locks, our German companion, in his saddle graceful as a Centaur, in his motions alert as a cat, for he had ridden to many a battle in the cavalry saddles of Prussian Williams victorious army. There was a dash of the trooper in him still the erect military port, the joyous outburst into song, now roystering, now tender; the enviable familiarity with all the secrets of road and woodland life; and a calm, esthetic sense, never disturbed by weather or rude inconvenience of travel.  

Our route that morning lay through the forest, along unused road-ways; and, constantly ascending, we caught from time to time exquisite views of the summits of English, the Smoky, and other mountains. Great mists were moving lightly away; now and then some monarch of the ranges had his lofty brow wrapped in the delicate em- brace of white clouds, which trembled into fantastic shapes of smoke-wreaths and castles and towers, and sometimes seemed to take the contour of the mountains them- selves. Now we came to a log-house, with sloping roof set on some shelf of a hill- side, whence one could look down into deep valleys, and around whose doors sheep and goats were huddled, lying in the shelter of the fences until the sun came out. A shepherd dog would bark at us; a tall maiden, clad in the blue or greenish homespun of the region, would tell us which road to take, and how to turn and foller the creek, and we would wander on. Sometimes the hill-sides were so steep that we preferred to dismount and lead our horses rather than take the risk of being pitched over their heads. All along the way rapid little streams foamed across the roadways, and hid themselves in the forests. Beneath a great oak or wide-spreading willow, we would find a cool spring with a gourd balanced on aboard above it, and the travelers halted beneath the tree would salute us, and inquire our names, and whither we were going. Still we went on climbing up and up; we came nearer to some of the peaks, and could see the clearings upon their sides, and the bald patches where the rocks stood out in the light.  

By and by, at a lonely log-house, on a beautiful mountain side, whence one could see the hills craning their long necks in every direction, we halted for dinner, but before we had hitched our horses there came a blinding storm of wind and rain, in the midst of which we hurriedly gave the animals over to our impervious mulatto wagon driver, and with the lunch baskets beat a retreat for the cabin porch. The typical Tennessee woman of the mountains, tall and thin, but kind and graceful, the mother of ten children, who stood ranged around her like white-headed notes in the scale of love, welcomed us, and a loaf of hot corn-bread soon smoked be- fore us. Very humble and simple were the appointments of this cabin home. The bare floor shone, however, so clean it was; the spinning-wheel, with the flax hanging to it, stood in a corner of the porch; in the great kitchen in the rear of the cabin was a fire-place, in the ashes of which an- other corn-cake was baking, and the good woman offered us the wild honey, the buttermilk, and the berries of the mountains. No man-folks nigh home now, she said. Air ye rock-huntin? Assuring her that we were not looking for minerals, she asked us no more, and seemed to regard us as strange beings, since the Colonel hinted that we were in search of information.  

Once more the rain cloud lifted, and the skies were clear; Andy hitched up, singing a cheerful melody, and we rode on, now through gaps in the chain of hills where level fields were in cultivation, and where the women were at work side by side with the men, hoeing corn; now by the banks of some creek which rippled merrily over a pebbly bottom, and was over- hung by short, densely-set willows; until at last we came into a valley where there were a few scattered frame houses and a little mill, around which were gathered some twenty mountaineers. Here our much over-loaded wagon suddenly gave a doleful groan and broke down, directly opposite a cabin, in which, through the interstices, we could see anvil, bellows, and other insignia of the blacksmiths trade. The afternoon was waning, and the punctual Judge had planned that we should spend that night in North Carolina. But before us lay a tremendous height, whose rugged sides seemed interminable. Riding on in haste to find a blacksmith, we were suddenly surrounded by a threatening mob of half-drunken mountain men clad in rude garb, some mounted, some on foot, but not one of them friendly- faced. An inquiry for the disciple of Vulcan, as Jonas and the writer backed their horses rapidly, was answered with an oath, and a peremptory demand why we were racketing about the country. This not being answered in the most satisfactory manner, demonstrations of violence were made, and it dawned upon the advance guard of the wagon that a retreat would, perhaps, be prudent. There were bad and drunken faces among the rough men; two or three hands were clutching stones, plucked from the wet roads, and the circle gradually narrowed in towards us. So we turned, and, galloping back, reported breakers ahead. We patched up the wagon and all moved forward together. As we approached the mill the threatening attitude of the mountaineers was resumed, and when we had passed the motley crowd fell in behind, and seeming to await some signal, followed doggedly. Presently the Colonel and the Judge were assailed with questions like this: Reckon ye dont want to steal nothin, do ye? and more pointed remarks. At last hostility was so evident that we were forced to stop and explain. Gathering around the wagon, we answered the inquiries, Whar be ye from ? What do ye want down yar? What mout your name be? and by much parleying demonstrated that we meant no harm. Finally man by man dropped off, but, much to our discomfort, two or three of the more drunk and uproarious followed us towards the ford at the base of the mountain in a manner which plainly indicated attack. We now entered upon a wild and lonely by-road, and even the heretofore incredulous of our party had suspicions of mischief afoot. The ascent, wooded and somber, was before us.  

At this juncture another man approached, and said he would walk with us to the mountain top. He was sober, and producing from his pocket a flask of moonshine whisky, invited us to drink. The secret was out. We had evidently been mistaken for a party of revenue officers, on a mission to seize some of the concealed stills in the gorges and caves of this wild region. We drank of the blistering fluid, and presently, to our great relief; the drunken horsemen behind reluctantly retired. After consulting vaguely together for a little time in the road, they disappeared, and our companion assured us that they would do us no harm. “But ye cant always tell,” he added. “A man wants to keep his eye out in these regions when the boys ye been drinkin.”  

The ascent of the Chestnut Mountain now became tedious and painful. The road ran zigzag along the edges of banks and rocks, and over our heads hung mammoth embankments, which might have crushed a caravan. But how delicious the sunlight on the tree stems, through the forest glades; how delicate the green mosses clothing the trunks of fallen monarchs ; how crystal and sweet the water which we drank from the foamy brooks! For miles we clambered along this lofty road until night was at hand. Our companion, who paused from time to time to treat himself from the bottle, and to importune us to drink, finally left us at a cross-road, advising us to stay at Parson Catons. Beyond it was a matter of all night in the woods. We could get to stay with the Parson - he kept folks would we have some more moonshine? No? Good luck to us. So we hurried on to Parson Catons.  

A by-road, leading into a thicket where wild vines grew luxuriantly; steep descents and lofty knolls, crowned with strong tree stems; a woodland path; then a clearing, and we were at the parsons humble cabin.

On the way up we had passed the church. It was a rude structure of boards and logs, which we should have mistaken for some deserted shanty, had not our friend of the moonshine whisky pointed it out. The cabin stood in an enclosure, guarded by a rude fence, and as we approached, a stalwart young fellow opened the little gate, and some hounds followed him out, making the woods ring with their yelping. A tall matron and two or three of “the girls” young women, at least five and a half feet high, dressed in straight homespun gowns, peered out at us, and we were presently invited to remain at the cabin all night, as the parson never refuses nobody. The pigs and the geese had just come home together from their days ramble in the woods, and were quarreling over the long trough which ran along the fence. The cows wandered about the clearing, watched by the hounds; and the boys busied themselves in hewing logs of wood into sticks for the fire. Behind the cabin rose a rib of the mountain, on which was a cornfield, and below this ran a brook. The whole cabin did not seem large enough to house a family of four; yet Parson Catons stalwart brood of ten children lived there happily with himself and wife, and found the shelter ample. There were but two rooms on the lower floor, each lighted by the doors only; above was a loft, in which were laid truckle-beds. Supper was speedily cooking on the coals in the fireplace; the scent of bacon was omnipresent. In the smaller of the two rooms there were four large beds, covered with gay quilts, and shoved closely together. Around the room hung herbs and bundles of household goods; the walls were lined with the clothing of the family; there were a few rude chairs, a rifle over the fireplace, and a small table, on which were some antiquated books.  

As we returned from the brook, whither we had gone to refresh our demoralized toilets, the parson came home, and was greeted with a cheery bay from the hounds. He was not a large man; his sons overtopped him; but every inch of his face was filled with rugged lines which told of strong character. He stood leaning on his staff, and looked us over intently for some moments before he said, Good evening, men. Then finally he greeted us heartily, and our invalid wagon was forthwith dispatched to the rustic forge near the cabin for repairs. There Andy held a pine knot, while the parsons son, a stout smith, worked.  

This old man, in his mountain home, was as simple and courteous in his demeanor as any citizen. After the frugal supper was over, he asked many questions of the outer world, which he had never visited; New York and Louisville seemed to him like dreams. By and by, the family came crowding in to evening prayers. By this time it was quite dark, and the forest around us was still. The parson took down a well-worn Bible, and opening it at the Psalms, read, in a loud voice, and with occasional quaint expoundings, one or two selections; after which, taking up a hymn book and rising with the candle in his hand, he read a hymn, and the family sang line by line as he gave them out. They sang in quavering, high-pitched voices, to the same tunes which were heard in the Tennessee mountains when Nolichucky was an infant settlement, and the banks of the French Broad were crimsoned with the blood of white settlers, shed by the Indians. The echoes of the hymn died away into the depths of the forest, and were succeeded by a prayer of earnestness and fervor, marked here and there by strong phrases of dialect, but one which made our little company bow their heads, for the parson prayed for us, and for our journey, and brought the prayer home to us. Another hymn was lined, during which the hounds now and then joined in with their musical howl, and at last the family withdrew, and we were left in the spare room. Presently however, the parson re-appeared, and announced that he and his wife would share the room with us, which they did, and we were wakened to the six oclock breakfast by the good woman, who joined with her husband in reproving us for continuing our journey on the Sabbath day.  

As we started once more on our journey the wagon, carefully mended over night, broke down again! So then the parson stripped a hickory bough with his own hands, and bound together the pieces. A mile farther on, coming to another forge, we halted until a second smith could try his hand at a permanent mending, although he said he “mout get fined by the authorities for working on a Sunday”. The Judge amused the smiths children with the artists sketch-book, while the hammer rang on the anvil.

The country here and henceforward was of the wildest and most romantic character. The mountaineers, scattered sparsely along the ridges, cultivated the land in corn, of which there were huge fields visible in the clearings, but sent nothing to market in winter, and while the crops were growing were idle. The houses were almost invariably of logs. Sometimes, as in Switzerland, looking down a high bank, we could see the tree tops in a long valley below us, and the cabin of some farmer, with his cob-house granary and little cattle pen nestling by a creek. Here, by the hard, firm roadways, the mountain laurel, the ginseng and the gentian abounded, and pines and spruces, poplars, hickories, walnuts, oaks, and ash grew in the valleys and along the banks. We were now climbing over the hills of the Great Smoky range, making our way towards the elevated gap, through which we were to enter North Carolina. Every turn in the angular highway brought a new vista of mountains, blue and infinite, behind us; now in serrated ranks, receding into distance; now seeming to close up near at hand, and shut out the world from us. The rare atmosphere of these high regions gave new zest to the journey, and we hardly knew that evening was at hand when we reached the State Line and began to descend into the valley to Hopkins’s, the first station in North Carolina. In this remote and mountain- guarded dell, this cup hollowed out of the Great Smoky range, visited only by the post-rider once a week, and the few farmers who go to the far towns of Eastern Tennessee to market, we found the mountaineer in his native purity. No contact with even the people of the lowlands of his own State had given him familiarity with the world.  

The people traveling along the roads out of Tennessee into North Carolina, whom we passed as we rode on to Hopkins’s, were tall and robust; their language was peculiar, and their manners, although courteous, were awkward and rough. The gaunt, yellow-haired women were smoking, and trudged along contentedly beside the men, saying but little. They were neatly dressed in home-made clothes, and their hair was combed straight down over their cheeks and knotted into pugs behind. There were none of the modern conventionalities of dress visible about them. The men were cavalier enough; their jean trousers were thrust into their boots, and their slouch hats cocked on their heads with bravado air.  

The hills rose high up around the humble log dwelling of Hopkins, and a little road ran beside a roaring torrent which came down from the mountain through a delicious valley, making charming nooks and niches among the round polished stones. Once a prosperous farmer, the war had left the venerable mountaineer only the wrecks of his home. Both parties had guerrillaed through the gorges and gaps; one “army” burned Hopkins’s cabin, and the other stole his produce. High on the hill-sides grew the native grape; a little cultivation would have turned the whole valley-cup into a fruitful vineyard; but Hopkins said it was too late for him to try. It was, too, an excellent sheep-grazing country; the wolves sometimes made cruel havoc, but shepherd dogs could easily keep them off. Along the slopes of the Smoky beyond his home grew the finest of building timber, and water-power was abundant; yet there were no frame houses for miles around. “Wal, you uns dont understand, I reckon”, said Hopkins. “I haint had a mighty sight o git up since the war.” Supper was served in the kitchen by one of the tall females we had observed upon the road, who was Hopkins’s housekeeper, and who laid aside her pipe to come to the table and wait upon the strangers, whom, she said, she did not understand, “for you uns dont talk like we uns” ; and added that she reckoned we found this a mighty fine country.  

Half a days journey from this nook in the mountains brought us to the gap near Mount Starling, where we crossed through the Smoky range, and began to descend on the other side into Haywood County, a division of North Carolina, extending over nine hundred square miles, and annually producing more than two hundred thousand bushels of corn. The chain of the Smoky Mountain which we had traversed extends for about sixty-five miles, from the deep gorge through which the French Broad River flows at Paint Rock to the outlet of the Little Tennessee; and Professor Guyot, who is authority upon the Appalachian system, calls it the master chain of the whole Alleghany region. The dominant peaks in this line of mountains north of Road Gap are Mount Guyot, 6636 feet high; Mounts Alexander, Henry, South, and Laurel Peaks, the True Brother, Thunder, Thermometer, Ravens, and Tri- color Knobs, and the Pillar Head of the straight fork of the Oconaluftee river. South of Road Gap rise the peaks known as Clingman’s Dome, 666o feet high; Mounts Buckley, Love, Collins, and a dozen others, more than five thousand feet high. Each of these rises to six thousand feet elevation above mean-tide water, and many of them overtop Mount Washington, the monarch of the East, by several hundred feet. Seen from a distance, these mountains seem always bathed in a mellow haze, like that distinguishing the atmosphere of Indian summer. The gap through which we passed was at an elevation of at least five thousand feet; beneath us were vast canyons, from which came up the roar of the creeks. We looked down upon the tops of mighty forests, and now and then, descending, caught a glimpse of the symmetrical Catalouche Mountain, fading away into distant blue. There are no gaps in the Smoky range which fall below the level of five thousand feet, until Forney Ridge is passed; and there is a surprising number of peaks and domes rising higher than six thousand feet. Once having traversed the barriers created by this vast upheaval of ancient rocks, one enters the mountainous region comprised between the Blue Ridge and the chain of the Iron, Smoky, and Unaka peaks. This region properly begins at the bifurcation of the two chains in Virginia, and extends across North Carolina and into Georgia for a hundred and eight miles. The chain of the Blue Ridge to the east- ward is fragmentary, and the gaps are only from two to three thousand feet high. All the interior region between the Blue Ridge and the Smoky is filled with spurs and chains, of which, perhaps, the most noticeable is the great Balsam, whose highest point, called the Richland Balsam, or Caney Creek Balsam Divide reaches the height of 6425 feet. Into this cluster of high- lands, extending to the extreme western boundary of North Carolina, we now daily made our way.  

This days journey was but a succession of grand panoramic views of gorge and height. Descending, we rode for several miles along a path cut out of the mountains steep side ; and hundreds of feet below us saw the tops of tall pines and spruces. Not a human habitation was to be seen; there was no sign of life save when a ruffled grouse or a rabbit sprang across the track. Now we came into a valley, through which a wide creek flowed rapidly, finding its outlet between two hills towering thousands of feet above us, and there, at a rude cabin, stopped to feed our weary horses, and to partake of the milk, the honey, and the corn-bread set before us; to lie on the turf beside the cool stream, and to drink in at every pore the delicious inspiration of the pure mountain air; then we climbed along the side of shaggy Catalouche until, late in the afternoon, we came to Bennett’s.  

Imagine a little frame house set on a shelf on the road, so that its inmates can look for miles down a deep straight valley, through which flows a river between banks fringed with dense foliage, and by rocks over which pines lean and straggle in wildest confusion. At the far end of this river valley looms up a mountain peak, so high, so beautiful, that ones soul is lifted at very sight of it. As our little company drew rein at the edge of the steep bank leading to the canyon, there was a universal cry of delight. Bennett’s folks called to us at that moment, “Wont you light, strangers, n come in?” And we sat long in the little porch, gazing at Oconoluftees height, and the Balsam Mountains, dimly shadowed beyond the point where the valley was lost in the breast of the hills. The grandeur of the sentinel mountain, standing alone at the end of the chasm; the reflections of high rocks and mighty tree-trunks in the far away stream; the dizzy precipices which overhung the rarely frequented valley, lent a charm which carried its terror with it.  

The road grew narrower and rockier as we clambered along Catalouche; but the air was cooler, purer, the laurels more abundant, the vistas more charming; until just at sunset we came to the Cove Creek Gap. In front lay a narrow valley, over which the mountain known as Jonathans Bald threw his shadow : but beyond  High on the horizon lay a wavy line of hills, sharply outlined in the strong glare of the sunset, their delicate blue colors springing so suddenly upon our vision against the purple and crimson of the evening tints that we were amazed and delighted. As far as eye could reach, to right, to left, in front, stood the long line of uplifted crags, from which there seemed no outlet! Turning our horses on the crest of the mountain, and looking Tennesseeward, we saw our old friends of the Great Smoky, scattered for miles in friendly groups among the dark forests; westward and eastward deep ravines, and, beyond them, uncounted peaks, which the very sky seemed tenderly to bend over and kiss.  

It was fast growing dark as we rode on to the winding road in the valley of Jonathans Creek. As we were rattling by a log farm-house in a deadening, a loud voice cried:  “Strangers, wait a minnit till I ketch my ole mule, or hell foller you uns clean down to Boyds, I reckon.” The owner of the voice, carrying a log on his shoulder, came up through the fields as he said this, and, throwing down his burden, secured the restive mule, who was looking over the low fence, after which he turned to each one of the party, and asked, “What might be your name ?”  Having settled any doubts he possessed as to our identity, he gave us good evening civilly enough, and struggled with his log again.  

Farther on a young farmer crossing the creek came to us as we inquired the distance, and, before giving us the desired information, said “What mont be your names? Whar are ye from? After which he added carelessly, Mile n half; good evenin’.”  

Troops of children played about the doors of all the cabins along these roads. Families of ten and twelve are by no means uncommon. Girls and boys work afield with their parents in the summer, and hibernate with but limited chances for culture.  

Passing around the base of Jonathans Creek Bald, we came into a more open and fertile country, where the farm-houses were neatly built and painted, and the wheat- fields were wide and well stocked. The creeks were numerous, and everywhere bordered by fascinating foliage; at each turn in the road there was a picture; one was constantly reminded of the rich views in the Loire country in France, or of the fat fields of Alsatia.

On the plain of Waynesville, twenty- seven hundred and fifty-six feet above the level of tide-water, and in the shadow of the great Balsam Range, stands Waynesville town. The approaches to it are lovely, but the view from the town itself is lovelier still. On all sides rise the mountains; the village nestles between the forks of the Pigeon River, which is nowhere more beautiful than within a few miles of this nook. To the westward lie the Balsam peaks, seven of which, Amos Plott’s, the Great Divide, Brother Plott, Rocky Face, Rockstand Knob, and the two Junaleskas, tower more than six thousand feet high. They are clad on their highest peaks in the somber garb of the balsam, the sad and haughty monarch of the heights, whose odorous boughs brush against the clouds, and whose deep thickets, into which the sun himself can hardly penetrate, afford a refuge for the wolf and the bear. The balsam is emphatically an aristocratic tree; it is never found in the humble valleys, and rarely lower than an elevation of four thousand feet; it consorts with the. proud rhododendron, whose scarlet bloom was the object of the Indians most passionate adoration, and its grand stem springs from among the decaying and moss-grown rocks. On these Balsams, as on the great Black Mountains, the moss offers an elastic carpet, sometimes a foot thick, and is tough and hard as the hides of the bears who delight to disport upon it. Here and there on the sides of the Plott Peaks there is a long furrow which marks the path cut by some adventurous woodsman. The peaks are not romantically named; the unimaginative early settlers called them after the men who owned or lived near them; and many of the most imposing heights are still nameless. The Bald Mountains, so called because their summits are destitute of forest, and because the sun makes the rocks on their tops glisten like a bald mans shining poll, are numerous in the vicinity of Waynesville. North and northeast of the town lie the Crab Tree and Sandy Mush Balds, and beyond them in the same direction rises Bear Wallow Mountain. On the south and southeast are Mount Pisgah, the High Tower, and Cold Mountain, which rises 6063 feet out of the Big Pigeon Valley; and away to the south and southeast stretches the chain of the Richland Balsam. The dry and pure air of Waynesville gives new value to life; the healthy man feels a strange glow and inspiration while in the shadow of these giant peaks. The town is composed of one long street of wooden houses, wandering from mountain base to mountain base; it has a trio of country stores; a cozy and delightful little hotel, nestling under the shade of a huge tree; an old wooden church perched on a hill, with a cemetery filled with ancient tombs, where the early settlers lie at rest; and an academy. There is no whir of wheels; the only manufacturing establishments are flour-mills located on the various creeks and rivers, or a stray saw-mill; here and there a wealthy land-owner is building an elegant home with all the modern improvements. By nine o’clock at night there is hardly a light in the village; a few belated horsemen steal noiselessly through the street, or the faint tinkle of a banjo and the patter of a negros feet testify to an innocent merry-making. The court-house of Haywood County, and the jail, both modest two-story brick structures, are the public buildings; the jail has only now and then an inmate, for the county is as orderly as a Quaker community. The Marshal, as in most of these tiny Western North Carolina towns, is the law preserver and enforcer; no liquor is sold within a mile of the towns boundary; some lonely and disreputable shanty, with the words BAR-ROOM on a clearing along the highway, is the only resort for those who drink spirits ; the sheriff, the local clergyman, the county surveyor, and the village doctor, ride about the country on their nags, gossiping and dreamily enjoying the glorious air; nowhere is there bustle or noise of trade. The county courts session is the event of the year; the mail, brought forty-five miles over the mountain roads from the nearest railroad, is light, and the stage-coaches bring few passengers from the outer world. But what a perfect summer retreat; what chances for complete rest; what grandeur of mountains; what quiet rippling of gentle rivers; what noble sunsets; what wealth of color and dreaminess of twilight; what breezy mornings, when the mists fly away from the deep ravines in the mountain chains, and shadow and sun play hide and seek on the dense masses of the Balsam tops! Waynesville, so goes the story, was named in honor of Mad Anthony Wayne; and the stranger wonders that some of the peaks have not been named in honor of the old hero.  

The great counties of Haywood, Jackson, Macon, Cherokee, Buncombe, Henderson, Madison and Yancey, contain the principal portion of the mountain scenery of Western North Carolina. The mighty transverse chains of the Nantahela, Cowee, Balsam and Black Mountains, run across these counties from the Smoky range to the Blue Ridge, and the traveler wandering from county seat to county seat must constantly climb lofty heights, pass through rugged gaps, and descend into deep valleys. Western North Carolina is not only exceedingly fertile, but abounds in the richer minerals, and needs but the magic wand of the capitalist waved over it to be- come one of the richest sections of this Union. Occupying one-third of the entire area of the State, and possessing more than a quarter of a million of inhabitants, its present prospects are by no means disagreeable; but its prominent citizens, of all walks in life, are anxious for immigration and development of the rich stores of gold, iron, copper, mica, and other minerals now buried in the hills. Let no one fancy that this mountain region is undesirable as an agricultural country; there are few richer and better adapted to European emigration. The staple productions of Haywood county are corn, wheat, rye, oats and hay; all vegetables grow abundantly, and the whole county is admirably fitted for grazing. The level bottom-lands on Pigeon River and its numerous tributaries are under fine cultivation; the uplands and the slopes produce rich wheat; the ash, the sugar maple, the hickory and the oak, are abundant; and white pine is rafted down the Pigeon River in large quantities yearly. But the exceptional fertility of most of the ranges throughout all the counties mentioned is the great pride of the section. The sides and tops of the mountains are, in many cases, covered with a thick, vegetable mould, in which grow flourishing trees and rank grasses. Five thousand feet above the sea level one finds grasses and weeds that remind him of the lower region swamps. Cattle are kept in excellent condition all winter on the evergreen growing along the sides of the higher chains. Winter and summer, before the ravages of the war thinned out their stocks, the farmers kept hundreds of cattle on the mountains, feeding entirely on the grasses. In the spring the herds instinctively seek the young grasses springing up on the slopes, but with the coming of winter they  return to the tops to find the evergreen. The balsam tree can easily be banished, for, after being felled for a few months, it will burn easily, and in its stead will spring up thick coats of evergreen. On some of the mountain farms corn yields one hundred bushels to the acre, and wheat, oats, rye and barley, flourish proportionately. In the deadenings, where the large timber has been girdled and left to die, and the under-growth has been carefully cleared, timothy and orchard grass will grow as high as wheat. The native grape, too, flourishes on all the hill-sides, within certain thermal lines established by observation of the elder mountaineers; and varieties of grapes can be selected, and so planted as to ripen at different periods of the autumn. The negro population is not numerous in Western North Carolina. Wherever the black man is found, however, he is industrious, faithful, and usually quite prosperous. In some of the small towns, as at Waynesville, we found a gentleman’s valet of other days officiating as village tailor, barber, errand boy, coachman and factotum.  

It is sometimes said that Western North Carolina is shaped like a bow, of which the Blue Ridge would form the arc, and the Smoky Mountains the string. Within this semi-circle our little party, now and then increased by the advent of citizens of the various counties, who came to journey with us from point to point, traveled about six hundred miles on horseback, now sleeping at night in the lowly cabins and sharing the rough fare of the mountaineers, now entering the towns and finding the mansions of the wealthier classes freely opened to us. Up at dawn, and away over hill and dale; now clambering miles among the forests to look at some new mine; now spurring our horses to reach shelter long after night had shrouded the roadways, we met with unvarying courtesy and unbound- ed welcome. As a rule, the younger men with whom we talked were hopeful, very much in earnest, generally free from the mountain rustic dialect; took in one or two newspapers, and were interested in the outer world and general legislation; but their fathers, the farmers of the before the war epoch, were discouraged and somewhat discontented at the new order of things; looked upon mineral hunters and railroad route surveyors with coldness or contempt; and were wont to complain of their own lot and of all the results of the war. The young and prominent men in most of the counties were good companions and enthusiastic friends; they had none of the artificial manners of the town, none of its guile.

Wherever we went we found the rock- hunters had been ahead of us, and a halt by the wayside at noon would generally bring to us some denizen of the neighborhood, who would say, “Good mornin, gentlemen. After rocks?” and would then produce from his pockets some specimens which he was mighty certain he didn’t know the name of. Many a farmer had caught the then prevalent mica fever, and some had really found deposits of the valuable mineral which were worth thousands of dollars. There is no danger of overestimating the mineral wealth of this mountain country; it is unbounded. There are stores of gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, corundum, coal, alum, copperas, barytes, and marl, which seem limitless. There are fine marble and limestone quarries whose value was unsuspected until the railroad pioneer unearthed it. The limestone belt of Cherokee County, a wild and romantic region still largely inhabited by Cherokee Indians, contains stores of marble, iron and gold; Jackson County possesses a vast copper belt; and the iron beds of the Yellow Mountains are attracting much notice. The two most remarkable gold regions are in Cherokee and Jackson Counties. The Valley River sands have been made, in former times, to yield handsomely, and now and then good washings have been found along its tributaries. The gold is found in veins and superficial deposits in the same body of slates which carries limestone and iron. Before the war liberal arrangements had been made for mining in Cherokee, but since the struggle the works remain incomplete. It is supposed that the gold belt continues south- westward across the country, as other mines are found in the edge of Georgia. The gold of Jackson County is obtained from washings along the southern slopes of the Blue Ridge, near the mountains known as Hogback and Chimney Top; and Georgetown Creek, one of the head streams of the Toxaway, yielded several hundred thousand dollars a few years ago. In this wild country, where the passes of the Blue Ridge rise precipitously eight, hundred and a thousand feet, there lie great stores of gold. Overman, the metallurgist, unhesitatingly declares that he believes a second California is hidden in these rocky walls. The monarch mountain Whiteside is also said to be rich in gold.  

It is possible that the iron ore of these mountains will not be speedily developed, as capital is now so powerfully attracted to Missouri, and other States, where remarkable deposits exist; but there is no denying the richness of Cherokee, Mitchell, Buncombe, Haywood, Jackson, and Macon Counties. In Cherokee the hematite ores outcrop in immense quantities along the Hiawassee and Valley Rivers, and, when wrought in the commonest county bloomeries, have yielded an astonishing per cent. Large rivers flow directly through the iron regions in this section, furnishing every needed facility for transportation ; and limestone and forest fuel abound. Magnetic ores are freely found in Madison, Haywood and Macon Counties; and there are large outcroppings of hematite in Buncombe.  

Our expedition grew rapidly after we left Waynesville, and our group of horsemen, followed by the baggage train, toiling along the mountain roads, caused a genuine excitement at the farms by the way. It was a memorable journey from Waynesville to Whiteside, and down the valley of the Tuckaseege, returning; one so filled with rare and delightful experiences of some of Natures greatest works, that I must tell you even its details.  

Upon this beautiful country through which we now wandered, the Indian lavished that wealth of affection which he always feels for nature and never for man. He gave to the hills and streams the soft poetic names of his expansive language names which the white man has in many cases cast away, substituting the barbarous commonplaces of the rude days of early settlement. The Cherokee names of Cowee and Cullowhee, of Watauga, of Tuckaseege, and Nantahela, have been retained; and some of the elder settlers still pronounce them with the charming Indian accent and inflection. The Cowee Mountain range runs between Jackson and Macon Counties; and the Valley of Tuckaseege, walled in by four crooked, immense stretches, includes all of Jackson County which lies north of the Blue Ridge. The river itself, one of the most picturesque in the South, heads in the Blue Ridge, and swelling into volume from a hundred springs of coldest, purest, most transparent water, which send little torrents down all the deep ravines, it goes foaming and dashing over myriads of rocks, some- times leaping from dizzy heights into narrow cafions, until it comes to, and is lost in, the Tennessee. Where the Tuckaseege forces its way through the Cullowhee Mountains there is a stupendous cataract.  

The little inn at Webster, the seat of justice of Jackson County, was none too large to accommodate our merry cavalcade. We came to it through the Balsam Mountains from Waynesville, along a pretty road bordered with neat farms and giant mulberry trees. In the valleys we saw the laurel and the dwarf rosebay, the passion flower and the Turks-cap lily, and on the mountain sides the poplar or tulip tree, the hickory, ash, black and white walnut, the holly, the chincapin, the alder, and the chestnut in profusion. Webster is a little street of wooden houses, which seems mutely protesting against being pushed off into a ravine. For miles around the country is grand and imposing. A short time before our arrival the residents of the county had been edified by the execution of the only highwayman who has appeared in Western North Carolina for many years. The hanging occurred in front of the jail in the village street, and thousands flocked to see it from all the section round about. That episode, and the search for minerals, kept excitement up. As we reposed on the porch in the evening, the village physician regaled the judge with stories of mountain life forty years ago. The colonel placidly received the statements of the mineral men, who bad come in weary and footsore from their adventurous tramps in the mountains. Sunset came with a great seal of glory, and before the coming of the dawn we were once more in the saddle, en route for the Cowee range. Just below Webster we crossed the Tuckaseege river at a point where once there was a famous Indian battle, and wound up the zig-zag paths to the very top of Cowee, now and then getting a glimpse of the noble Balsams left behind. Now we could look up at one of the old balds, as the bare peak tops are called. (The Indian thought the bare spots were where the footsteps of the Evil One had pressed, as he strode from mountain to mountain.) Now we stopped under a sycamore, while a barefooted girl brought a pitcher of buttermilk from the neighboring house; now a group of negro children, seeing a band of eight horsemen approaching, made all speed for the house, evidently thinking us Ku Klux or Red Strings resuscitated; and now a smart shower would beat about our heads, and die away in tearful whisperings among the broad leaves. The milestones by the roadside were notched to indicate the distance; and from hour to hour, in the mountain passes, stops were made to whoop up the laggards, and the horses were breathed until the answering halloo was borne back echoing along the ravines. In the rich coves in Jackson County the black mold is more than two feet in depth, and the most precipitous mountain sides are grazing pastures, from which thousands of fat cattle are annually driven down to the sea-board markets. In the ranges, too, where the winter grass grows luxuriantly from November until May, great numbers of horses and mules are raised. Fruit grows with Eden-like luxuriance; the apple is superb, and on the thermal belt in all this section the fruit-crop never misses. Scientific culture introduced there would give grand results. The chances for settlement in this pearl of counties may be judged from the following figures: In 1869 there were but five hundred farms within its limits, and, while 46,000 acres were under cultivation, 775,000 acres remained unimproved.

Near Franklin, close to the site of an old Indian fortification, we crossed the Little Tennessee (a stately river, along whose banks are noble quarries of marble, never worked as yet). The chief town of Macon County was fair to look upon, seated amidst well-cultivated fields, and in the immediate vicinity of a grand grazing country; but we pushed on into the mountains once more, anxious to pass the Blue Ridge and climb the ribs of “Whiteside”. Three hundred thousand acres still remain unimproved in Macon, and at least one-third of these are rich in minerals. We were now approaching the extreme western border of the State. A little beyond lay Cherokee and Clay Counties, a territory taken from the Indians by treaty no later than 1835-6. They lie in the valley of the Hiawassee, which is famous as the place where the first successful treaty was made. We pushed on until dark, and our little party was dispersed at the various farm-houses on the road, with instructions to gallop up and meet in the morning before reaching the foot of the Blue Ridge. . . . .

“Whiteside” stands near the extreme southeastern border of Macon county. We descended from it down the Tuckaseege Valley into Jackson. Through both these counties runs an extensive copper belt, the ore in Jackson county being mainly bi- sulphuret or green carbonate of copper. Throughout this region the advantages for the location of grazing farms are superb, because the high mountains arrest the passing clouds, and condense them into rain so often that the lands are never parch- ed or dry. Snow rarely lingers long there, and even in a hard winter the mountain herbage and ferns are readily made into hay.  On a bright Sunday we descended towards the course of the Tuckaseege, and a violent storm delayed us at a lowly cabin, near the path by which now and then a visitor penetrates to Tuckaseege cataract. According to the custom of the country, we hastily carried our saddles into the porch and sat down on them to talk with the residents. The tall, lean, sickly farmer, clad in a homespun pair of trowsers and a flax shirt, with the omnipresent gray slouched hat, minus rim, drawn down over his forehead, courteously greeted us, and volunteered to direct us to the falls, though he “was powerful afeard of snakes”. Buttermilk and biscuit were served; we conversed with the farmer on his condition. He cultivated a small farm, like most of the neighbors in moderate circumstances; only grew corn enough for his own support ; “didn’t reckon he should stay thar long; warnt no schools, and he reckoned his children needed larnin; schools never was handy; too many miles away”. There was very little money in all the region round about; farmers rarely saw fifty dollars in cash from year to year; the few things which they needed from the outside world they got by barter. The children were, as a rule, mainly occupied in minding the innumerous pigs about the cabin, and caring for the stock. The farmers thought sheep raising would be “powerful peart”, if folks had a little more capital to begin on; thought a man might get well-to-do in a year or two, by such investment. He welcomed the mineral movement gladly; reckoned maybe we could send him some one to buy his farm, and let him get to a more thickly settled region; but seemed more cheerful when we suggested that emigrants might come in and settle up the country, bringing a demand for schools with them. “He reckoned there warn’t no Ku-Klux these days; never knew nothin on’em. Heerd nothin’ furder from ‘em sence the break-up.”

The housewife was smoking her corn-cob pipe, and sitting rather disconsolately before the fireplace, warming her thin hands by the few coals remaining in the ashes. The rain dripped in through the roof, and the children were huddled mutely together where it could not reach them. The furnishings were, as everywhere among the poorer classes in the mountains, of the plainest character. But the log barns were amply provisioned; stock looked well, and a few sheep and goats were amicably grouped under the shed.  

The rain had so submerged the country that we gave up a visit to the cataract, said to be superior to the two other falls we had seen; and, as we rode on, there came a pause in the shower. Presently we overtook a party of mountaineers going to church. The women, perched on the horses behind the men, peered curiously at us from beneath their large sun-bonnets, and the men talked cheerily. The church, which we passed, was ruder than Parson Caton’s in Tennessee. It was merely a log-cabin, inside which benches were placed. The congregation was singing a quaint hymn as we rode by, and a few men, for whom there was no room inside, lounged near the saplings where their horses were hitched, listening intently.  

The copper region of Jackson County is fascinatingly beautiful. While there is the same tropical richness of foliage which distinguishes the other counties, there is a greater wealth of stream-side loveliness; there are dozens of foamy creeks and by- ways, overhung with vines. The hills are admirably fertile in the vicinity of the Way ye-hutta and Cullowhee copper mines, and many of the vineyards were exquisitely cultivated. The Cullowhee Mountain is charming; no region in the South can furnish stronger attractions for emigrants. “Look at that valley, said an English resident to me, a few farmers from England, with their system of small farms and careful cultivation, would make this an Eden.” And he did not exaggerate. Give all that section immigration now, and railroads cannot be kept out of it, even by the rascality of such gigantic swindles as have been forced upon North Carolina. The copper mines in Jackson were worked extensively before the war, and capital and shrewd English mining experience are once more developing them. The ore is hauled, as the North Carolinians say, more than forty miles over a wagon road. The Blue Ridge tracts and the lands in Jackson County demand the attention of such men as Joseph Arch and other English agitators of the agricultural revolution in Great Britain. Vast tracts of the lands in Western North Carolina can he sold to colonists or capitalists at from one to two dollars per acre.

Some days later, the judge enthusiastically pointed out to us the beauties of Asheville, the Mecca of the North Carolina mountaineer. We had journeyed thither down the valley of the Pigeon River, a tranquil stream, with flour mills here and there, perched in cozy nooks along its banks. A thirty mile wagon ride from Waynesville, landed us at the great white  “Eagle Hotel”, from whose doors the Asheville stages ply over all the roads west of the Blue Ridge. In the valley where Asheville lies the capricious French Broad receives into its noble channel the beautiful Swannanoa, pearl of North Carolinian rivers. Around the little city, which now boasts a population of twenty- five hundred people, are grouped many  noticeable hills  out of the valley of “Hommony  Creek” somber Mount Pisgah rises like a frowning giant, and from the town the distant summits of the Balsam range may be faintly discerned. From  “Beaucatcher Knob” the site  of a Confederate fort, over-hanging Asheville, the looker towards the south- west will see half a hundred peaks shooting sky- ward ; while in the foreground lies the oddly- shaped town, with the rich green fields along the French Broad beyond it. Asheville Court House stands nearly 2,250 feet above the level of the sea; and the climate of all the adjacent region is mild, dry, and full of salvation for consumptives. The hotels, and many of the cheery and comfortable farm-houses are in summer crowded with visitors from the East and West; and the local society is charmingly cordial and agreeable. Buncombe County, of which Asheville is the central and chief town, was named after Col. Edward Buncombe, a good revolutionary soldier and patriot, and its name has become familiar to us in the quaint saying so often used in the political world, “He’s only talking for Buncombe,” when a legislator is especially fervent in aid of some local project. At Asheville, we were once more in a region of wooden and brick houses, banks, hotels and streets; and, although still some distance from any railroad, felt as if we had a hold upon the outer world.  

Asheville has heretofore, to the world at large, been unknown. Enthusiastic invalids, who there regained their health, have from time to time sung its charms, but the little town, situated two hundred and fifty miles from the State capital, had only a fleeting fame. The war brought it now and then into notice; Gen. Stoneman with his command, fought his way through the passes to Waynesville, and at a short distance from Asheville the last Confederate battle east of the Mississippi occurred. The town has grown steadily and remarkably since the war, and now has banks, good churches, well-furnished stores, three newspapers, and ample hotels; while in the vicinity the tobacco which grows so abundantly in Buncombe is prepared for the market, and great quantities of cheese are annually manufactured. Beautiful natural parks surround it; superb oaks cast their shadows on greenest of lawns, and noble maples, ash and walnuts border the romantic roadway. But a few miles from the towns center are excellent white sulphur springs, from which a variety of exquisite views are to be had, and only nine miles north of the town are the so-called “Million Springs”, beautifully situated in a cave between two ranges of mountains, where sulphur and chalybeate waters may be had in profusion.  

The town of Asheville will in future be the railroad center of Western North Carolina, and must grow to be a large and flourishing city. The present poverty of the section as to railroad communication is largely due to the discouragement consequent on the manner in which the confidence of those subscribing to the principal enterprise has been betrayed. The unfinished embankments, the half-built culverts and arches of the Western North Carolina Railroad, which are to be seen in many of the western counties, are monuments to the rapacity and meanness of a few men in whom those counties placed confidence. The plan of this railroad is a fine one, and would soon develop the noble mountain country into a formidably wealthy section. It proposed to supply a route from Salisbury, N. C. to Asheville, and thence by two lines to give advantageous outlets. One of these was to run down the valley of the French Broad River to Paint Rock, on the Tennessee line, connecting with the Cincinnati, Cumberland Gap, and Charleston Railroad, leading to Morristown, Tennessee, which would have connections with the through route from New York to New Orleans, at Morristown, and would complete the great air line from Charleston in South Carolina, to Cincinnati in Ohio, by connecting at Lexington or Paris, in Kentucky, with the Kentucky Central road. The other outlet was to be by the main line passing due west from Asheville through the western counties to Ducktown, in Cherokee County, and thence on to Cleveland in Tennessee, whence it is but a short distance to Chattanooga. Thus the gates of this now almost unknown region would be unlocked, and the best sections penetrated by rail routes. But the work lies incomplete, under the very eyes of the hard-working mountaineers who have been swindled. The money which they subscribed has been spirited away, and still the eastern division of the road has only reached to Old Fort, twenty- five miles from Asheville.  

The other routes are few and insufficient. The Central North Carolina, formerly the Wilmington, Charlotte and Rutherford Railroad, is to run from Wilmington on the coast via Wadesboro, Charlotte, and Lincolnton to Cherryville, and is intended to reach Asheville, but has eighty-five miles yet to build from Cherryville. The Union and Spartanburg Railroad, leading from Alston in South Carolina to the Greeneville and Columbia route, twenty- five miles north of Columbia, is to be ex- tended to Asheville, a distance of seventy- four miles, crossing the Blue Ridge at Butt Mountain Gap; and the Laurens and Asheville Railroad Company intends to build a road from Laurensville, via Greenville in South Carolina to Asheville, which will furnish a means of connection with the Atlanta and Richmond Air Line.  

The importance of the extension which would give a through direct line from Cincinnati to Charleston, can hardly be over- estimated. The links still to be built would develop not only a rich, but a wildly romantic and picturesque country. The valley of the French Broad River conforms with perfect accuracy to the general direction of an air line between the two cities. And what a valley it is! The forty-four miles from Asheville to Wolf Creek form one of the most delightful of mountain journeys. The rugged wagon road runs close to the rivers banks all the way to Warm Springs, a charming watering place a short distance from the Tennessee line. As you penetrate the valley the river grows more and more turbulent; its broad current now dashes into breakers and foam- flakes, as it beats against the myriads of rocks set in the channel bed; now swirls and eddies around the masses of driftwood washed down from the sides of the gigantic mountains which rise almost perpendicularly from the tiny stretches of sand at the waters edge; now, deep and black, or in stormy weather yellow and muddy, it flows in a strong, steady current beside banks where the trees are grouped in beautiful forms, creating foregrounds over which the artists eye lovingly lingers. The Indians named the French Broad “the racing river”; and, as it hurls its wavelets around the corner of some islet or promontory, one sees how faithfully the name describes the stream. Each separate drop of water seems to be racing with every other. A party of American hunters named the stream after their captain, French, during the days of early settlement, and from French’s Broad the name finally assumed its present form. One can hear the voice of the river always crying among the cliffs, and moaning and sighing as it laps the low banks in the narrow gorge. It was the rare good fortune of our party to journey beside the stream during a terrific storm. As we reached the little town of Marshall, a few white buildings grouped beneath immense cliffs, a wild tempest of wind and rain, which snapped the locusts like paper twine, blew down oaks, made land slides, and prostrated the crops, came through the valley; and then the roar of the river was sublime. Straggling along in the storm, we gave ourselves completely up to the grandeur of the occasion; the creeks which came down from the rocks were so swollen that they would have carried the stoutest horse out into the wild chaos of the dashing and leaping stream, and drowned him in the mysterious eddies. Night came, and we slept in a little farm- house, with the river singing its delicious songs of unrest and impatience at its mountain bounds in our ears. Skillful fording in the morning enabled us to pursue our journey along the washed-out road, where beetling crags almost shut out the light; where there was not room for two carriages abreast, and some stone monarch of the glen leaned toward the streams edge as if just about to topple downward. For miles the rocks towered up loftily, and miniature torrents ran down their sides, rippling across the road into the river, upon whose farther bank there was no refuge whatever; only the sheer rock with its coating of foliage; the tangled thickets on the height; the gleam of the streamlet piercing its way athwart the stones fifteen hundred feet in air!  

The traveler who is not strongly moved by his first gaze upon this valley, must be indeed blase’. The approaches to Warm Springs exceed in grandeur any other portion of the gorge. Pyramidal hills rise on either hand; the soft breeze of the south brings perfume from the borders of little river lakes, where the current has set backward, and is held in place by banks covered with delicate flowers. Mountain Island, two miles from the Springs, is a hilly islet in the impetuous stream; its shores and its slopes are rich in beauty, carpeted with evergreens, and all the colors of the rich North Carolinian flora. Below it the river becomes smooth, and moves majestically, only to break up anew into sparkling and fantastic cascades. Suddenly leaving the looming mountains, with the famous rock “Lovers Leap” on the right, one finds that the south-west bank of the river recedes, and gives place to a level plain, in whose center is a beautiful grove. From this clump of trees peer out the white pillars of the Warm Springs Hotel. It is not far from the banks of the French Broad, which there is more than four hundred feet wide, and traversed by a high bridge. The Warm Springs were discovered late in the last century by some adventurous scouts, who had penetrated farther than was prudent into the then Indian country. The springs boil up from the margins of the river, and of Spring Creek, and have a temperature of one hundred and five degrees. Thither the rheumatic, and those afflicted with kindred diseases, repair yearly in large numbers, and find speedy relief. From a spacious lawn one can look up river at massive cliffs and mountains clad in rich foliage; and for miles and miles around there is a succession of quaint and oddily shaped rocks. Nine miles beyond the Springs the railroad from Wolf Creek gives prompt connection with the through line to New York. Five miles below, on the Tennessee line, is the “Paint Rock”, two hundred feet high, a titanic mass of stone whose face is marked as with red paint, and which seems to have been pounded by some terrible Thor- hammer into multitudinous fragments, some of which overhang the highway. Not far from this point one comes also to the Chimneys, the unpoetic name given to jagged stone monuments, rising four hundred feet into the air, serene, awful, gigantic, while the racing river cries and caracoles at their bases. Hundreds, nay, thousands of fragments, shaped like diamonds, or squares, of round flint and sandstone, and almost every other kind of stone, lie scattered below, as though hurled down by a thunderbolt; and swarms of turkey-buzzards hover in and out among the crags.  

Five thousand square miles are embraced within the limits of Buncombe County, and there are at least four hundred thousand acres still unimproved. The large farms are, as a rule, carefully cultivated; there are several in the immediate vicinity of the town which are models of high culture. The lands are of amazing fertility, and the tobacco has frequently taken the first and second premiums at the Virginia State Fair. The older settlers are beginning to cultivate their land more thoroughly and scientifically, now that new comers have shown them that it is worth while to do it. Throughout Buncombe, as other adjacent counties, the chances for fruit culture are superb; North Carolina can supply the world with apples gigantic in size and delicate in flavor. Hematite iron ores crop out at various points in the county. The raising of mules and horses is one of the profitable occupations of the well-to-do farmers, and every year immense droves of those animals pass through Asheville on their route to the lower Southern States. Beaufort Harbor will be Asheville’s nearest port, and a very convenient one, if ever the Western North Carolina Railroad is completed. Manufacturing is needed, and would find superior advantages, in all the region round about Asheille. In the valley of the French Broad there are many admirable mill sites, the river at Asheville being quite as large as the Merrimac at Lowell, in Massachusetts. The water power is generally superb, because most of the mountain streams, before they flow out into Tennessee, have a fall of a thousand feet. Timber is abundant, and when the rail- road comes, it will run through finely timbered regions.  Our journey along the Swannanoa was a revelation. We missed the noisy grandeur of the French Broad valley, but we found ample compensation in the quiet loveliness of the stream which the reverent Indian named beautiful. Four miles from Asheville, going north-east- ward, towards the Black Mountains, we reached the river, and followed its placid current through a beautifully-cultivated valley. A rich carpet of green covered its banks, and there was the same charming effect produced by the trailing of the vines over the trees, which we had noticed in the mountains. The river was sometimes deeply dark in color; now and then faintly blue or purple, as the sunshine played upon it through the thickets; here and there we came to a place where it had formed a little lake, across which a rustic bridge was thrown, and where one of the long, slender canoes of the country was moored to a sapling; now, where some rich farmers mansion stood on a lawn, dotted with oaks and hickories; now, where we caught a glimpse of the distant Potato Top Mountain; now, where an old mill was half hidden under clusters of azaleas and the low-laurels.  

The summit of the Black Mountains is the highest point in the United States east of the Mississippi river, and the rugged range, clad in its garments of balsam and moss, glorious with its vistas of apparently endless hills and fancifully-shaped valleys, is the chief pride of the North Carolinian mountaineer. Our party left Asheville late one bright morning, sped along the Swannanoa to Alexander’s, a good halting point, seven or eight miles from the mountain’s foot, and then pushed on to Patton’s, the collection of humble cabins, nestled at the very base of the chain of peaks. Our German companion sang his merriest songs that afternoon, and the Judges cheery halloo was heard at every mile, for the loveliest phases of Nature gave us their inspiration. As we approached Patton’s, the long ridges of Craggy loomed up like ramparts to the eastward, and the sun tinged the sky above them crimson and purple. The music from the ripples of the fork of the Swannanoa, which we were now ascending, drifted on the evening air; the kalmias, the azaleas, and the honeysuckles, sent forth their perfumes; the wood- choppers, their feet well protected against the snakes by stout boots, were strolling supperward, and gave us hearty good evenings; the cow-bells tinkled musically, and in a corner of Patton’s yard a mountain smith was clanging his hammer against his anvil, seemingly keeping time with the refrain to which all Nature was moved. The evening was still and warm, even in that elevated region. While some of us remained in the cabin below, and listened to tales of Black Mountain adventure, the aspiring Jonas, with a companion, pushed on, a few miles beyond, that he might see sunrise from the heights, even though he had to sleep in a crazy and decaying house on the edge of a dizzy cliff, with the floor for his bed, and his saddle for a pillow.  

It is twelve miles from Patton’s to the summit of Mitchell’s Peak, and the ascent, which is very arduous, is usually broken by stop at the “Mountain House”, four miles from the foot, and another at the point where the government once maintained an observatory, on a rock six thousand five hundred and seventy-eight feet high, and three miles from the topmost height, which rises suddenly from the range, a mass of ragged projections, covered with deadened tree trunks. At early dawn we were on our road to the Mountain House, at first through thickets, then along a creek bed, where the cautious mountain horses walked with the greatest difficulty; now fording a creek twenty times in half an hour, now bending as we came to tree trunks half fallen across the trail. The road wound snake-like upon the hillside, until at last we were compelled to clamber up perpendicular ascents, and ahead could see the Judges figure, bent to the horses neck, with his hands clinging to the mane, and his venerable head dodging the malicious boughs which now and then threatened him with the fate of Absalom. A slip upon a smooth stone frightened one of the horses so that he stood still and trembled for a moment, so well did he realize the result of a fall or roll backwards; sometimes the animals would stand and listen, with their ears ominously cocked as if watching for snakes; often they paused as if in mute despair at the task before them.  

But after an hour and a half of this laborious climbing, during which we had ascended at least fifteen hundred feet, we heard the halloo of Jonas and his companion, and, scrambling up the track of a little water course, came out upon the plateau on whose edge stood the Mountain House.  

The house is a small Swiss cottage, once solidly built of stout beams, but now fast decaying. It was built by William Patton, a wealthy citizen of Charleston, and before the war was often the resort of gay parties, who dined merrily on the cliffs verge, and saluted the sunset with champagne. It stands but a few yards from the edge of the Balsam growth, where the vegetation changes, and the atmosphere is sensibly different. It is five thou- sand four hundred and sixty feet above the sea level, at the point in front of the Mountain House where one looks down into the valley, and sees the forest clad ridges creeping below him for miles; notes the twin peaks of Craggy, and their naked tops; then turns in mute wonder to the wood above him, and searches in vain for the peaks beyond. While at the windows of the Mountain House we seemed to be gazing from mid air down upon the Blue Ridge. The illusion was perfect. Below us the mists were rising solemnly and slowly; peak after peak was unveiled; vast horizons dawned upon us; we seemed to overtop the world.  

We turned from this view of the valleys and entered the balsam thickets, pushing eagerly forward to Mount Mitchell.  And now we came into the region of the Pink and scarlet rhododendrons. Whenever there was an opening in the trees the hill-side was aflame with them. Masses of their stout bushes hung along our path, and showered the fragile red blossoms upon us. The white mountain laurel, too, was omnipresent, but the scarlet banner usurped the greatest space. When we came to a narrow trail, where slippery rocks confronted us, and ragged balsam trunks compelled us to clamber over dangerous crags, we found the way strewn with a crimson carpet after our horses had struggled through. Here, too, were masses of evergreen, and red-pointed mosses, and the azaleas again, along the border of streamlets, and the purple rosebay and the tall grasses in the clearings, in whose midst nestled timorously tiny white blossoms and ground berries.

To climb Vesuvius is no more difficult than to scale the Black Mountain, for although one can reach the very top of the latter on horseback, he is in constant danger of breaking his limbs and those of his horse on the rough pathway. By the time we had reached Mount Mitchell, and seated ourselves upon its rocks, our horses were as thoroughly enthusiastic as we were, and peered out over the crags with genuine curiosity.  

From Mount Mitchell we saw that we were upon a center from whence radiated several mountain chains. To the south we could see even as far as the Cumberland line, and could readily discern the Bald Mountain, and our old friend the Smoky; while nearer, in the same direction, we noted the Balsam range. Sweeping inward from the north-east coast were the long ridges of the Alleghanies; on the north the chain of the Black culminated in a fantastic rock pile; while on the south the ridges of Craggy once more stood revealed. To the east we could overlook the plains of North and South Carolina; on the north-east we saw Table Rock and the Hawk Bill, twin mountains, piercing the clouds; while beyond them rose the abrupt Grandfather Mountain, and the bluff of the Roan. On the south were the high peaks of the Alleghanies, the Pinnacles, Rocky Knob, Gray Beard,. Bear Wallow, and Sugar Loaf.  

Another hour and a half of climbing, then dashing through a clearing, we suddenly saw above us a crag two hundred feet high, with a stone-strewn path leading up it. Our horses sprang to their risky task; they rushed up the ascent, slipped, caught against the edges of the stones, snorted with fear, then laid back their ears and gave a final leap, and we were on Mitchell’s High Peak, utterly above Alleghanies, Blue Ridge, or Mount Washington. Our horses ears brushed the clouds. In a few moments we were at Mitchell’s grave.  

Here we were above the rhododendrons, and only a gnarled and stunted growth sprang up. The trees were nearly all dead; those still alive seemed lonely and miserable. The rude grave of the explorer, with the four rough slabs placed around it, recalled the history of the man, and the origin of the peaks name. The Rev. Dr. Elisha Mitchell, a native of Connecticut, graduate of Yale, and a professor of prominence in the University of North Carolina, established the fact by measurements, made from 1835 to 1844, that the Black was the highest range east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States. He grew very much to love the work of studying these heights, and spent weeks in wandering alone among them. The rough mountaineers learned to revere him, and he became as skillful a woodsman as any of them. In June, of 1857, after accomplishing some difficult surveys, and, as it is supposed, having ascended the pinnacle which now bears his name, he was descending into Yancey County, when, overtaken by night and a blinding storm, he strayed over a precipice on Sugar Camp Creek, and was discovered some days afterwards, dead at the bottom of a waterfall, his body perfectly preserved in the limpid pool. His friends, the mountaineers, who mourned his loss bitterly, buried him in Asheville; but a year later his remains were carried to the mountain tops and there placed in a grave among the rocks he had loved so well.  

Near the grave the government has established a signal house, where two brave fellows dare the storms which occur almost daily. The anger of the heavens, as witnessed from this stony perch in mid air, is frightful to contemplate, and many a day the lonely men have expected to see their only shelter hurled down into the ravines below. The view from the top- most peak is similar, in most respects, to that from lower Mount Mitchell; but the effect is more grand and imposing, and the mountains to the south and east seem to stand out in bolder relief. A tremulous mist from time to time hung about us; the clouds now and then shut the lower world from our vision, and we seemed standing on a narrow precipice, toward whose edges we dared not venture.  

As we descended, that afternoon, the pheasant strutted across our path; the cross-bill turned his head archly to look at us; the mountain boomer nervously skipped from tree to tree ; the rocks seemed ablaze as we approached the rhododendron thickets; the brooks rippled never so musically, and the azalias perfume was sweeter than ever before. Each member of the party, dropping bridle rein on his weary horses neck, as we came once more into the open space where stands the Mountain House, and looked down thousands of feet into the yawning valley; as the peace and silence, and eternal grandeur of the scene ripened in his soul, involuntarily bared his head in reverence.  [1]