YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 1935 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS ck ¦ - * ;J&, 3*r ' i ¦ . WW* • "-I •> " THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS BY MARGARET W. MORLEY Author of "The Song of Life," "The Bee People," etc., etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY (Clie Btoetftbe JWsi Cambriboe 1913 COPYRIGHT, IQI3, BY MARGARET W. MORLEY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published October 1913 TO G. H. W. INSPIRER, CRITIC, FRIEND CONTENTS I. THE PEACH TREES ARE IN BLOOM . . i II. TRAUMFEST ON THE BLUE RIDGE . . 6 III. THE FOREST I5 IV. THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARK 24 V. HOW SPRING COMES IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS 36 VI. THE CARNIVAL 4g VII. SUMMER IN THE MOUNTAINS ... 62 VIII. AUTUMN 70 IX. IS IT WINTER? 79 x. cesar's head and chimney rock . . 88 XI. THE HIGH MOUNTAINS 102 XII. FLAT ROCK COMMUNITY, AN IDEAL OF THE PAST m XIII. ASHEVILLE 119 XIV. THE EARLY SETTLERS 138 XV. BILTMORE AND THE NEW ERA . . .148 XVI. THE PEOPLE 161 XVII. THE SPEECH OF THE MOUNTAINS . . 171 XVIII. 'LIGHT AND COME IN 182 XIX. PENELOPE AND NAUSICAA . . . .190 XX. A VANISHING ROMANCE . . . .201 XXI. CHURCH AND SCHOOL 218 XXII. THE CHEROKEE NATION . . . .232 XXIII. THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS . . 239 viii CONTENTS XXIV. HIGHLANDS 248 XXV. THE SAPPHIRE COUNTRY . . . .261 XXVI. THE FORKS OF THE PIGEON RIVER . 277 XXVII. PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS . . .290 XXVIII. MOUNT MITCHELL 302 XXIX. THE FORKS OF THE RIVER TOE . .315 XXX. LEDGER AND THE ROAN . . . .325 XXXI. LINVILLE FALLS 338 XXXII. BLOWING ROCK 349 XXXIII. THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN . . 363 XXXIV. THE HOLIDAY OF DREAMS . . .379 INDEX 389 ILLUSTRATIONS The Carolina Mountains . . . Colored frontispiece Mr. George H. Warner and his "Armored Pine" . 16 A Road in the Woods 32 A Laurel Path 56 In Summer Time 66 The Sorghum-Cutter 74 Sunday Morning 80 A Bald .......... 104 Crossing the River 108 An Old-time House 142 Going Home 162 A Mountaineer's Home 182 Getting Dinner 186 Penelope 194 Over the Tubs 198 A Moonshine Still 206 A Good Foot-Bridge 240 Whiteside Mountain 250 The Devil's Court-House 254 Near Highlands 258 Ford and Bridge of the South Toe River . . .316 A Pasture on the Roan 332 Peaks of Grandfather Mountain 364 The Grandfather Profile 370 The Yonahlossee Road 376 The frontispiece is from a water-color by Miss Amelia M. Watson, who has also supplied the cover illustration and the drawing for the end-paper map. The other illustrations are from photographs by the author. THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS THE PEACH TREES ARE IN BLOOM MARCH winds may howl, dull skies may lower, and chill airs pinch, up there in the frozen North, but down here — the peach trees are in bloom ! They have opened like a burst of sunshine. On all sides, as far as the eye can reach, the landscape has over it the glow of peach blossoms. If you happen to be crossing the State of North Carolina towards the mountains at this time, you will get a thrilling sense of the real mission of the peach tree. As the train sweeps over the country, one flower- wreathed picture follows another : here a tumble-down cabin with peach trees in ecstatic bloom at one corner, there a hollow filled with airy pink blossoms from the midst of which rises a farm house roof; the sordid little village, the unpainted house, the slope, the hilltop, each and everything your eye beholds is an adorable picture by grace of the blossoming peach trees. They seem to have alighted by chance, here, there, and everywhere, like wild flowers. You see them scattered over the cotton fields singly or in groups, covering the waste places, making long hedges, embowering the earth. Occasionally these trees are in orchards that do not 2 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS begin anywhere in particular, and trail off to no where, a ravishing maze of pink blossoms. Some times crowding close to the track, they fly past the car window a mere blur of color. Again a shining band of them stands still on the brow of a distant hill. The sky above is blue. The warm red earth is overlaid with tawny stubble, excepting where the plough has turned up a bright field. The air is soft and full of the smell of the earth. All Nature is in tune with the joyous peach trees< In the yards are yellow bushes and daffodils. Snowy clusters of wild plums or of service blossoms shine out from the woods here and there, but the event of the day is the endless procession of blossom ing peach trees. They go dancing by, hour after hour; trees, old and young, large and small, standing in all attitudes, graceful, laughing, exquisite — there is no end to them. From the sea to the mountains, the whole South is smiling through a veil of peach blossoms. As finally you approach the mountains that form the western end of North Carolina, you catch glimpses of heights so divinely blue that you seem about to enter some dream world through their magical por tals. Through an opening between the mountains the train makes its way, and at an elevation of about a thousand feet leaves you at Traumfest, and contin ues its course up and over the difficult barrier of the Blue Ridge. For Traumfest lies in a nook of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and although it may not appear PEACH TREES IN BLOOM 3 by that name on the maps, the place itself is a reality. The enfolding mountains, so dreamy, so enchanting in coloring when seen at their best mo ments, will explain the name and justify it, for translated into English "Traumfest" means "Holi day of Dreams," or, if one is willing to tamper a little with grammatical endings, it means, best of all, per haps, " Fortress of Dreams." Here lingers a touch of summer even in midwinter, because of the evergreen trees and shrubs that so abound. And here spring comes early, for Traumfest, be it known, lies in the thermal belt, that magic zone where, although it may freeze, there is never any frost. In this gentle land where even the cocks crow with a Southern accent, the newcomer, half-awake in the early morning, hears the great city he has recently left singing like a city of the blest. As consciousness emerges from the mists of sleep, however, one dis covers that although the singing is real, it does not come from the town, now happily far away. It comes from the negroes down in the hollow, from the birds in the trees, and from the little children of the white people who live on the hilltops. All Traumfest seems to be singing. It makes one want to sing too. And that is the magic and the charm of the South; cares fly away and one wants to sing. Mingling as it were with the singing of the people is the subtle smell of spring. One wonders what that odor of the Southern spring comes from, and sus pects that the smoke of pine wood ascending like incense from the hearthstones in all the houses has 4 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS something to do with it. It is a fragrance peculiar to the South, places, as well as animals, flowers, and races, having their distinguishing odors. One soon discovers that the half-wild peach trees that make the foothills so lovely are also present in the mountains, where they bloom a little later and quite as enchantingly. To walk along them is quite as delightful as to fly past them on the train, and there is this advantage, one can hear as well as see them. If the blossoming trees do not sing aloud and clap their hands for joy, they at least draw to them selves a blissful chorus of happy creatures. Little things on wings have suddenly appeared. They seem to have blossomed with the peach trees, for yester day they were not. Now the air hums with them, bees, wasps, flies, beetles, bugs, butterflies, all as busy as though they were of tremendous importance in the scheme of the universe. And walking thus among the blossoming trees, we can smell as well as hear and see them. It is hard to tell which is best, the beauties of the day or the beauties of the night in this smiling land. The nights are so cool, so fragrant, and so enticing that one has an impulse to roam the woods in the magical moonlight and under the softly glowing stars. The stars hang big and dewy, dreamy lights in the vault of heaven. And there are so many of them, so bewilderingly many! That great star one sees in midwinter, glowing low towards the horizon and competing with Sirius in brilliancy, is Canopus of the Southern heavens, and in the month of March PEACH TREES IN BLOOM 5 the faint star Fomalhaut is seen in the Southern sky. below Scorpio, also unknown in the Northern heavens, while that rare sight, the great cone of the zodiacal light, is sometimes to be seen just after the sun has set. And the night here has its well-remembered sounds, the gentle breeze lightly sighing through the pines, the gust of wind striking the trees into deeper music, the trill of a bird, the muffled call of an owl, and in summer the insistent call of the whip-poor-will and the orchestral boom of a thousand insect performers. Besides these, there is one sound that never fails summer or winter. At stated intervals the cocks wake up and crow. They divide the night into watches of about three hours. You hear one clear call, a voice responds, then here and there and everywhere, like watchmen exchanging the signal, the cry goes forth; you hear the circle widening from that first challenge to distant margins where the voices are faint almost as memories — you imagine them circling on and on over the earth, and then all is still for another three hours. At the last crowing of the cocks, as though the sun were answering to their call, a gentle radi ance flows up into the dome of the sky and " tenderly the haughty day Fills his blue urn with fire." II TRAUMFEST ON THE BLUE -RIDGE THE Blue Ridge! What mountains ever offered themselves to the sun so enchantingly as the long curve of the Appalachian chain where it passes through Virginia and North Carolina down to Ala bama, running all the way full southwest! This battlement of heaven was not named by accident. It was named Blue because there was no other name for it. It is blue; tremendously, thrillingly blue; tenderly, evasively blue. And the sky that contains it is also entrancingly blue ; even the storms do not make it sullen, and when they pass, the sun breaks out more radiantly than ever. Beyond the Blue Ridge in North Carolina, other and higher mountains rise like spirit forms into the deep sky, rank upon rank, height upon height, guarded as it were and protected by the encircling wall of the Blue Ridge. Traumfest, Fortress of Dreams, rests in a vast amphitheatre on the eastern front of the Blue Ridge, an amphitheatre formed by a cordon of forest-cov ered mountains that nearly inclose the place, and among which are Hogback on the south and Tryon Mountain on the north, both descending towards the east in a series of ridges surmounted by low peaks, and leaving open between them a wide arc for the sun to enter. And how the sun does enter, TRAUMFEST ON THE BLUE RIDGE 7 flooding the place and also the mountains that inclose Traumfest as with loving arms. The peculiar charm of Traumfest comes from the fact that it lies thus open to the east ; it does not have to wait for the sun to climb and look in after his first morning freshness is dimmed . Its horizon is in reality the horizon of the plains. In the dewy morning one sees the sky lighten, and then the torch of day flash from hill-crest to hill-crest, the tree-tops kindling in masses, with night shadows yet intervening. If the day is clear, you may look far down the sea of color to where there rises as it were an island, long, rounded, and pale blue, or maybe the color of mist, and scarcely visible against the sky of which it seems a part. That faint, sweet island swimming in the mists is King's Mountain, where one of the bravest deeds in the history of the New World was once done by a little band of heroes from these mountains. Because of its warm and beautiful location, and because the railroad came through that open door of the mountains, passing up the valley of the Pacolet and over the crest of the Blue Ridge to Asheville, Traumfest is not only the largest of the villages on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge, but was among the first to become a resort for visitors from all parts of the country, here having grown up a friendly community representing more than two dozen states. Strangers say that Traumfest reminds them of an Old World village, with its bright painted houses and the little church with its square stone tower, the gift of one who lived here and loved the place. Like 8 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS the peach trees, Traumfest seems to have happened, straggling about over a number of ridges separated from each other by deep hollows through which pass the connecting roads or paths, or down which run dancing brooks. Like the rest of the mountain vil lages, it is all up and down hill, most of the houses having their front door on the hilltop and the back door down below somewhere. It adds to the un studied effect of the place that its houses are set at every angle, each person placing his as fancy dic tates, but avoiding as by instinct planting any building square with the points of the compass. Although Traumfest now contains enough new settlers considerably to temper the manner of life, its ancient quality is not all gone, as he who tries to get anything done on time, or done at all, will soon discover. That ox team slowly pulling a load of wood along Traumfest's main residence street also tends to dispel any illusion concerning the extent of change that may have taken place, while four oxen attached to one small cart sometimes hint at primitive roads not far away. Traumfest's main street is bright red in color, for the Blue Ridge, although so enchantingly blue in the distance, has a soil composed largely of red clay, the characteristic soil of the whole mountain region, as also of the foothills. Consequently long threads of red and ochre and pink are woven through the sunny greens that here prevail as the roads wind uphill and down, over the heights and through the hollows. Red roads wind past houses with red-tinted founda- TRAUMFEST ON THE BLUE RIDGE 9 tions and chimneys chinked with red mud, and along through fields where the vegetation is sparse, as though loath to hide the fervid color of the soil, while here and there you will see a stream flowing with blood-red water. Even the wasps' nests that so plentifully adorn the walls and rafters are built of red mud. Men and boys have red ends to their trousers, and reddish-looking shirt-sleeves, horses have red hoofs and white mules have bright red legs. It must not be supposed, however, that all the earth is red; there is some gray soil, some that is brown, and much that is yellow; but red predominates to such a degree that you think of this as a red land. Reinforcing the warm color of the soil is the sunny nature of the greens. One never sees here the cold dark greens of the North ; even the pine trees have a warm tint as though soaked in sunshine, and on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge there is no green sward, the ground in summer being covered with sparse wild grasses, and little bushes and herbs that paint the landscape in many tones. Lying as it does on the South Carolina state line, Traumfest, in addition to its other attractions, has a spice of border romance, for constantly crossing from one state to the other is that picturesque figure, the "moonshiner," who persists in distilling corn whiskey in secret places and in passing the cup that cheers and most certainly inebriates to his will ing neighbors, in defiance of the laws that declare such actions to be unlawful. Hogback and its com panion, Rocky Spur, are in South Carolina, and be- 10 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS tween them and Traumfest, and also in South Caro lina, lies one of those mysterious regions known as the "Dark Corners," into whose dread precincts one is warned with ominous head-shakings not to ven ture, for here generations of moonshiners have car ried on the distillation of corn whiskey in a fashion nominally secret, undoubtedly reprehensible, and very picturesque. The Southern sun that floods the mountains and beautifies the landscape has an irresistible influence over the people as well. No native thinks of disobey ing its implicit command — "Thou shalt not hurry " ; therefore the native-born of the Blue Ridge, no matter what else he may lack, is rich in time, a pos session denied to the foreign invader who keeps his hoe in the tool-house where he can find it when he wants it. The mountain man leaves his in the field, and when he wants it, if he cannot find it, he drops the subject. That the ancient and honorable art of "settin' around" has been cultivated until it has grown into an integral part of life, you discover upon asking a mountain woman, who has waited in town half a day for some one to come, what she did with her time, and receive the illuminating reply, "Oh, I jest sot." That the sun in time conquers even the most vigorous newcomer is a fact plainly discernible in Traumfest, where the people may be divided into three classes : Northerners who are always in a hurry, Southerners who are never in a hurry, and North erners in process of southernization, who are some- TRAUMFEST ON THE BLUE RIDGE n times but not always in a hurry. In course of time the Northern type becomes obliterated unless re newed from the original source. The perfect type, of which the rest of us are but modifications, is illustrated by the man from Turkey Pen Gap, to see whom move is a revelation. It is as though eternity were ever present in his conscious ness. It was he who said in his inimitable drawl, " I would rather go up a mountain than daown one. For when you go up, you cain't hurry, and when you come daown, you have to." When a mountaineer unexpectedly completes a piece of work or makes some unwonted exertion, you may be tempted to think it the result of forethought, but if you ask him about it he will probably tell you it was because he "tuk-a-notion." Life has many consolations run on the "tuk-a-notion" principle. "We're powerful poor around here, but we don't mean no harm by it," is the cheery greeting you get when you visit an ancient native of the forest who you know does not think himself poor at all. He has plenty of time, the thing he values most. It was he who used to tell his reminiscences of the war, into which he had been drafted much against his will, and concerning the meaning of which he in common with his neighbors was not very clear. When you asked him about it he knit his brows, "studied " a minute, then slowly said, "Law, which side was I on?" But though the mountaineer may have been puzzled concerning the meaning and advantages of the War of the Rebellion, which he sometimes classified as " a 12 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS rich man's war and a poor man's fight," and escaped if he could, it must not be supposed that he was either cowardly or uncertain where he understood the issue, a witness to the contrary being what occurred at King's Mountain that stormy day so long ago. The village people, many of whom are native North Carolinians, are not to be classed with the mountaineers of the rural districts, for the villagers for the most part have come from the old planta tions, or from less primitive regions below the moun tains. But although the village shops have recently attained a high standard in both products and prices, it is a fact of far-reaching psychological significance that even now you cannot buy a darning-needle in the city of Traumfest. Yet your neighbors seem happy and respected by their fellows and totally unconscious of any gap in their lives. Besides the white people, Traumfest is blessed with the negro, that true child of the sun who is found everywhere at the foot of the Blue Ridge, but is not so often seen in the higher mountains except ing in the larger villages. He prefers to linger near the cotton-line, the mountains being too sparsely settled to satisfy his gregarious instincts. Most of the negroes here are descended from slaves brought up on the plantations in the immediate neighbor hood. They are good, and for the most part as industrious at least as the white people, and when you know them personally and intimately, you can not help loving them. They believe in ghosts and signs and a hereafter, they are afraid of the comet, TRAUMFEST ON THE BLUE RIDGE 13 and they have good appetites. Many of them bear picturesque names bestowed upon them by the white people and yet more remarkable ones of their own selection, their feeling for rhythm alone often guiding them in their choice; hence the delightful name, Greenville Female Seminary Simms, proudly worn by a young girl of Traumfest. By far the most interesting characters among them are the few survivors of the old regime, who are really proud of their slavery and the fact that they learned how to work and how to behave. Among them is Aunt Hootie, whose full name she will proudly tell you in a sort of rhythmical chant. This is it — "Anna Maria, Lucy Lees, Licifa'er, Mary Ann, Markak'na, Gallahootie, Waters, Mooney. Aunt Hootie for short." Waters and Mooney were acquired by two excursions into matrimony, but the other names were bestowed at the baptismal font. Aunt Hootie is pious. When she comes to visit, which is generally about dinner-time, she graciously accepts an invitation to stay, never omitting rever ently to "make a beginning," as grace before meat is expressed in the mountains. Aunt Hootie 's "be ginning "is simple , but to the point ; folding her hands and composing her features she reverently remarks, "O Lord, thou knowest I need this," and proceeds to verify the assertion. Near her picturesque cabin on the outskirts of Traumfest is that of Aunt Eliza, who, though a churchwoman, is not, properly speaking, pious. She has outlived slavery and her husband, for both 14 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS which blessings she is duly grateful. "Now I can put my bread and cheese upon the shelf and nothing can blow cold upon me unless I let it, ha! ha!" she exclaims triumphantly when congratulating herself upon having weathered the perilous seas of matri mony. Aunt Eliza is a strong woman and works hard when she has to. When the bread and cheese get low, she goes to chopping down the pine trees on her piece of land. She converts them into firewood and hauls them to town on a home-made sled drawn by a very reluctant bull calf, whose neck she has subjected to the yoke despite his manifest disap proval. It used to be one of the diversions of Traum fest to see Aunt Eliza "wrastling" with her calf on the way to town, she at one end of the rope braced and inclined like a leaning tower, the calf at the other end, braced and rigid, leaning in the opposite direction. In her garden she raises, so she tells you, "oodles of gubers and taters," which translated means a great many peanuts and potatoes. Let not this appearance of energy, however, deceive or alarm any one, for Aunt Eliza manages to make her way without seriously disturbing the waters of idleness. Some time since, Aunt Eliza got religion. She began going to church and profiting according to her light on the "preachment" and "taughtment" of the scriptures as there expounded, though her piety is intermittent, according to the long-suffering "preacher," who shakes his venerable head over her state as he remarks with a sigh, "Eliza is a mighty peace-breakin' woman." Ill THE FOREST THE first thing "one notices upon approaching the mountains is that the Blue Ridge is wooded to the top, the beautiful Blue Ridge with all its out- reaching spurs. And one later discovers that this is also true of the high mountainLback of it, for the Southern Appalachian forests are not only the high est-lying of all the hardwood forests in North Amer ica, but the largest left in this once forest-covered country. Some six thousand square miles of them lie spread, a shining web of lights and colors, over the North Carolina mountains alone. But although trees clothe the mountains here as with a garment, their boundless expanse is not op pressive, for the forest floor, unobstructed by glacial boulders and wet hollows, is easily traversed. As a rule its trees stand apart, tall, clean columns beneath which little green things and wild flowers grow, while the sun shines through the leafy roof. One reason the floors are so clean is that they are frequently swept by the fires that break out every winter either through carelessness, or else on purpose to clear the ground that fresh green may start for the cattle. In the dry season smoke clouds ascend on all sides. At night cities with their twinkling lights seem to have sprung up as by magic on the slopes, or else lines and curves of fire gird the mountain-tops. The atmos- 16 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS pheric effect of these fires is lovely; a tender haze envelops the landscape, while the air is filled with that faint and exquisite fragrance of burning wood that one always associates with the South. The air is smoky, but how different these clouds of incense from the smoke of a city! Strong, sweet winds blow over the mountains, mingling the odor of grow ing things with that of the burning forest. Such trees as fall from fire or other causes, in this ardent climate quickly resolve into their elements. If they do not bum up, they decompose, excepting the heartwood of mature pine trees that for years may lie embedded in the crumbling envelope of the outer wood, forming the fragrant "fat pine" of the South, a splinter of which kindles at the touch of a match. Heavy, translucent, and damp with resin ous juices, it burns with fierce heat and fiercer flames, the smoke that ascends from it being heavy like lampblack, although it does not smell like that: it smells like the South. It is the same odor intensi fied that steals over the earth when the sun is on the pine trees. For here the pine is everywhere present to the eye and to the sense of smell. Of all the trees it is the one the stranger first notices, and the first thing the newcomer says is, "How bright the pine trees look," for, instead of sharing the sombre aspect of pines that grow in the North, these seem full of sunshine. Perhaps the pine also owes its supremacy here as elsewhere to a certain atmosphere of antiquity cling ing about it and unconsciously affecting the feelings h ( M), m k- m 0;7^7 hMM G. H. W. AND HIS ARMORED PINE THE FOREST 17 of one looking at it. For we know its family to be the sole arboreal survivor in this country of the myriads of strange forms that covered the earth in past geological ages — long before there were any broad- leaved trees in existence. However that may be, the ancient form of the pine gives a characteristic aspect to the scenery of the Carolina mountains, as well as characteristic fragrance to the woods, and a charac teristic note in the music of the forest as the wind sweeps over it. The noblest tree among them, the tall Pinus echinata, in Traumfest known as the ' ' armored pine, ' ' from the large plate-like scales of its bark, stands head and shoulders above the rest of the forest, its picturesque crown of twisted limbs overtopping the other trees along the crest of the ridges. Quite different in appearance is the Pinus Virgin- iana, whose spreading crown is close-dotted with little dark cones that cling fast for several years, until the tree finally looks like a Japanese decora tion. This charming tree appears more mundane than the towering armored pine, whose spirit seems to be engrossed with matters of the sky. One could imagine the Pinus Virginiana laughing, but never the armored pine. It is the Pinus Virginiana that gives that delicious fragrance to roads banked with its young trees, a fragrance like that of a freshly opened tangerine orange. Besides these two, there are three or four other species of pine that blend their plumes with each other and with the foliage of the hardwood trees, and which fill the air with incense. 18 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS On the high mountains west of the Blue Ridge are yet to be found grand primeval forests of mingled pines and hardwood trees; but the trees of the Blue Ridge, though there are noble ex ceptions, are generally small, the forests here being sweet rather than majestic. And how sweet they are! Of the numberless hardwood trees that flourish here, the oaks perhaps stand first because of their numbers and the many forms in which they appear, from the lordly white oak to the little ridiculous jack oak. Conspicuous among them is that large tree that looks so like a chestnut, but which the native assures the newcomer is an oak, unanswerably clinching the argument with the information that "hit grows acorns," and with patience one learns in time to tell a chestnut leaf from the leaf of a chestnut oak. A generation ago the foothills and the lower mountains were covered with chestnut trees, some of them of enormous size. But these are gone, only a few stumps broad enough for a cabin floor remaining to tell the tale of the past. Where are they? The reckless wood cutter is not to blame this time, for there descended upon the chestnuts a blight that in a few years wiped them out until not a bearing tree was left on the lower slopes, though at higher levels they are yet so abundant that one looking at the mountains in early summer can clearly trace the ravines down their slopes by the rivers of chestnut bloom that brim them. The mountaineer's method of gathering chestnuts is characteristic. Going into the woods THE FOREST 19 with an axe, he selects a tree loaded with ripe nuts and chops it down. The most beautiful as well as the most valuable of the hardwood trees here is the noble tulip-tree, pop lar the people call it, whose grand, clean gray column rises out of the forest, the crown of bright green leaves overtopping all but the tallest of the pines. Liriodendron, the pretty botanical name of the tulip- tree, means a tree bearing lilies. And looking far up to the crown of this forest giant as its leaves unfold in early spring, one discovers that it indeed bears lilies, — upright, green and orange lilies, one on the end of each twig. In the autumn when the great trees stand leafless, each twig holds aloft a golden urn, the seed-pod, that remains in place, a unique and charm ing decoration, until the following spring. There is something of romance attaching to these trees that stand so lordly and alone in our forests. They belong to a genus of which there are only two species in all the world, one in the eastern United States, the other in Asia. We have one tulip-tree, China has the other. Of course hickories, maples, elms, beeches, birches, and many other trees abound, although we lack the beautiful "American elm" that so adorns the old New England villages and lends romance to North ern valleys. And the spectral white birch is not with us. But the sugar-maple, — " sugar- tree " the native here calls it, — abundant in some regions, sweetens the corn-pone of the mountaineer as agreeably as in the cold North it embellishes the buckwheat cakes 20 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS of a winter's morning. The sugar-trees might yield a good profit to thrifty harvesters, but the time- honored method of chopping a hole in the trunk and sticking in a bit of bark to conduct the sap into a wooden trough on the ground, although time-sav ing, does not produce results that command fancy prices, particularly as the rest of the process is equally free and easy. The troughs stand on the ground through the remainder of the year collecting water, twigs, leaves, and anything else that may chance to fall into them. In the winter all this freezes into a solid cake which the practical mountaineer has dis covered can be turned out whole, thus giving less trouble than any other method of cleaning the troughs. Maple-sugar as made in the mountains may be black in color and diversified with many strong flavors, but the people have a pretty way of running it into empty eggshells, where it hardens, and can then be handed about and carried in the pocket with more regard to cleanliness than is ap parent in any other part of its history. The stately wild cherry, or "mahogany," of the mountains, like the black walnut, has all but van ished, its virtues being its undoing. Of the trees, un known to the North, that one finds here, the most notable is the magnolia that lights up the woods in springtime with great ivory-white chalices brimmed with cloying fragrance. Walking in the forest you smell a penetrating, sweet odor that causes you to stand still and search the woods with your eyes until you see the white flowers shining in the distance. THE FOREST 21 There are several varieties of these "cucumber" and "umbrella" trees, as the people call them. Their large, light-green leaves placed in a circle at the ends of the twigs have something of a tropical appear ance, and there is also clinging to them that myste rious romance of the East, for although there are some fifteen or more species of this genus in the world, all of them belong to eastern Asia and the eastern United States, some four or five species being common in our Southern mountains. Another tree which is found only in the Orient and the eastern part of the New World is the sour- gum, pepperidge, or tupelo, whose dark, close-ridged bark and twisted crown, weather-beaten attitude, and somewhat scanty foliage give it an air of indi viduality that could not be dispensed with in the sentiment of the forest. Its wood is so tough that it soon dulls an axe, and lazy negroes were put to chopping it in slavery times, so the people say. The sweet-gum, or liquidambar, also abundant here, is not related to the sour-gum, but belongs to the romantic witch-hazel family, which perhaps is why its juices are so aromatic — the tree exuding copal at the slightest incision — and why its bark is so curiously ridged. Fortunately the larger gum trees, both sweet and sour, are apt to be hollow at the base, otherwise where would the mountaineer get his "bee-gums"? And what could replace in the landscape those rows of cylindrical hives, roofed with a board-end or a flat stone, that stand about wherever the owner 22 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS takes a notion to set them? Could any honey go so well on hot corn-bread, that came not out of a bee- gum? It would be impossible within reasonable limits to do justice to the trees here, yet one could not dismiss them without a word concerning that be guiling shape with the unfair name — the sourwood or Oxydendrum arboreum, which means the same as sourwood, but sounds better. This ladylike little tree is the most charming thing in the woods when its exquisite young leaves come out in the spring, and again in early summer when it is covered with drooping, handlike sprays of white flowers that look like lilies-of-the-valley, and give forth a fragrance delicate yet so penetrating that one can easily smell his way through the woods to a blossoming tree, where he will find the honey bees ahead of him. For in addition to its other virtues the sourwood yields the finest honey in the mountains, clear, delicate, white, and delicious. The botany tells us that this Oxydendrum is the only species of its genus, and that it is found only in southeastern North America ; which is suspicious, since it has recently been discovered that almost if not all of our plants hitherto classed as monotypic have species in the Far East. So undoubtedly our pretty sourwood has an Asiatic sister who sits smil ing in some corner of the Flowery Kingdom or the land of the Dragon or looks out over some fair Himalayan height. It is a pity it should suffer from such a name as "sourwood" just because its leaves THE FOREST 23 are sour ! — why could it not have been named from its lovely flowers as the silver-bell tree was named from its? Why not call it "honey," as the negroes do those whom they love? IV THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARK SINCE the easiest way for the mountaineer to clear the land is to girdle the trees and let nature do the rest, we everywhere see those dreary openings in the forest known as "deadenings," where spectral dead trunks stand among the growing corn. These "deadenings" are made and abandoned one after another as the thin soil wears out, which on the poorer slopes happens in a year or two. Hence, while the mountains are yet covered with forests, the clearings are everywhere apparent, and in these later days are increasing with alarming rapidity. Long ago the Southern Appalachians rose clad with trees above a tree-clad world. The Indian roamed the dense primeval forests, cultivating the valley bottoms and hunting in the woods. He did not destroy the trees — and thus the balance be tween man and the forests was kept. Then came the white man, and wherever he set his foot the tree retired. Wide fields of cotton and corn covered the lowlands, gardens and towns sprang up as by magic. But on the slopes of the mountains the forest undis turbed fulfilled its old-time office of calling the rains and holding the rivers in leash. In time the newcomer reached the mountains and made his clearings on the slopes. He also burned the woods each spring to APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARK 25 clear away the pine needles, and thus help the grasses and tender herbs to spring up as food for his cattle. For these reasons the young trees were killed, and the heavy growth of virgin timber in time gave place to the present open woods. Yet the forest was not destroyed; it contended bravely with this strange new foe. As generations passed, the clearings grew larger and more numerous. Denuded slopes appeared, be came gullied and washed, the streams thickened, they grew shallower and lost their crystal clearness as soon as they got to the settled country. The balance between man and the forest was being disturbed. But the forest yet contended bravely with the de stroyer, and there was always that background of inaccessible high mountains, the birth-chambers of the streams, where the forests fulfilled their saving mission without hindrance. Then came the lumberman with his portable saw mill, entering into the very heart of the forest ex cepting the highest and wildest places, taking the largest trees, but leaving the top branches and half the trunk to cumber the ground and offer food to the fires that invariably broke out, fires immeasurably hotter and more destructive than the ordinary forest fire. Deeper and deeper into the wilderness pushed the lumberman, taking a small fraction of the forest and killing the rest. Nature gave quick warning. Fer tile valley bottoms were overflowed, and the work of man's hands was often destroyed. After seasons of flood came seasons of low water, when the rivers 26 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS refused their help and the mills shut down. "Why is this?" the people asked; "such things never hap pened before." Had they looked to the mountains they would have seen the torn, bare slopes, the sun burning the dry earth where once lay water-soaked carpets of moss. The forest that once covered the mountains as with a garment, giving to man not only its wood, but what one might call its spiritual force of adjustment, was rapidly passing away. What slowly happened in these mountains took place more quickly in other regions until the whole country suddenly awakened to the fact that in a generation or two the wonderful forests of the New World would be no more. The prosperity of a nation depends also upon its forests. To lose them is a calamity too great to be borne, as nearly every one of the European nations has discovered through sad experience, — Spain in her mountains of bare rock reflecting the sun, but not condensing the moisture that causes the rains to fall, France in destructive floods, Germany in lack of wood, all in one or usu ally many ways feeling the cessation of the benefi cent work of the forests. As the population of the world grew denser and man discovered his relation to the trees, and that the performance of their primal duty had been fatally interfered with, he began to bring back the forests, a Herculean task now being performed over the whole of the Old World. What has happened to Europe is beginning to happen to us. Already the cry of the farmer is heard and the complaint of the APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARK 27 manufacturer. Man has menaced the existence of the forests without stopping to consider the conse quences. The debt that we of the New World owe to our forests is apparent when we remember that the products of the tree alone occupy the fourth place as a source of wealth to the nation, to say nothing of the many and invaluable uses of forested land. As civil ization advances and all the secrets of the earth are opened up, as new discoveries are made and new forces harnessed and put to work, the tree becomes more necessary instead of less. Its wood enters into every thing, or if it is displaced in one industry it becomes more necessary in another, one of the latest discov eries causing the destruction of such enormous quan tities of wood that one stands aghast before the facts : for the worst menace to our forests to-day is the all- consuming paper-pulp mill, the most reckless tim ber-cutting known to history being done in its serv ice. This danger, which threatened the extinction of our forests with frightful rapidity, is now to an extent being met by the manufacturers themselves, some of whom, realizing the extremity to which they will soon be brought under existing conditions, are beginning to provide for their own future by reforest ing the cut-over lands. But even at the best the tremendous demands of the pulp-mills are believed to be a menace to the forests of the nation, and we should be made more unhappy at the prospect ahead if it were not for our experience with other threatened dangers, bogies like the diminishing sup- 28 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS ply of nitrates, mineral fuel, and phosphates which darkly haunted the imagination a short time ago only to vanish before the searchlight of science. Even now the form of the giant bamboo is hovering on the horizon, and if the stately Oriental or our own cornstalks do not feed to repletion the voracious maw of the paper-mill, hope assures us that some thing else will arrive to do it before our grand forests have sent their last sigh over the valleys and moun tains of the New World. Which distant hope does not lessen our present responsibility ; and it is consol ing to know that the whole country is waking up to the need of preserving our forests before it is too late, vigorous and effective means having in many places already been taken to that effect, state law and the growing intelligence of private owners combining to place large tracts of woodland under the care of trained foresters. How many of us realize that well within a genera tion there have been created more than one hundred and fifty national forests in the United States, em bracing over one hundred and ninety million acres? Besides this a dozen states have already adopted the policy of creating state forests, and as proof of the vital interest taken in the subject, more than a score of universities and colleges are now providing courses in forestry. The public schools are also beginning to give instruction in the underlying principles of for estry, thus preparing the future citizens of the nation. Indeed, who to-day can escape knowing the meaning and value of the forests ? Even the Southern APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARK 29 mountaineer is seeing a new light. The appearance of gullies that ruin his land, the washing-away of his soil, the drowning of his valleys, the drying-upof his life-giving springs, these things he is beginning to notice with consternation and to ask the reason why, so that the race will soon have passed to which be longs the man who recently declared that in his opinion the people would be better off if there was not a tree on the mountains. Of course what he saw in imagination was a land covered with grain-fields, but he is discovering that the destruction of the trees is not followed by fertile acres; in short, that his beloved mountains were not designed by nature for grain-fields. The inaccessibility of the Southern mountains long saved them, and now, thanks to the new impulse, the Southern Appalachians will escape, to an extent, at least, the most serious dangers of lumbering, though they can no longer escape the lumber man, who is swinging his axe on the most "inaccess ible" coves and peaks of the Great Smokies them selves, "the largest lumber company in the world" having recently purchased an enormous tract of two hundred and fifty thousand acres of virgin forest in the North Carolina mountains, forests containing, besides spruce and hemlock, some of the finest hard wood trees ever grown here, notable among which are tulip and cherry, the latter having long since been removed from the more accessible forests. But fortunately this lumber company, in its methods of handling the trees, belongs to the new era. Under 30 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS its administration there will be no waste. Those great piles of sawdust left by the old-time sawmill, as well as all other remainders, will be converted at a central station into electric power to run all the mills and factories from which the waste is produced, besides leaving some to help run the enormous pulp- mill recently erected in the Pigeon River Valley, a few miles west of Asheville. The use of electricity in running the machinery vastly reduces the danger from fire, as does also cleaning up the waste in the woods, while yet more to diminish the danger the cut- over forests are to be under the care of a fire guard. While the new conscience is thus working in priv ate ways, the people as a whole have become alive to the importance of saving certain parts of the long Appalachian watershed from the possibility of denu dation ; hence there has grown up so urgent a demand for a national forest in the East, comparable to those forests with which the West for various reasons is so amply provided, that a bill has finally passed through the United States Congress making the foundation of such a domain possible. This, the Weeks Bill, be came a law March I, 191 1, and now there is in process of construction a great forest reservation, part of which is to be in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, part in the mountains of Mary land, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and whose function shall be forever to protect the cradles of the great rivers that are born on the slopes of these mountains. APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARK 31 The largest and most important part of the southern division of the new national forest will lie in the mountains of North Carolina, since from them are thrown off as from a common centre the princi pal feeders to many of the great rivers'that cross the southern plains to the Atlantic on the east, and run to the Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico east of the Mississippi River on the west. The first purchase made after the passing of the Weeks Bill was in North Carolina, where in Decem ber of 191 1, eighteen thousand, five hundred acres of land in the district of Mount Mitchell on the watershed of the Catawba River became the nucleus of the Southern Appalachian National Park, for the immediate further extension of which lands are under consideration in the Nantahala, Mount Mitchell, and Pisgah areas. The coming of the national park means more than the preservation of the forests ; it means the opening of a glorious pleasure-ground in the eastern part of our continent, how glorious a pleasure-ground no one can know who has not climbed these flowery slopes so exquisitely warmed by the sun and cooled by the wind. The more stupendous aspects of nature are wanting here. Those majestic snow-clad peaks, those abysmal gorges, those rocks of blazing hue, those geysers and natural bridges, those strange geological formations and petrified forests, — all those marvels of a younger age that call the world to our Western parks, — no longer any of them exist here, for these ancient mountains, the oldest in the 32 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS country, perhaps in the world, have passed through the wonder stages of geological youth and moved on into the calm old age of mountain life. But the older mountains have beauties of their own, and our new park can offer attractions that the parks of the West, where nature has wrought in so dramatic and expansive a mood, cannot offer. For one thing, nowhere else is nature so friendly. The world is beautiful, with here and there touches of grandeur, and one may traverse the fragrant forests alone and without fear. Nor is it necessary to make long and extensive preparations to explore these ancient heights : it is enough to start out with a tiny knapsack and walk away, sure of a welcome wherever night overtakes you. There are great free spaces of forest, mountains, and sky, but at intervals there is always the clearing and the home of the settler, the most hospitable of created beings, and to the student of human nature one of the most interesting. Even in the widest reaches of the park, the home of the mountaineer will be found in some intruding cove or little valley, while there are no sweeter camping- grounds in all the world than those offered by this exquisite country of flowers, fragrances, cold springs, and cool summer nights, not only to the robust hunter and fisherman, but as well to frailer lovers of nature. But the new park, large as it doubtless is destined to be, after all will cover but a small portion of the mountain region, and finally it is the people them selves who must keep the country beautiful. And A ROAD IN THE WOODS APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARK 33 this the canny mountaineer will do as soon as he recovers from his ancient fear of the forest and learns the new value of the tree. Among the most ardent workers for the passing of the Weeks Bill and for the Appalachian Park appropriation have been natives of these mountains, men of intellect and cul ture who have thrown all their strength into the contest, and who are still working for the good of the forests. The primeval forests must go . The older trees con tinually go anyway, for, excepting those marvels of our Far West, the trees grow old, die, and fall. But they need not go all at once, and under intelligent care new forests may take the place of the old so continually and so skillfully that we need not be conscious of the passing of the ancient groves. Every one owning land in these mountains should remember that it is also the sacred and inalienable right of the tree to bestow beauty on the landscape, and that the law reads: "Blessed is he who saves a noble tree or preserves a grove on the mountain-top." The lumberman, upon coming to a monarch of the forest so placed that it could survive the removal of the trees about it, should look at it with the eye of prophecy and pass by, leaving it to delight those who are on their way to the mountains, that vast army of pleasure-seekers whose coming will open up every beauty spot in the wilderness and also bring to the inhabitants of these noble heights a material wealth vying with that in the forests themselves. In these days of fast-moving events every feller of trees in the 34 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS North Carolina mountains ought also to exercise the functions of a landscape gardener. No one asks that great tracts of primeval forest be kept for sen timent, but one does ask that certain portions of exceptionally beautiful tracts lying along the most frequented routes of travel be hedged about by some protecting power. Moreover, on the slopes of those ridges that stand at imposing or beautiful points of view, the trees should be kept to preserve those picturesque sky lines so characteristic of these mountains and which are disappearing with startling rapidity. It is asking too much that we wait a hundred years for the trees to grow again before we can enjoy the pictures that have made the mountains in their early days so enchanting, and the destruction of which brings, comparatively speaking, so small a return. It is easy to cut a big tree, but we must wait a century or two to get it back again, and who of us can afford that? The genius of man has overcome the uttermost defenses of nature, and to-day the triumphant saw mill shrieks and devours in every stronghold of the mountains. The high places, the birth-chambers of the rivers, have struck their colors before the advance of the enemy. The sceptre has long since fallen from the hand of the red man. His successor roams the forest for pleasure, and also puts it to a thousand uses the aborigine did not so much as dream of; but the wisdom of the invader is such that he can if he will use the forest and yet preserve it, strengthen it, enhance its beauty, and increase its APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARK 35 efficiency while even curtailing its area, and he will, let us hope, transform our Southern mountains with the intelligence of his higher reason, supplanting the charm of wildness with the grace of beauty. Thus the triumphant forests will continue to fold these ancient heights in their protecting mantle, they will beckon the rains to come, and steady the long rivers that flow to the sea. Lovely, indeed, are the forests. V HOW SPRING COMES IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS IT comes slowly, which is its unique charm. In the North the spring holds back, then comes with a rush, tumbles its treasures in a heap at your feet, and is gone. Here the spirit of the South pre vails, and the spring gradually unfolds for three months, rising in a strong, slow tide that finally breaks over the land in a tremendous flood of color and fragrance and song. As early as February the alders wake up and shake out their tassels. Small, dark-purple violets peep out from the dead leaves of the woods. The deli cious fragrance that comes and goes you quickly trace to the clumps of brown-capped, purple little flowers of the Carolina pine-sap that are pushing up everywhere in the woods. The tops of the maple trees kindle to fire, and the colors of the leafless twigs everywhere begin to brighten. As March draws near, that illusive spring feeling gets into the air, and that odor of spring that so powerfully exhales from nothing in particular. The peeping of frogs is heard, and up the wind come the voices of the people unconsciously singing the uni versal hymn of spring. The trees are suddenly alive with birds. They, too, HOW SPRING COMES 37 have felt that monition of spring in the air, and are on their way from the Far South to the Far North. Flocks of robins and bluebirds appear as by magic, then, along with other flocks that have spent the winter with us, they vanish, off, no doubt, to build their nests in more northern climes. The chickadee, the titmouse, the nuthatch, the junco, the pine warbler, and many another lovely guest that has fed from our porch railing all winter, now share with flocks of migrants that remain with us a few days at a time. Birds on all sides are ecstat ically singing. What marvelous outpourings come from that most joyful of songsters, the Carolina wren! Suddenly a new note is heard in the chorus that has broken out everywhere, the veery has dis covered the coming of spring. A flock of song spar rows alighting in a budding tree-top all begin to sing at once, until it seems as though the tree had sud denly blossomed out in a bouquet of song. New life thrills the cardinal bird, who pours forth love-notes as he flashes, a streak of fire, through the air. Finches, tanagers, creepers, chats, woodpeckers, — birds, red, yellow, blue, and green, show like flowers among the trees, some to pass on, some to remain with us through the summer. The peach trees have burst into bloom, and on the ground in the woods you find clusters of pink- tipped buds and a few white blossoms peeping out from the evergreen leaves of the arbutus that car pets the woods in places. This is the beginning of a procession of flowers that might bewilder one in a 38 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS more hasty climate, but here there is also opulence in the matter of time. There is no hurry. The "pret ties," as the children here call all flowers, will linger day after day, week after week. Anemones, trilliums, ginger, eyebrights, violets, adder's-tongue, blood- root, hepaticas, all one's old friends have suddenly appeared as well as many a lovely stranger. All one's old friends would still be here if one came from the South instead of the North, for these mountains are a centre for the flora of the different sections of the country. There are certain flowers whose coming marks an era in spring itself, not because of their size or bril liancy, but because of some inherent quality that charms. Such a flower is the Iris verna. One thinks of the irises as inhabiting wet places, but not so this one, which grows everywhere in the dry woods, so charming a thing that having seen it one ever after associates it with the beauty of these forest floors. You watch as eagerly for the first iris as for the first arbutus. It is only three or four inches high, its color a clear amethyst blue, and besides being so lovely to look at, it is perfumed like a hothouse violet; that is to say, the variety with a touch of orange-yellow near the centre is so perfumed. There is one with a white centre, more delicate in color and contour than the other, a dream of beauty as one looks across gardens of it on some mountain-side, but it has no fragrance. With the Iris verna appears the bird's-foot violet, also in the dry woods and pale violet-blue in color. HOW SPRING COMES 39 Poised on a long stem with its lovely face held up to the sky, this large calm violet lends peculiar charm to the woods among the grays and delicate young greens of the forest floor. While the irises and violets are yet in bloom the heavy buds of the pink azaleas slowly expand, the scales open, and airy flowers emerge in bright clus ters that light up shady corners in the woods and brim the forest with their faint, refreshing fragrance. Like all the rest they linger long. There is no hurry. About the time that the pink azaleas begin to open, the earliest of the rhododendrons — those that tapestry the damp walls of the ravines with patterns of twisted limbs and thick evergreen leaves — be come embroidered with clusters of blush-rose and cream- white blossoms. But there are other signs of spring than the coming of birds and flowers. As the season advances, the dark tracery of the trees becomes intermingled with many colors as young leaves bud out of the stiff twigs and rival the flowers in beauty. As you now look off at the mountains, new colors appear among the dark pine trees. Pale green creeps daintily up the ravines proclaiming the awakening of the tulip- trees. Budding hardwood trees everywhere mingle delicate shades of pink and yellow and silver-white, soft greens, and bronze-reds, with the dark green of the pines. The forest is transformed, it gives the impression of one wreathed in smiles. The tide of life is rising strongly though yet slowly. The mountains, most of the time enveloped in a 40 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS soft haze, seem far away and unreal. The air is saturated with odors distilled from the earth and the tree- tops; fragrance streams as it were from the pores of things, and the aroma of the budding for est ascends like incense from the earth. Although the early spring is so ethereal in its beauty, shortly after the blossoming of the peach trees a remarkable change takes place in the general coloring of the landscape. The first delicacy and tenderness are for a time replaced by emerald green and other greens so strongly tinted with yellow as to need all the weight of the darker pines and the more sombre of the hardwood trees to tone down the vividness of the coloring. Pictures made at this time are laughed at and called impossible by those who have not been here to see how much gayer the real ity is than any brush could paint. Yet above all this riot, the forest, serene and enchanting, smiles like a sedate mother at the gay spirits of her children. In course of time these brilliant hues tone down and blend together. As the season advances, the earth puts forth blossoms more and more freely. Those banks of snow that fill whole ravines, those white ghosts that glim mer in the woods, are the white-flowering dogwood trees in bloom. Those rifts of rosy red along the ra vines and on the slopes are the close-set blossoms of the Judas-tree or red-bud that open at just this moment as though to heighten the effect of the snowy dogwood. The pines wake up with the other growths. They are always green, it is true, but they have HOW SPRING COMES 41 something in reserve for spring, every plume be coming tipped with fresh color as the petalless flowers, and later the groups of young needles, push out to the light. With the severe forms of the pines thus wreathed in garlands of spring, the transforma tion of the woods is complete. Throughout this enticing season it is impossible to stay indoors. Household cares by some divine alchemy are transmuted into unimportant details of the real life. Urgent business, it is discovered, can just as well wait until to-morrow. There is no hurry. The real duty of the moment is to walk abroad, or drive, or ride a gentle horse through the mazes of the awakening world. Wherever one goes flowers greet the eye, violets, pinks, saxifrages, col umbines — flowers familiar and flowers new. Gay butterflies are dancing about them like flowers with wings, and bright birds are singing everywhere. You climb the mountains to look for orchids and lilies and other rare blossoms. And many a time you traverse the lovely Pacolet Valley at the foot of Tryon Mountain, not only to see the flowers, but because of the delicate beauty that crowns it as a whole. For with its gentle, inclosing mountains, with the wonderful light filling it to the brim, with the exquisite colors that in the early morning and towards night, and at certain times even at midday, seem to convert the solid substance of the earth into an enchanting dream fabric, it is one of those crea tions of nature that have given us our poetic fancies of super-earthly beauty. And it was here, in the valley 42 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS at Lynn, that Sidney Lanier, who sang with in spired soul of the dawn he so loved, of the trees, the marshes, the sky; — it was here in the beautiful valley that America's most tuneful poet "waited for the dawn " through that last night of pain on earth. As you go about in the season of flowers, you can trace the water-courses by the white foam of the silver-bell tree standing close-ranked, every twig and branch fringed with delicate white bells. And when you approach a ford or a stream you may see the earth hidden under the dainty little shrub yellow-root with its charming foliage and its lace- work of small purple-brown flowers, a plant whose decorative value is well known to the landscape gar dener, who masses it along his roadways and under his trees, but which perhaps he may not always know is a monotypic genus, its only species being found along the eastern side of the New World ; — according to the botanies, though the wiseacres will shake their heads at this, and point a prophetic finger across the globe to the Celestial Empire that to-day is so fast giving up its many hoarded secrets. That waft of refreshing fragrance comes from the fringe-bush whose loose clusters of lacy white flow ers you see on the opposite bank. What is more sig nificant than this dainty and exquisite thing growing securely on the wild mountain-side? And how came it here when all other members of its family live in that remote Chinese Empire so mysteriously connected with us through the life of the plants? What was the bond that united us in past geologic HOW SPRING COMES 43 ages? And what tore those tender flowers asunder, separating them by continents and vast seas? When blossom the blackberry bushes that crowd into every cleared spot and border the paths and the roads, it is worth while going out just to see them, though it would be impossible to go out without seeing them, for the hedgerows everywhere are white like banks of snow. At their blooming- time in April or early May comes a cold storm called the "blackberry-blossom storm," as a similar spell of bad weather in the North when the apple trees are out is called the "apple-blossom storm." About Traumfest the blackberry has a rival in the Japanese honeysuckle, that, having escaped from the gardens, densely covers banks and open places. Red clay evidently suits it. It buries a stone wall or a fence in a year or two, blossoms tremendously, and loads the air with its delicious perfume. But out in the woods you will find a wild honeysuckle as lovely and as fragrant as its Japanese cousin and with blossoms greatly resembling it, reminding us of that mysterious relationship between the plants of the East and the West ; only it is less importunate than its imported relative, it does not smother the earth, but twines about the bushes in a modest manner, and its beautiful white flowers have richer tones of yellow and are sometimes flushed with pink. The red trumpet honeysuckle, loved by every child, also twines about the bushes on the mountain-side in company with other beautiful and fragrant mem bers of the same family. 44 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS The heavy curtains of leucothoe that hang over the water-courses have become embroidered with long white flower spikes. And walking at higher levels you will come across the little umbrella-leaf with its uplifted head of white flowers. You might not notice it among the wealth of more striking blos soms all about you, but you will never pass it un heeding when you remember that there is only one other known species of its family, and that that one opens its flowers in far-away Japan. If interested in these curious relationships, you will find on these mountains many a modest flower whose genealogy is inextricably intertwined with the flowers of the Orient. In this mysterious sister hood is the wistaria that so often adorns our homes and which is most closely connected in our thoughts with Japan, which we imagine ever wreathed in wistaria blossoms, as we see them twining about the screens and the drawings that come from that far land to us. It is the Japanese wistaria we cultivate and with which we are familiar, though we ourselves have one member of this very ornamental family. You will come upon our wistaria sometime in your wanderings in the lower mountains, where it will be seen climbing the trees and covering them with its mantle of leaves and its myriads of close bunches of purple-blue flowers, a charming thing whose day among the petted darlings of the garden doubt less yet will come. Of course, growing everywhere over the moun tains, though more abundantly and of larger size HOW SPRING COMES 45 in the higher mountains, is the highly prized galax, whose silky round leaves, green in summer, and rich wine-red in winter and spring, have taken the fancy of the city florist, sometimes to the discomfiture of the collector, who gets large orders for wine-red leaves in the summer from haughty florists who can not be induced to believe that red galax leaves, like red currants, have their season. One can have no idea what a really charming thing the galax is until one sees it thickly carpeting the woods. And what one never discovers, from seeing it in the stiff circles with which it surrounds the city nosegay, is that in the early summer it sends up all over the forest floor dainty white flower spikes. It, too, has its mystery and its romance, for who can doubt, learn ing that it is classed as a monotypic genus of eastern North America, that it has its kinsfolk across the earth, beckoning us to recognize the relationship between the races we look .upon as our antipodes? Huckleberries soon begin to blossom, but prettier than the flowers are the little bright red leaves that add so much to the color of the forest floor in early spring. And there is the sparkleberry, whose pale- green, neat-looking bushes are all a-dangle with little snow-white bells crowded as close as can be on their slender, swinging stems, precursors of the pale- green berries that make a great show because there are so many of them. The people sometimes make jelly of these berries, amazing jelly as bitter as gall. Important and beautiful as are all these flowers and budding leaves, the woods do not quite belong to 46 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS you until you have found something in them to chew. Then they are yours in an intimate and peculiar manner. This desire to taste is doubtless a survival of the child in us that we never quite outgrow. When we go into the woods we in a sense revert to a more primitive state, and the sight of sassafras excites the gustatory nerve. Sassafras is abundant. It blossoms like a burst of sunshine along the edges of the yet leafless woods, each of its bare branches terminat ing in a pretty amber ball of delicately fragrant and fringe-like flowers. There is nothing prettier than sassafras with the sun behind its blossoming twigs. One recalls a sassafras grove on a mountain slope that seemed to have been purposely planted, the trees were so regular in size and position, but the poor soul who owned it said it was a potato-field, and that the harder he tried to root out the sassa fras the better it grew. We who do not depend upon sassafras-land for our potatoes love the aromatic plant whose roots, stems, leaves, and flowers yield a pleasant fragrance as well as a pleasant flavor to those who have not outgrown their youthful habit of browsing in the woods ; and whose history has also its finer flavor of romance, since the sassafras exists as a single species in the eastern part of the New World, while one other species has been found in China. With the sassafras one often finds its near relative the spice-bush, whose botanical name is Benzoin, because of its fragrance, and whose pungent, cam phor-flavored bark is also pleasant to the taste. HOW SPRING COMES 47 There are seven known species of the spice-bush, two in the eastern United States, the others in Asia. Another shrub that belongs to us and eastern Asia and that tempts one to nibble is what the people here call "sweet bubbies." It appears in old-fashioned Northern gardens under the name of sweet-scented or flowering or strawberry shrub, but every child who has warmed the stiff, maroon-colored flowers in his hand — and what child has not? — will tell you instantly that "sweet bubbies" is the prefer able and proper name. The mountain children warm the sweet bubbies in their hands, but they do not have to go to a favored corner of some garden to find one. They can pick a bushel of them along the roadside within a stone's throw of the house. Like the sassafras, the sweet bubby is spicy to the core ; leaf, root, and branch possessing an agreeable flavor. "Horse sugar," the only North American member of its family, which otherwise lives in South America, Asia, and Australasia, is another early blossoming shrub whose flower clusters of little close-set balls of yellow fringe are fragrant and whose bark is aro matic. Its sweetish leaves, which the people say horses like to eat, have given it its popular name, but the botany, scorning frivolity, christens it Symplocos tinctoria. Of course sap that has exuded from the pine tree, when it hardens to just the right consistency, af fords never-failing solace to children of all ages who belong to the woods. Then there are the tips of the pine twigs that leave such a clean and pleasant 48 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS flavor in the mouth. We wanderers of the earth enjoy the forest with all our senses, and with its fragrance, its colors, its sounds, and its sweet juices we seem also to imbibe something of its freshness and its greatness. VI THE CARNIVAL THE early flowers are only the prelude in the floral drama that reaches its climax when the mountain laurel, the flame-colored azaleas, and the rhododendrons come upon the scene. Their appear ance converts the earth into a spectacle difficult to imagine, and although the outburst is so prodigious, there is no hurry, it is sustained, hanging suspended as it were in almost equal intensity for a month or more. It takes place in the lower mountains in May, in the higher ones, in June and July. One gets the first hint of what is coming when, driving up a certain mountain near Traumfest, one sees the snowy drifts of the dogwood through a veil of bright red-bud in the misty ravines; that mountain from whose side one looks down to where beyond the hills the lowlands spread, reaching like a summer sea to the far horizon, — the lowlands that wherever visible give an illusion of the sea that is sometimes wonderfully real, distance lending a misty blue to the level landscape out of which roll lines of hills like breakers white-crested with smoke or mist or "deadenings." A log cabin shaded by a large weeping willow rests in a hollow on the moun tain. Fig trees and rose-bushes grow about it, and aspring of cold water gushes out of the ground. From 50 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS the back door a winding path leads across a tiny " branch," across a hillside and across a hollow. Here while the dogwood is yet in bloom, one gets a glimpse of the flames that are presently to set the mountains ablaze. This first sight of flame-colored azaleas can never be forgotten. You come suddenly upon great clusters of flowers that blaze forth in a splendor that quickens the pulse. It seems incredible that anything could come to such perfection of beauty in the rude environment of the mountain side where so many plants struggle together for life. Even the celebrated azaleas of Ghent, the pride of the hothouse, pale before the marvelous beauty of these wild growths. All flowers are imprisoned sunshine in a figurative sense, but of no others does that seem so literally true as of these. They appeal to the imagination as deli cate flames incarnate. Each bush has its own colors. Before you stands one whose blossoms are the color of flames, beyond it is a bush clad in crimson bloom, and there behind the bright-green leaves of young trees one sees a blaze of scarlet. Orange-yellow shading to pale flame glows on the edge of the hollow ; a regal bush blossoming with the gold of ripe lemons stands a little apart ; as you look up the near hillside, your eye is caught by wonderful bronze tints, by shades of pink, and elusive pale-rose tints. In this arras of exquisitely blended colors, soft shadows lying on the petals yet more mingle their hues together. You feel as if something important had happened THE CARNIVAL 51 as you turn away from this your first view of the flame-colored azaleas in their native soil. You have a sense of possession and gratitude to the generosity that thus presents to you, not a laboriously culti vated plant in a pot, or even a great bed in a coun try garden, but a mountain-side of incomparable flowers as free as the air. The road up Rocky Spur at the time of the carni val of flowers is a succession of pictures where blossoming bushes are grouped at every turn. Over the slopes above you and the slopes below, between the straight tree-trunks and the leafy boughs, wherever the eyes rest, glow these flames of the azaleas. When you reach the central ridge, the high knife-edge top of the mountain where you can look off both sides, you see not only the landscape of mountain and valley immersed in the soft light, those far blue spaces and that near mingling of green foli age, but you have at your feet rolling down the southern slope of the mountain such a wave of bloom that suddenly seen makes you catch your breath. This is the end of the road, and leaving the carriage you go down the mountain-side into the sunny cham bers of the forest luminous with blossoms that in close and embrace you. Above your head hang clouds of gold, at your knee press billows of flame, all about you are great globe-like clusters of these incompar able flowers. You look towards the mountains that lie to the south, height upon height, the near ones green above with intense blue shadows towards their bases, 52 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS the more distant ones a sweet, mystical blue, and you know that on all those slopes far and near are blazing the same fires that illumine the earth about you. Being thus close to the flowers, you can not help noticing the exquisite texture of the petals, their great size, the symmetry of each flower and of the large clusters, as well as the ornamental shape of the bushes with the young leaves piercing through the bloom here and there in green points. It is the texture of the flowers and their width — some of them are almost round — that gives them that charm ingly expansive, one might say luscious, effect. The petals are so delicate that the light seems almost to shine through them. These wild azaleas of the South ern mountains lack the somewhat dense effect of the well-known cultivated plants, and when trans planted to parks and gardens they lose something of their sumptuousness, their wonderful clearness and richness of coloring, and to an extent their exquisite texture. They lose their aspect of dainty wildness and become as it were citified. To see the perfect fire of the azaleas you must come to their mountains. They may be found from south ern New York to Georgia, but only in the high parts of the Southern mountains do they attain perfection. Although the azaleas are so widespread as a family, why is it that this species with fire in its veins lives only here and in the Far East? The Himalaya Mountains, like the mountains of Carolina, have their slopes adorned with these tremendously glow ing flowers that gave to the gardens of Europe their THE CARNIVAL 53 choicest azaleas long before these of the New World were known. To find these azaleas one must ascend the moun tains, for they do not grow as low down even as Traumfest. When they are in bloom, we visit the Warriors for certain hollows, we go up Tryon Moun tain because of certain slopes, we frequent the wild heights of Hogback and Rocky Spur. We warm our senses for a month in the fire of the flowers, and then if we like we can go higher up — and enjoy it all over again. In the higher mountains the azaleas are more abundant than here, though they are no more beautiful, for that would be impossible. When those noble heights beyond the Blue Ridge wreathe themselves in flowers, one finds whole mountain sides aglow, for where the trees have been cut off, fiery azaleas oftentimes cover the wounded earth. The open spaces are resplendent beyond words, one sees acres of flower-flames ablaze on the slopes. These close-crowding bushes in the cleared places are low, laying a stunning carpet of color over the mountain side, but in the woods they grow tall, and you see them on all sides glowing in the shadows and burning in the sunlight. The outbreak of color is almost overwhelm ing, and one is grateful for those intervening spaces where are no flowers. From a world of exciting colors one passes into the cool and peaceful green of the forest, presently to turn a curve in the road and find the slopes again on all sides in furious bloom. Thus for a season the earth is transfigured, the mountains on all sides are burning with flames that 54 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS do not destroy. The spectacle is on a grand scale ; one can wander over thousands of square miles en compassed by flowers ; — beyond the limits of North Carolina these unconsuming flames have spread over hundreds of miles of the ridges and spurs of the Southern Appalachians, so that one seems to get lost even in thinking of it. The people call these azaleas "yellow honeysuckles," and get tired of them. The azaleas flaming throughout the forest are like great music, great poetry, great pictures ; they strike too high a note for the lives of the people. Such fervor wearies their unaccustomed nerves, and they turn for consolation to a calmer expression of the great renewal. For the flame-colored azaleas, marvelous as they are, form but a part of the flood of bloom that rolls over the mountains. About the time they appear, the fair and restful Kalmia latifolia, or mountain laurel, begins to open. The mountains here are green with kalmia — or laurel, as one prefers to call it — as the hills of the North are green with grass. When the forest is burned over, the mountain laurel rushes in and competes with young pine trees for the soil. It grows in impenetrable jungles in the ravines and along the water-courses. Where grown in the open and safe from fire, it attains great size, there being laurel trees about Highlands and elsewhere as large as ordinary apple trees. Generally, however, it appears as bushes from three to fifteen feet high that, annually covering themselves with bloom, light up the mountains from end to end. Standing waist- THE CARNIVAL 55 high on a level of low-growing laurel, the bushes con cealed by the heavy billowing masses of bloom, you seem to be afloat on a sea of flowers. The laurel freely covers the lower as well as the higher mountains. It wraps Traumfest as in a man tle. Who does not know the " laurel path " that winds through an otherwise impenetrable thicket? Over this path in the blossoming season you wade, as it were, through a flowery labyrinth that opens to let you pass and closes behind you as you follow the winding way. Masses of bloom lightly touch your cheek, or graze your shoulder, tall bushes loaded with blossoms close over your head — you pass under an arch composed of flowers. You look through an open ing in the bushes that surround you, and the slope below you is covered with a carpet of rosy-white bloom. In Traumfest some of us go out to see the laurel as the people of Japan go out to see the cherry blossoms. You climb Melrose to be buried in laurel bloom. You ascend heights that you may look down upon the earth hidden under flowers. Again you drive along the upper edge of a ravine that runs for miles bank full of laurel blossoms. The air is pervaded by the bitter-sweet smell of the flowers. The ground is white where the cups have begun to fall — or perhaps it is red, for there are bushes that bloom year after year as red as a rose, and others that clothe themselves in a gar ment of delicate pink. There are also those whose bloom is as white as snow, the crisp and upright cups scarcely pricked with the red dot that marks 56 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS the anther pockets so conspicuous in some of the laurel. Nothing is more charming than a laurel cup with the anthers on its recurved filaments still hidden in the little pink pits that indent the inside of the corolla in a circle. These curved and captured sta mens, pretty traps to force invading insects to bear away pollen on their wings, at the slightest touch spring back and curl up at the centre of the flower dusting the intruder, and you, passing among the laurel, are sure -to be dusted with little pellets of pollen bombarding you on all sides. And the cups themselves! Scalloped on the edges, shaped and decorated like tiny afternoon- tea cups, who does not know and love them! There is something familiar and homelike about laurel, and it is easy to under stand why the people prefer it to the azaleas. Like the New Englander they call it "calico-bush," a comfortable name suggesting Sunday starch and fresh young girls. And here, as in New England, the laurel is also known as "ivy," the name laurel being here bestowed upon the lordly rhododendron. The mountain-laurel and the flame-colored aza leas, though both so abundant, do not interfere with each other. There is room on the vast surface of the mountains for both. And while a zone of flower ing azaleas belts the mountains, just below it or in terrupting it or claiming intruding ravines is the tremendous calm sea of the blossoming laurel. As though the marvelous outbreak of the azaleas and laurel were not enough to express the joy of life A LAUREL PATH THE CARNIVAL 57 animating the earth, the rhododendrons open their regal buds. No one would think of calling the rho dodendron a "calico-bush"! It belongs by every line of its stately foliage and more stately blossoms to the aristocracy of plant life. Its thick, glossy, evergreen leaves, much larger than those of the laurel and darker in color, its tall growth and crooked stems make it a noticeable and very decorative presence even when not in bloom. At the elevation of Traum fest the greater rhododendrons do not grow, only those smaller, early blossoming ones whose more deli cate forms and exquisite pale-pink or white blos soms grace many a ravine and roadside bank. But on the higher mountains the slopes and ravines are often impassable because of the dense growths of rhododendrons, the king of which is the Rhodo dendron maximum, that sometimes becomes a tree forty feet high, though more often it is a large shrub. Smaller than this, seldom reaching a height of twenty feet, and very abundant on many of the mountains, is the Rhododendron Catawbiense, or mountain rose-bay, blooming earlier than the other, its large clusters of lilac or purple or sometimes rose- red flowers making one of the most showy spectacles of the carnival season, particularly as it chooses open places and the summits of the mountains to display its colors. How many mountain scenes one recalls made glorious by this splendid shrub, and perhaps nowhere does it give more pleasure to the eye than where it stands in groups on the long and beautiful 58 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS slopes of the Grandfather Mountain, those southern slopes sweeping down and down into the foothills of the John's River Valley. One of the finest roads in the mountains crosses this southern front of the Grandfather, winding through the forest and over the open places, keeping for many miles an elevation of about four thousand feet. It is in every sense a high place. The air is clean and cool and fragrant; in the distant spaces lie fair valleys and noble moun tains, while close about you the mountain rose-bay enchantingly colors the earth. The effect of these masses of bloom on the grassy slopes against the blue sky is lovely. The color of these flowers varies a good deal, all the way from rich purple-red to a clear, sweet rose- color. Some people condemn the flowers as "ma genta," seeing only that among all the colors they assume. But there are occasions when even this despised color can ravish the senses. Up near the top of the Grandfather Mountain, for instance, one should see the purple rose-bay against the blue- gray rocks in the quivering blue atmosphere of a summer day to find out how glorious a thing a ma genta flower in its right setting can be. As the mountain rose-bay passes, the great wax like flowers of the Rhododendron maximum come forth out of the heavy bud clusters. The Rhodo dendron maximum generally grows in ravines or along damp slopes, where it makes jungles of trop ical luxuriance. Its large flowers, which are usually white or a delicate peachy pink, grow in clusters THE CARNIVAL 59 like the flowers of the other rhododendrons, and though the Rhododendron maximum does not bloom so profusely as the laurel, the sight of the high wall of a ravine tapestried with its large dark-green leaves, in which the great flower clusters gleam out, is something to remember. The regal Rhododendron maximum is not so exciting as the flaming azalea, not so home-like as the laurel, nor so theatrical as the mountain rose-bay, but it possesses a degree of dignity and elegance belonging to it alone and that distinguishes it among all the forest growths. There are several species of the rhododendron found in different parts of the mountains, among them the charming little Rhododendron Vaseyii that, unlike the other rhododendrons, sheds its leaves in the fall. It was said at one time to be extinct, but this is not true, as any one knows who, early in the season, has seen the cliffs on the north side of the Grandfather Mountain brightly colored with its rosy bloom. The azaleas, laurels, and rhododendrons, although so abundant in the Southern mountains, are by no means confined to them, some species being found throughout the whole Appalachian system from Canada to Georgia. One recalls certain New Eng land pastures that are mantled in laurel, while the Rhododendron maximum occurs locally as far north as New Hampshire. The red-blooming mountain rose-bay begins its course in Virginia, making a won derful show in the Cumberland Mountains, as all will recall with pleasure who have passed through 60 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS the Cumberland Gap in its blooming season. And the flame-colored azaleas, as has been said, light their fires as far north as Southern New York, though they do not burn with the brilliancy and variety of color anywhere else as here where they so wonderfully set the slopes of the mountains ablaze. To the mountaineer all things are admissible that serve his ends, and one is horrified upon first coming to find him burning rhododendron and laurel wood because, he says, they make a hot fire good for cooking. Think of cutting down for such a purpose a rhododendron or a laurel tree with a trunk thick enough to be split into four sticks of wood ! Familiar ity with the country, however, modifies this horror. When there is rhododendron enough to get lost in, one can afford to burn a little now and then. With the passing of the azaleas, the laurel, and the rhododendrons, the fervor of the blooming season here subsides, and it is then that one being in Traum fest often goes down to a certain stream over which a bridge unites two cornfields. At either end of this bridge on the edge of the water grow large azalea bushes different from the others. These now begin to put forth, not pink nor flame-colored azaleas, but snowy white blossoms with a strong and spicy frag rance that carries one back to certain New England swamps where one learned to love and watch for these fragrant things. These are the last of the azaleas down below and the only white ones. But there is a species of white azalea up on Toxaway THE CARNIVAL 61 Mountain and elsewhere, closely resembling this of the brookside, though it grows on the dry slopes, yielding the same delicious fragrance. It may be said in passing that sweet-fern, dear to the heart of every one familiar with New England pastures, also grows on Toxaway, Pisgah, and other of the high mountains. What a turn it gives one to see it here unexpectedly and to smell its incomparable odor, an odor that more than any other revives slumbering memories. But these fragrant white azaleas are like the epi logue at the end of the play. When the gleaming petals of the Rhododendron maximum fall away, the curtain has dropped on the Carnival of the Flowers, and spring moves on into summer and fruitage. VII SUMMER IN THE MOUNTAINS AFTER the reckless profusion of spring, what is left for summer in the matter of flowers? There is indeed nothing to match the early display, yet the summer is not flowerless, and it has a beauty of its own in the fruitage that overwhelms one for a time. One notices how vines are everywhere twining and climbing, — festooning the trees, overlaying the bushes, tying the tall weeds together, clematis here, woodbine there, smilax, trumpet-vine, so many vetches, so many pretty vines whose names one does not know, — how they cling and climb and riot in luxuriant life! Everywhere along the ravines the forest trees are hung with the strong cables of the grapevine, whose foliage mingles inextricably with that of the tree it mantles, and whose delicious fragrance loads the air about the time the little white urns of the persimmon tree fall to the ground brimmed with delicate perfume. We find six kinds of morning-glories choking up our vegetable garden in August. We have given up all hope of vegetables, but we go out in the morning to rejoice in the glory of the usurper. Those vines with star-shaped leaves that run over garden and fields, fairly carpeting the earth in places, are pas- SUMMER IN THE MOUNTAINS 63 sion-flower vines, as you would know from the won derful flowers that cover them. Think of red earth numbering among its weeds the great blue disks of the passion-flower. Your garden is a riot of bloom ing weeds, so that you cannot see anything else. Everything except the vegetables has grown as though possessed. Not that all this marvelous growth even of weeds is without its difficulties. There are caterpillars. Besides these, many other hungry insect guests of the summer appear as if on purpose to cut short the mad career of the plants — sometimes with ludicrous abruptness. But these incursions seem generally to take place after the plant has accomplished the maturing of seeds enough to weed down the earth another year. Now from the depths of the woods comes the voice of the " moaning dove," as the negroes call it, whose frequently uttered coo — 0000 — 00 in the hot, still, summer days fills the heart with an indescribable sadness and longing, and the wood thrush yet heralds and closes the day with its ringing notes. At the faintest hint of dawn one hears a clear, soft refrain. Like the morning prayer of the Arab that passes from tower to tower, the song of the thrush is caught up by bird after bird until the air throbs with song. This lasts until the sun is shining, when the ecstatic hymn to the dawn ceases. Yet silence does not reign when the birds stop, for the insect chorus, that began in the spring with weak chirps and trills, has swelled to a deafening shout 64 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS that ascends as the sun goes down, stops suddenly before dawn, only to be renewed, though less vocif erously, by other insects during the day. Cicadas spring their rattles and whirr past in startling prox imity to your face, and when the "seventeen-year locusts" swarm out on Tryon Mountain, you must needs shout into the ear of your companion as you drive through the forest vibrating with their shrill voices. It is almost as noisy as a storm at sea, and it is hard to understand how these hordes happen to have their seventeen-yearly anniversary so often. But excepting for the locusts on Tryon Mountain, the turmoil of the day is nothing to that of the night. One wonders who they all are, those strident-voiced myriads hidden under the leaves. Above everything else rise the insistent cries of the katydids, while out of the woods come all kinds of purrings, and squeak- ings, and trillings. Those little meteors that trail through the bushes are fireflys, as are also the rap idly moving constellations of stars that gem the treetops. Always in summer a voice rings out as the sun goes down, and continues chanting its wild refrain all night and every night, until stilled by the cold of winter. Whip-poor-will ! whip-poor-will I — some times you will hear half a dozen of these tireless vocalists performing at once. Another voice of the night is the soft, tremulous call that comes down the aisles of the forest when the sun sets and the little downy owls come forth. The owl, it is said, puts the night to evil uses, catch- SUMMER IN THE MOUNTAINS 65 ing and eating the birds and despoiling their nests of eggs and young; but whoever has heard the many sweet cadences, the crooning, caressing tones of these fluffy, nocturnal revelers, will be convinced that the chief occupation of the owl at night is the pursuit of happiness. Sometimes far away, deep-toned, and mysterious comes the hoo — 000 — 000, hoo — 00 of the great horned owl, and you, listening, can easily be lieve that he at least is up to mischief. You do not often see the owls, but sometimes walking in the woods at dusk a shape will float past noiseless as a disembodied spirit. In the higher mountains there are no mosquitoes, and there used to be none at Traumfest in those good old days before the stranger had begun to "im prove" the place. The summers of Traumfest are sweet beyond words to express and the thermometer goes no higher here than in the North, — not so high very often, — and the nights are cool ; but the hot season lasts longer, so that those accustomed to five or six weeks of midsummer heat sometimes grumble when they get four months of it. But no one who has not spent a summer here can hope to know what these woods are capable of in the way of sweet smells. All the mountaineer does these days is to "work the corn" with a cultivator, if he happens to have one with the necessary adjunct of a mule; or other wise with a slow hoe. Sometimes he does not work it, and complains of the result. The corn crop looks like a joke to the newcomer accustomed to corn in other regions. "What are you doing? " was asked of 66 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS a boy busy in a field of young corn so sparse as to excite mirth. The boy looked up, and cheerily re plied, "Oh, I am thinning the corn." And so he was! When the corn has been properly thinned, you will find but one stalk to a hill and the hills far apart, excepting in the river bottoms where the showing is better. Man ploughs the corn, but woman often hoes it, she and the children. The children begin to hoe at the age of eight, and you will often see them busy in the fields, both boys and girls — but it is not necessary to pity them, for they like it. The cornfield is ever present in the landscape, not only covering the valley bottoms, but lying precari ously on the steepest slopes surrounded by the forest. Beans are often planted with the corn, where they climb the convenient stalks, but it is the corn one sees, and the corn which gives that odd domestic touch to the wild scenery of the Southern mountains. For corn is not only the principal food of the moun taineer, but supplies as well that important bever age, variously known as "corn-juice," "moonshine," "mountain-dew," "blockade," "brush whiskey, "and in the outer world, ' ' corn- whiskey , ' ' which is extracted from the grain and surreptitiously distributed. Fortunately this important crop is able to defy the rigors of the summer and conquer, with man's help, the overwhelming army of weeds — or flowers ; for many of these wild growths could be called "weeds" only by a soulless farmer regardless of everything but crops. As summer advances, the compositae begin to IN SUMMER TIME SUMMER IN THE MOUNTAINS 67 carpet the fields with cloth-of-gold, and tapestry the hedges with gay colors, but the summer flowers are as nothing compared to the procession of fruits that, beginning in the spring with strawberries, lasts throughout the hot season. Strawberries at Traum fest are ripe in May, and so are cherries, — what there are, for the cherry does not flourish here ; and no sooner does the fruit turn red on the few trees lovingly watched by their owners than there appear upon the scene a large and happy flock of cedar wax- wings, for no slight reason named "cherry-birds." When the procession of fruits is fairly started, you will have hard work to keep up with it for a few weeks. About Traumfest plums, peaches, peaches, peaches, berries, the most delicious of grapes, — Traumfest is noted for its grapes, — apples, — such as they are, — figs — and melons! Wagonloads of watermelons stand about waiting, not in vain, for customers. You know the approach of the melon season from the vanguard of empty rinds lying along the roadside. There is no trouble getting at a melon. All you need do is to "bust it open," root into the crisp, pink, and juicy interior with your hands, and go ahead. This the negro children do, lacking a knife, and you will see them, tears of pure delight, as it were, streaming from the corners of their happy mouths. The Southern watermelon! What other fruit ever bestowed such joy on humankind. To see a Carolina negro camped down before a big water melon is to see what the philosophers try to make us believe does not exist, — a perfectly happy mortal. 68 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS How we do revel in ripe fruit ! And then — all of a sudden — the procession has passed. The seemingly endless abundance stops short. You realize with a sort of anger that it has gone. Why did you not eat more? Why did you not pickle, preserve, can all those vanished blessings tenfold more than you did? It seemed as though such abundance could never end — and now — ! But it is not quite ended. If you look over those fields where, in spite of the efforts of the farmer, the great blue passion-flowers bloomed all summer, you will see leathery-skinned fruits as large as a goose egg lying about by the basketful. These are may- pops. If you break open a thoroughly ripe one, you will be assailed by an aroma that makes you think of tropical fruits, of perfumed bowers, of Arabian Nights banquets, of fairy gardens, and strange tropical flowers. Inside, the maypop resembles a pomegranate, but the patrician pomegranate has no such heavenly flavor as has this wild and worthless maypop. What our fruit-makers are thinking of not to cultivate the maypop, one cannot imagine. It offers possibilities that ought to tempt them be yond the power of resistance. In some parts of the mountains the people call the may pops "apricots" and eat them, though they belong principally to the age of childhood. These strange, exquisite, good-for- nothing fruits are the product of the passion-flower vine. Later than the cultivated grapes, about the time of the maypops, come the wild grapes, among them SUMMER IN THE MOUNTAINS 69 the large sweet muscadines that the country children bring in by the bushel. These come on the edge of autumn, but before the summer is over there is yet a unique and gorgeous display in the plant world that cannot be ignored. It is not flowers this time, though as the summer nears its end, the ground blossoms out in the most extraordinary manner. What are those large gold plates lying in the woods? Those exquisitely yellow, or orange, or pink or purple disks, those masses of coral, red, yellow, or ivory-white? Those pearly or snowy caps? Those enormous frills and those smoky little buttons? Ah, yes, they are the mushrooms! How many shapes and sizes and colors spring up in a night! Sometimes they are beautiful and sometimes they are not. But they are always amusing, as though trying to tell us to take all this fuss and fury of the fruits and flowers calmly, or even somewhat as a jest. "After all, what mat ters it?" they seem to say; "they are gone and here are we, just as gay and twice as funny"; and they roll up or straighten out into all sorts of shapes. They break the spell of the flowers and fruits, as it were, and put one in mood for the next great event, the vivid and most tender splendor of the autumn. VIII AUTUMN SLOWLY Autumn kindles her torch. Here and there a yellow leaf shows among the green. Then comes a premonitory softening of the whole land scape. Then colors, almost as dainty as those of spring, creep over the earth, so slowly that time and again you decide there is to be no great display this year, when, some warm November day, you look out to find the world transfigured. The difference between the autumn coloring of the North and of the South is that there it is brilliant, while here it is tender. There the hardwood trees blaze, here they glow. The reds that here so wonder fully emblazon the book of nature have a peculiar delicacy and softness of tone that give a character of its own to the landscape. As the oak leaves deepen to wine-red, the dogwoods turn exquisite shades of old-rose and pink, and the sourwood adds its ruby splendor. The tall pyramidal forms of the sweet- gum, mantled in dark purple or deep reds touched with orange, add depth to the color-tone of the forest, or its leaves turn yellow, — and sometimes all these colors mingle together on the same tree. A sweet-gum in autumn dress with the sun through it fairly takes one's breath. Sassafras points the woods with thrilling spots of scarlet, orange, and AUTUMN 71 red. Sumac burns in the hedges, while huckleberry and other bushes crimson the ground. Mingling with the reds, or apart by themselves, are the clean yellows characteristic of this region. Tall tulip-trees stand in the hollows and along the ra vines with crowns of gold. Hickories and beeches add their yellows and browns, and the chestnut oak, when other oaks are red, keeps up the pretense and turns golden-brown, the color of fading chestnut leaves. The whole world is at times immersed in a light that strangely enhances its beauty. Is it smoke that makes those intensely blue spaces under the trees? The forests have not yet begun to burn, only the people are burning brush here and there. The color seems to be in the air itself. The very tree-trunks often look blue, the delicate, mystical blue of the Blue Ridge Mountains. One wakens day after day to transports of color. Out of each window a new scene constantly unfolds. The sun shines in to you through a tent of red and yellow leaves that incloses the house, and the moun tains seen through them take on intenser tones of rose-color and blue, of purple and peacock green. The mountain slopes far and near at this time seem hung with an arras from some enchanted loom. The splendid colors of the hardwood trees are interwoven with the sunny plumes of the pines, while here and there the twisted crown of an ancient pine tree is drawn in strong lines against the glowing back ground, while golden sunlight sifts and quivers through it all. 72 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS Slowly the autumn draws on, and slowly it passes, lingering as lingered the coming of spring, sometimes sustaining its flames well into December. Indeed, there are splashes of crimson remaining all winter, for which one has to thank the horse-brier, the most exasperating plant that grows, but to see it in mid winter festooning the young trees and the bushes with its trailing wreaths of fire is to forgive it every thing. If you go down to the brookside in Novem ber, supposing the flowers are gone and the winter at hand, you will meet with a pleasant surprise. Those deep blue spindles standing upright among the fallen leaves are closed gentians, more graceful and of a deeper, purer blue than the closed gentians of the North. When the leaves are taking on their autumn colors, the cornfields turn to gold, and men, women, and children go out to "pull fodder," an occupation that in the meadowless regions, and to an extent all through the mountains, takes the place of haying, and, consistently, is less arduous. The stripped-off leaves and the cut-off tassels are hung up to dry on the yet standing stalk in the crotch made by the ear of corn, or sometimes in the crotch of a convenient tree. And that is all there is to it. When the fodder-pullers have finished their work and the dried fodder has been "toted" home, the cornfield for a time presents the most extraordinary appearance in its history. It suggests a company of pygmies, each standing erect with his pack over his shoulder, for the heavy ears of corn turn down and AUTUMN 73 are all that is left on the stripped and beheaded stalks. Throughout the mountains these absurd cornfields are a feature of the autumn landscape, lying on the slopes, covering the valley bottoms, and appearing without warning in the midst of an other wise unbroken forest. The Northern visitor some times compares them, to their disadvantage, with other cornfields of his acquaintance, where noble stacks stand in even rows, great golden pumpkins scattered over the ground between. But what he does not consider is that such a cornfield would be out of place here, and the golden pumpkin might strike a false note. Pumpkins there are, it is true, but they are pink, thus failing in one of the most important functions of a pumpkin. A pink pumpkin ! But it would do very well if called by some other name; that is, as an ornament, for you can by no means make good pies out of a pink pumpkin, "pumpkin pie" remaining the unchallenged treas ure of the North. In course of time the ear of corn also disappears from the bereft stalk, it is " toted "home and husked , then a part is shelled and the white and wrinkled kernels ground into the sweetest meal in the world, between the slow stones of little mills that stand along the water-courses. If a man is successful in life and owns "right smart of corn-land," he will likely have his own mill, though it may be no larger than a good-sized chicken coop, with perhaps a wooden wheel, taller than itself, on the outside, a wheel that turns slowly and with dignity, the silver 74 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS water dropping from the broad paddles in a miniature cascade. The miller in the smaller mills is sometimes a woman in a sunbonnet, but running the mill is not very hard work, since it often consists in pouring the corn into the hopper, then going away for a few hours or all day, and coming back in the fullness of time to take the sweet meal from the box below the leisurely stones. Besides the cornfields there are those frequent fields of something that "imitates corn a right smart," as the people say, but which is only sorghum, from which in the fall the mountaineer extracts molasses for home consumption. Sorghum is a pic turesque crop from first to last. When the slender stalks have been cut, the juice is expressed from them in sugar-mills simpler even than the corn-mills. Between two cogged wheels the long canes are fed by a patient man sitting on a log, while the wheels are turned by a patient mule at the end of a long beam, walking forever round and round and going nowhere. During this process the family is generally grouped about the mill, while the vat into which the sweet juice runs is the scene of tragic deaths, as into it crowd bees, flies, and wasps greedy for a share of the harvest. Near the cane-mill, and like it standing in the open air, is a large pan under which a fire is built and in which the juice is boiled — bees and all. Standing over the caldron is a man enveloped in clouds of steam as with a long pole he stirs the bub bling sweet. In a short time "them molasses" is done. Sorghum cannot be reduced to sugar, or, if it THE SORGHUM-CUTTER AUTUMN 75 can be, it never is here in the mountains. It is put into jugs and provides the principal "sweetening" of the family. Man is so close to the soil here that he recognizes the relationship. He sees his bread — and molasses — come directly from the earth. He loves the land, and the ambition of every youth is to possess a little farm of his own. In the wild forest he clears a place, plants the corn, cultivates it, watches it grow, gathers in the harvest, grinds the meal and makes the bread, most of these things being done in the open air. And there is no hurry. He feels the sun and the wind, he looks into the forest and is not afraid, neither is he unhappy. The cornfield is almost the boundary of his desires. He sells corn, or its equivalent in "blockade," for money with which to supply his needs. He fattens his pigs on corn and with it feeds the poultry. The mule and the horse eat corn, knowing no other grain. It is fed to them on the cob, since shelling corn for an animal able to shell it for himself would be a waste of time. Although the corn is the hope of the farmer, one sees an occasional oat-field, and sometimes a field of wheat or rye, but these seem to have been sown for the purpose of beautifying the landscape, the red soil showing through the scattering blue or green stalks with pleasing effect. In some valleys of the higher mountains these grains may be raised with profit, but on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge corn is the safer crop; although the people have a beautiful faith in the possibilities of their land, one 76 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS farmer proudly saying of his venture in wheat, ' ' There never was no better-headed wheat on earth, what there was of it — but there wa'n't none." And these fortunate people are as cheerful under failure as they are hopeful of success in impossible conditions. "What you doin' up there, Dicky?" your driver calls out one day derisively to a man gathering an almost invisible crop from a hillside. "Nigh about nothin'," Dicky cheerfully responds. Autumn is not wholly devoid of fruits, though about Traumfest summer claims the greater share of those that elsewhere belong to the later season; maypops linger on, and when their time is past there comes the triumphant harvest of the autumn, which harvest also belongs to winter. Persimmons are ripe ! — a crop that never fails. When the autumn woods are in their glory, the persimmon tree is cov ered with a glory of its own, every twig being loaded with little flattened globes, salmon pink in color and covered with a bloom that in the shadows is deep blue. But be careful of these tricksy fruits, for pretty as they are, they may not yet be perfectly ripe, and until they are, nobody — not even the most longing negro — shakes a tree, for the pucker of a green per simmon is such as to set even the teeth of memory on edge. When ripe they begin to fall, and when you find a treeful of good ones, for there is great choice in persimmons, you will know why the negro loves them so. Inseparably connected with the persimmon in one's mind is the 'possum. For the 'possum loves AUTUMN 77 the 'simmon as the nightingale loves the rose. Of a dark night he may be found sitting in the tree among the ripe fruit. He gets fat on 'simmons, and acquires that peculiarly rich and delicate flavor so highly appreciated by the negro. All through the hunting season you are wakened by the excited bark of the 'possum dog, accompanied by the wild yells of the negroes and an occasional gunshot. The 'possum dog, like the poet, is born, not made. You can never know what dog will develop genius in this direction, excepting that you may be sure it will be one of pure mongrel strain. The 'possum dog is no beauty, but he is worth his weight in 'possums, which is the same as saying he is a very valuable dog. There is no denying that fat 'possum is a dish for the gods. If you live in the South you will doubtless some day bake a fat 'possum, that is to say, you will bake it, figuratively speaking, for the actual task must be performed by a generous, genial black cook who loves 'possum. She bakes it con amore, and with sweet potatoes. The memory of one's first 'possum dinner lingers like a happy dream. After eating it, one does not wonder at or blame the negro for spending night after night in the woods — to the detriment of his day's work — in hilarious quest of the fat 'possum sitting among the persimmons, — the fatiguing, happy, and exciting hunt to have the sequel of "baked 'possum and sweet taters." Baked 'possum is the Christmas goose of the epicurean negro, and as the season moves on, the voice of the 'possum dog is heard in the woods assist- 78 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS ing in the preparations for that season of high living and neglect of work which is the negro's perquis ite, inherited by him from the days of slavery. "Christmas" about Traumfest does not mean a niggardly twenty-fifth of December; it means that, and all the days following, until sunset of New Year's Day. To be fair, however, one must add that in these modern, trying times, the week-long holiday is very much interrupted by daily labor. It is a fic tion more than a fact, yet it no doubt adds a certain feeling of festivity to the day's work, a feeling that one is somehow having an extra good time, though it might be hard to tell just where to put your finger on it. IX IS IT WINTER? IT is winter, according to the almanac, and the dates on the Northern newspapers that come regu larly and too often. For the newspaper is a sort of inverted anachronism here where life is a good half- century behind the times. Why waste the golden hours reading things that by the time we catch up with the world will have been happily forgotten by everybody? The leaves have fallen, but it does not look like winter, the laurel is so green on the slopes and the pine trees are so sunny, while the uninvited mistletoe burdens the oaks with its pale-green form. Birds are singing — the wren always believes it will be summer to-morrow, and comports himself ac cordingly. The air acquires a sparkling quality, with out wholly losing its softness. The native people speak of the coming of winter as a calamity, and you, too, half dread the cold that is to pinch, and yet does not come. But one day it does come. The wind howls, the air is icy, and your blood chills. You fill the fireplace with logs, and re sign yourself to the inevitable. But in three days you are out without a hat. How warm the sun, how deli cious the air ! And was there ever such color on the mountains! One has a rare surprise in this color of the winter mountains. They remain so warm and 80 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS tender. They are drowned in light, and assume the marvelous pale blue which is unlike the blue of other mountains. But sometimes they are lilac, and blue in the shadows, or they are white and blue. They some times look white through the trees, a pure gleaming white with intense blue spaces, though there is no snow on them, only a shimmering light as though they were giving back the sunshine absorbed by them through the long summer. It is in the winter months that one gets that glow on the mountains, so tempting and so illusive to the painter's brush, when towards night you often see the southern slopes tinged with the pink of the wild rose, again warm lilac or deep red, while the sky and the earth that inclose them are sympathetic shades of blue and gray. It is nearing Christmas and Christmas berries are blazing in the thickets. Down the Pacolet Valley rustling canebrakes are green and gold, while golden sedge-grass spreads over slope after slope, its silky white plumes trembling in the breeze. In our drives about the country we soon discover why the people dread the winter. It does not take very cold weather to make one shiver over an open fire, when the house walls are open to every breeze that blows and one's clothes are not winter-proof. One never sees a winter wood-pile in this country, and as to "filling the cellar," with the ant-like thrift of the New Englander, it is undreamed of. There are no cellars, neither the quality of the land nor the climate lending itself favorably to cellars: one rea son, perhaps, for dreading the winter. Corn-pone, og « oS >< 3 ^H^ttw* • ^91 WBB^aBitMl MWE^.^K#l>ff?'^Mi |F .v5J| ¦S^SBfilffiSPT^S gpr -.. ._ -**=«¦ g^a mg?*--jM SS *¦!-_ , H^A'^Ja - k^^^p^ m 1^41 H?z ' |m ,J^fl - Ji H^HI |^Bh -'"tjw^"* 4. . ^F ?a V*HE* ' iPf !._.... rPr - ¦ > \JHB WHITESIDE MOUNTAIN HIGHLANDS 251 hanced by those human touches that send us sight seeing to foreign lands. Even in Italy, away from the seacoast there is nothing in the way of natural scenery more beautiful than our own Southern mountains, we lacking only that instinctive feeling for the beautiful that makes every son of that fair land build his house with pleasing lines and place it sympathetically in the landscape, the row of columns, the arcade, the terrace, the stone wall, the statue, put, as by inspiration, each in its perfect place. Nowhere in the mountains does one find more beautiful natural growths than at Highlands, where the laurel and rhododendron grow to trees and flam ing azaleas set whole mountain-sides ablaze, and here one remembers finding wild lilies-of-the-valley. But that which characterizes the scenery of this region, separating it distinctly from the rest of the mountains, is the presence of the many bare preci pices that on all sides drop into unseen abysses, the most terrible of all being the long wall of Whiteside Mountain, that makes a sheer descent of fifteen hundred feet and has the distinction of being the grandest precipice this side the Rockies. Yet even these cliffs cannot give a cruel aspect to the country, because over all their savage tops hang delicate vines and dainty shrubs. Smiling flowers of the rose-bay look fearlessly over the edge and the white lace of the fringe-bush sheds its perfume down the stern front of the rock. The nearest point of view at Highlands is perhaps Black Rock, that drops in a sheer wall nearly a 252 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS thousand feet into Horse Cove, and from whose rim one looks into a wide abyss floored with tree-tops, and beyond this to mountains billowing away as far as one can see. At a point on the brow of the preci pice, far in from the road and surrounded by flowers that have escaped from its gardens, stands a house as though on guard, the first house of importance in this region, although many pleasant homes have since appeared. It was built by Captain S. P. Rav- enel, of Charleston, who came about a generation ago when life was yet so primitive that lumber had to be carted a distance of more than thirty miles up the mountains. The dining-room floor, made of alternate strips of black walnut and oak, reminds us that walnut trees were not uncommon in this region at the time the house was built. In the charming wil derness the Ravenel family not only made a beauti ful summer home for themselves, but, through their interest in the people about them, they stamped a lasting impress upon the community. For besides building roads and making other civic improvements, they built a church, and by their contact with the native people brought inspiration and hope to many a longing heart, as well as a knowledge of those re finements of life which are man's latest and best inheritance. A favorite walk from Highlands is to the top of charming, flower-graced Satulah that rises some thing less than a thousand feet above Highlands, and where one gets an open view in all directions. The granite walls of Whiteside, sheer and terrible, HIGHLANDS 253 or else veiled in a misty blue atmosphere, sharp Chimney Top to the right of it and the bold form of Shortoff to the left, rise conspicuously above the countless mountains that reach away to the far Bal sam and Pisgah Ranges, while against the western sky is seen the ever-beautiful form of the Nantahala Range. Turning now towards the south, away from the tumultuous sea of the high mountains, one looks off over the receding levels of Georgia, out of which rises the calm and beautiful form of the Rabun Bald, lending a great sense of peace to the landscape. The road from Highlands to Whiteside Mountain winds along through a thin forest and gives no hint of what is coming until you reach the "bench" of the mountain, where all of a sudden the land drops in a vertical wall to the valley below. From this bench the mountain-top rises precipitously above your head, the path up through the trees and bushes being very steep, like a flight of steps in places ; but it is also very sweet, and you stop every few mo ments to gather a flower, inhale the fragrance of some blossoming bush, and look off at the mountains lying far away. The top of the mountain, although somewhat less than five thousand feet in elevation, gives one a feeling of being very high above the earth. For the air is singularly stimulating, and the rocks are cov ered with the growths of high places, among them "heather," as the people call the delightful little evergreen Dendrium buxifolium, and the hardwood trees through which the path leads are dwarfed and 254 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS twisted, like trees that have had to battle with the elements for life. To go to the edge and look directly down requires a steady head and should be done with caution, for the rock is bare and polished, and but for a ledge where bushes grow, a ledge scarcely noticeable a short distance away, it resembles, as some one has said, a stupendous petrified waterfall. In some lights this appalling front gleams white as snow, which has given the mountain its name. The characteristic feature of the scenery from Whiteside is the up- springing cliffs of the nearer mountains, impressive walls that would be more terrible if those close to you were not wreathed in verdure, and the more dis tant ones softened by the tender lights and the cloud mists that so often lie about them, although there are clear, hard days when the cliffs look savage enough. And there are times when Whiteside Mountain becomes the theatre of a scene so terrific that to wit ness it is a landmark in one's life. It was on a cloud less summer day that one walked along the top of Whiteside far enough to see the cliffs of the Devil's Court-House, as the turret-like northern end of the mountain is called. One remembers admiring the little cloud that suddenly appeared in the intense blue of the sky, and the merry massing of white clouds that came rolling sweetly up over the edge of the horizon. You started to descend because of them, but finally decided that they were going around. You did not know that no cloud ever goes THE DEVIL S COURT-HOUSE HIGHLANDS 255 around Whiteside. A great bird dropped suddenly out of the sky with half-closed wings and disap peared in a cleft of the rocks. There was something about the arrow-like descent of that bird into the mountain that made you feel uneasy and you hurried down, but before you got to the bench, the storm was muttering and clouds were boiling over the whole sky. It seemed better now to wait until the storm was over than to risk driving through the woods. What happened next is difficult to describe. When the storm struck, you found yourself holding your large black horse by the halter, the mountain woman who had brought you there clinging to the other horse. At each crash of thunder the frightened animals plunged and reared, but when the one you held came down, it laid its quivering nostrils against your cheek, as though begging forgiveness and imploring you to save it. The lightning seemed pouring out of the clouds as from some devil's caldron. At each deafening explosion it was seen darting in all direc tions over the stony floor. Electrical fire fell about us like rain. The metal parts of the carriage were struck, strange electrical thrills coursed through our nerves. Rain fell in torrents icy cold, while an icy wind drove it against us in lines almost parallel to the earth, and threatened to sweep us over the cliff. It would have been dark almost as night but for the constant play of the pallid lightning. The face of the woman who, a little way off was clinging to her horse, was ghastly green in color; — "Are we dying?" 256 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS she sobbed — it seemed we were, but you put on as hopeful a front as possible to help her. And then — the whole earth seemed shattered to pieces, the woman and her horse fell as though shot, and lights played about them on the rock. Heaven knows how long it lasted. It seemed hours. It vanished almost as suddenly as it came, and when the sun burst out we discovered we were yet alive, drenched to the skin, and our teeth chat tering with cold and fright. The woman and her horse had struggled to their feet, she with legs so numb that she could scarcely stand and the horse quivering in every muscle. We managed to attach the trembling animals to the carriage, which, though repeatedly struck, had not been destroyed, and get back to Highlands. It was weeks before one fully recovered from the effects of the adventure, and one wonders if the poor woman and the horse she held ever fully recovered. It was the worst electrical storm known for years, and why we chose that particular day to go to White side with its Devil's Court-House who can say? For from the bench of Whiteside the native people, those who live in that region, flee in terror at the slightest sign of an approaching storm. It is a noted battle-ground. To stand in the midst of a conflict of the gods where lightning bolts are the weapons is an experience one would not dare to court, but having survived it, it becomes one of those great headlands in life the existence of which is worth whatever may have been the cost of discovering them. HIGHLANDS 257 It is the hardness of the massive granite in this region which has preserved the great upright cliffs through the ages, and because of the hard and pre cipitous nature of the rocks, this part of the country is gemmed with waterfalls, of which there are half a hundred within a few miles of Highlands, each one worth a visit. Characteristic of Highlands are the many roads that go from it as a centre, or, perhaps one should say, go towards it, for here all roads lead to High lands, that is, all upward roads. Our favorite in by gone days was perhaps the "Old Franklin Road," where the Nantahala lay so sweetly in the sky before us as we went. It was hard to get over the Old Franklin Road even then, and now it is probably all gone, the new road having taken its place. But whether one goes to Franklin by the old road or the new, there is to be seen that lovely line of the Nantahala towards which one's course is directed. In the picturesque Cullasagee Valley — "Sugar Fork" the people call it, rudely translating the soft Indian name — you leave the main road and go through the woods to the fall whose thunder pre pares you for the headlong leap of the stream down nearly a hundred feet of vertical cliff. It is one of the noblest falls in the region, and when one went there, the way to it was made memorable as well by the ginseng seen blossoming in the woods. This myste rious little plant, "sang" the people call it, whose roots are so potent to cure the Chinaman of all his ills, has been nearly exterminated because of the 258 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS eager search the country people have made for it. They sold it at the stores, where one large root was worth a week's wages. This inconspicuous little plant, with its power of healing Oriental ills, belongs to that mysterious brotherhood of the two continents, appearing only in the eastern United States and eastern Asia. Returning from the fall and following down the clear Cullasagee, Franklin in time comes to view where it lies so prettily on the blood-red waters of the Little Tennessee, with the Nantahala rising, an exquisite background, behind it. And seeing it thus in the mystical light of the summer day one has again that vision of what the earth might be, and will be, when future generations are moved by the power of beauty that is finally to conquer the world. Seven or eight miles before reaching Franklin, one passes the noted Corundum Hill, at Cullasagee, the site of the mine where, besides other less attractive minerals, men are in eager search of the gems that lie hidden in the heart of the ancient rocks. Franklin, although it is the county seat, seemed at the ends of the earth to us travelers from the wild interior, and now one hears with dismay that the railroad has come to it up from Tallulah Falls in Georgia, which makes one tremble for the next news from Highlands. The railroad does very well in some places, but imagine a locomotive smoking and puffing and screaming up that romantic valley of the Cullasagee where log houses and spinning-wheels consoled the eye in former days! And imagine it NEAR HIGHLANDS HIGHLANDS 259 bringing up at a smart station among the flaming azaleas of Highlands! From Franklin you can go out to climb the steep sides of the Nantahala, where the road winds up among gigantic trees — which, alas, may „ be all gone now — and on over the gap and down to the lower but very picturesque country beyond, where Standing Indian, the last and one of the highest summits of the Blue Ridge, looks calmly over the head of Chunky Gal Mountain crouching at his feet. Although the Nantahalas abound in beautiful flowers, they also have a reputation for the produc tion of "ramps," as the people call the wild onions that are abundant enough in some regions to be a nuisance to the farmer. Cattle sometimes eat ramps and are poisoned, though it is said that, if they eat them in the spring before other greens sprout, they get used to them and can consume them without in jury. Ramps are pretty notwithstanding their mal odorous and other bad qualities, and "ramp coves," with the thousand other plants that fill them, are not as bad as the name implies. The Nantahala Range rises steeply to a narrow edge whose summits are five thousand feet or more high, and one discovers that it is this steepness, to gether with the absence of near, high mountains, that gives the range its strong individual line against the sky. Another favorite road winds down through the forest from Highlands to Whiteside Cove, where one ought to stay awhile and become acquainted with 260 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS the appearance of grand old Whiteside from below, for from the many intersecting ridges and coves the great mountain with its Devil's Court-House appears to advantage. The country about Whiteside Cove is extremely wild, for it is on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge and streams rush through it from all directions. And yet how can you call it wild with apple trees in bloom and that soft, Southern caress in the air! Beyond Whiteside Cove the road leads down to Cashier Valley and on to the "Sapphire Country," whose natural beauty man has enriched by the in troduction of lakes into the landscape. Cashier Val ley, with its open spaces, its cultivated farms, and its views of the surrounding mountains, has long been a favorite place of residence, and it was here that General Wade Hampton had his summer home. XXV THE SAPPHIRE COUNTRY THE romantic name of this region is said to have been given to it because of the prevailing color of the sky and the waters. There are moments here, as in all these mountains, when the celestial hues of the heavens seem to have diffused themselves through the tissues of air and earth, and we have about us a world which "Sapphire Country" well expresses. There are three large artificial lakes in the Sap phire Country, Lake Fairfield, the upper one, occu pying a beautiful little "cove" in the mountains at an elevation of about three thousand feet; Lake Sapphire, a short distance below it, longer, narrower, and more winding, lying in the enlarged bed of the Horse Pasture River; and Lake Toxaway, lying some ten or twelve miles to the east of the others, and some two hundred and fifty feet lower. Lake Toxaway is larger than either or perhaps both of the other lakes, having a shore-line of sixteen miles. These charming lakes, with their steep wooded banks here, their green and level shores there, the outreaching points of land, the mountains, clouds, and trees reflected in the water, the splendid rho dodendron and lautel that in places crowd to the water's edge, give to the scenery something that to 262 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS many seems essential to its perfection. The lakes have been finished long enough to have settled into the landscape like works of nature, so that to visit these sheets of water, that lie like jewels in their beautiful setting of trees and flowering shrubs, leads one to the reflection that man can make as fine a lake, on a small scale, as can the cosmic glacier, he following nature's method of clearing out the bottom — but with quick-working shovels of steel instead of the slow push of ice — and of damming up the exit with a symmetrical stone wall instead of an irregular haphazard moraine. The outlet of Lake Toxaway is Toxaway River, that, rising west of the Blue Ridge, breaks through that barrier — the only river, unless it may be the Linville, that does this — and joins the Horse Pas ture part-way down the mountain. For the Horse Pasture, although so close to Toxaway River, rises on the western slopes of the Blue Ridge that makes several sudden curves in this region, the Sapphire and Fairfield lakes lying on its eastern slope, and Lake Toxaway west of it. To the east of Lake Tox away the streams run to the French Broad Valley that begins just below here, and along which a road leads from Toxaway down to Brevard, lying so pleas antly on its slopes just above the level river bottom. This upper part of the French Broad, although less impressive than where the river breaks through the mountains beyond Asheville, has a gracious beauty of its own, possessing that indefinable charm of level spaces below uprising hills. The French Broad, THE SAPPHIRE COUNTRY 263 it is interesting to know, in the early history of the country lay on the boundary line between the Eng lish and the French possessions, the French acquir ing by treaty all the territory in this region drained by waters running to the Mississippi. Since there were several "Broad" rivers in the mountains, this one became the "French Broad," a name that it retains to this day. Up the French Broad Valley as far as Toxaway comes that branch of the railroad, from Hendersonville. So it will be seen that High lands now lies between the terminals of two rail roads, the joining of which one fears is only a matter of time. The largest and finest of the group of hotels that has sprung up at these lakes is at Toxaway, where the visitor will find all the amenities of modern hotel life. And now an electric car line is being projected from Toxaway to Fairfield, the first thread in that web of steel which the eye of prophecy sees woven over the mountains in the near future. The whole Sapphire Country is remarkable for its scenic beauty. The points of view to go to, the moun tains to climb, the streams to fish, the waterfalls to visit, the forests to explore, afford inexhaustible entertainment to the nature-lover, to which has been added tennis, golf, boating and hunting for those who enjoy such sports ; for the property of the hotel company, which includes some twenty-eight thousand acres, is mostly wild land where the forests, kept as game preserves, are full of deer and birds and the streams and lakes are well stocked with fish. 264 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS Waterfalls are a characteristic of this country that lies so near the steep walls of the Blue Ridge. In whatever direction one may walk, ride, or drive, there are the waters leaping down, sometimes in deaf ening volume, sometimes in exquisite veils, or white, winding threads, or ethereal fabrics woven of air, water, and light, sparkling and gay. Whatever form of waterfall one likes best can here be found, for these jewels of the landscape are everywhere strung on the silver streams that embroider the green robe of the Sapphire Country, — and along the water courses and bordering the cascades the smaller rho dodendrons, those the color of a blush rose, hang their exquisite flowers over the rocks. Among the roads that run in every direction is one up Toxaway Mountain, or Great Hogback, as it is called on the maps, on whose summit it is worth while to spend the night and see the sun rise over one of the finest panoramic views in this part of the world, there being no near heights to obstruct the outlook. But sometimes, instead of rising over a world of mountains, the sun shines across a level expanse of white cloud out of which as time goes on mountain-tops appear one after the other, phantas mal islands in an unearthly sea. As the sun mounts, the ineffable abyss of mists, lights, and shadows changes and acquires substance, finally resolving into far-reaching mountains, green, blue, opaline — some of them free of clouds. Others with cloud banners floating over them, or soft cloud lakes cradled in their hollows. But sometimes the clouds THE SAPPHIRE COUNTRY 265 lie higher and you wake up shivering to discover that these mists are beautiful only when wrapping up your friends below. One remembers with pleasure the sweet things that grow on Toxaway Mountain, fragrant white azaleas, tall, orange-red lilies, saxifrages, columbines, laurel, everything in its season, the flame-colored azaleas converting it into a blazing garden in their blooming time, while sweet-fern, suddenly discovered growing at your feet, sends your thought in a flash back to those New England pastures forever fra grant in memory with the sweet-fern that clothes them. You will not be in the Sapphire Country long, nor anywhere in the higher mountains for that mat ter, without hearing the magic word "corundum." Upon investigation corundum proves to be, on the surface, a useful but prosaic mineral which, because of its extreme hardness — it is next to the diamond in that — is made into emery wheels, sandpaper, and other abrasive instruments. But this is only one side of corundum. When you penetrate into its his tory you find it the product of very old rocks, the oldest rocks on earth — which is interesting, but not vital to anybody but the geologist. But, and here corundum becomes not only of absorbing interest but positively dazzling, mysteriously connected with it, born from it like fancies from a poet's brain, are the most beautiful and precious gems in the world, gems surpassed in value by the diamond alone. When corundum crystalizes in an ecstasy of red, 266 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS we have rubies, — true, or, as we say, Oriental rubies, — gems next to the diamond in value, or in their best form equal to it. When the crystals form in other moods, they shine forever as purple ame thyst, or Oriental sapphire, or pink or white sap phire, or they glow with the deep and thrilling green of the emerald, rarest of gems and equal in value to the ruby, or they emit the yellow light of the topaz. Corundum crystals take all the colors of the rain bow, each gem named from its color, and all of them, no matter of what color, are known under the general name of sapphire crystals, or sapphires. Sapphire crystals of all colors are found in the North Carolina mountains, some predominating in one section, some in another. Corundum, the mother rock of the most precious gems, is found throughout the North Carolina mountains excepting in the extreme northern part, and there are several mines in the Sapphire Country, which is a famous corundum region, and these mines, although not worked primarily for gems, yield many fine ones, particularly blue sapphires, to which cir cumstance some attribute the name of the region. It is a fortunate place that has more than one reason for deserving such a name. It is interesting to know that corundum mining which has grown to so important an industry here, began its history in a gem mine. This was at Corun dum Hill, near Franklin, and the mine, which was opened in 1871, among other treasures yielded what is said to be the finest specimen of emerald green THE SAPPHIRE COUNTRY 267 crystallized corundum in the world. It must not be supposed, however, that this remarkable crystal, measuring four and a half, by two, by one and a half inches, and which is now in the Morgan-Bement Collection in New York, is what we should call an "emerald." If that were so, we should have the most precious gem on the face of the earth. For a gem must be transparent, and while there are in this crystal transparent places from which gems could be cut, the crystal as a whole has not realized absolute transparency throughout, even a crystal reaching perfection only at rare intervals, which is why the great gems are so noted, so few, and so costly. When we buy a gem stone we are buying the highest ex pression of inorganic life, the poetry of the rocks. The Cullasagee corundum mine began as a gem mine, but since the finest gems of the rocks, like the most inspired fancies of the poet, are few and far between, the mine in time became worked princi pally for corundum, which, having been unable to crystallize into gems, was set to sharpening and polishing. Not that gems are no longer found in this mine: many a fine one appears, like an occasional inspiration, from the rocks which are now valued principally for their lower service of utility. But there are other gem mines in the mountains to-day, one of the most remarkable lying in the valley of Cowee Creek, whose waters enter the Little Ten nessee only a few miles north of Franklin. Here are found true rubies, concerning which a government report on this region says: "In color and brilliancy 268 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS they are equal to the Burmah ruby, and if the per centage of the unflawed, transparent material in creases but little, this new field for the ruby would be a well-matched rival to the Burmah fields." This is very pleasant, the only thing lacking to make perfect the fascination of these flower-graced mountains being the discovery that the rocks be neath are graced with Burmah rubies. Burmah, it is true, has not yet yielded up her sceptre to the proud corundum rocks of the New World, for years of un fulfilled hopes have passed since that report was made. But one is comforted by the reflection of how short a time it is since any efforts have been made systematically to explore these rocks. Although the field of sapphire gems is so extensive, it must not be supposed that in the course of millen niums the crystal flowers of these mountains have blossomed in corundum alone. If the ruby has re mained but a dazzling hope, another source of gem stones has yielded a treasure which is not only very beautiful, but is abundant enough and occurs in large enough stones to make mining for it profitable. It is also peculiar to this region, an original product of the North Carolina mountains, which from some points of view is better even than duplicating a Burmah ruby. This new gem is found also in Cowee Creek and near the ruby deposits. It is a peculiar form of garnet and its name is rhodolite. It is re markable for its transparency and great brilliancy, the color shining out with peculiar brightness in arti ficial light. If you ask how it differs from the true THE SAPPHIRE COUNTRY 269 ruby, the answer is that the finest sapphire gems have an intensity of color never equaled by any other stones, and the ruby is valued for this and its wonderful lustre, although other gems may surpass it in brilliancy. Rhodolite, like rhododendron, gets its beautiful name from the Greek word meaning rose, for it is the color of roses and rhododendrons. In the valley of the Cowee Creek these two lovely gems, the ruby and the rhodolite, have blossomed side by side in the rocks, each extracting from them what it needed to bring to expression the spirit of inorganic life, just as in the crumbling soil above them the roses and rhododendrons have blossomed each in its own rare colors to express the inner spirit of the plant. And who shall say that the same necessity, impelling the crystals through cycles of cosmic pres sure to emerge in permanent forms of beauty, does not impel the flowers of the upper air to clothe them selves in transitory loveliness? Other members of the garnet group besides rhodo lite have been found in the North Carolina Moun tains, but perhaps none other of important gem value, although immediately below the mountains Bohe mian gem garnets, or Cape rubies, as they are also called, are found in abundance. But the garnet of the mountains exists as a rule in massive form, in places pure enough to be cut into wheels, — "emery wheels" made of garnet! In addition to the corundum or sapphire gems, and the one precious garnet stone, there is, in the moun tains, a remarkable series of gem crystals found in the 270 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS mica veins. For while mica may not itself create gems, there is in company with it, born as it were from the same mother, the group of beautiful crystals belong ing to the beryl type and which are among the most valuable of the precious stones. Large sea-blue aquamarines, that for beauty of color have never been surpassed, and beryls, both sea-green and yel low, than which none richer have ever been found, as well as clear green and blue stones, occur in differ ent parts of the mountains in sufficient quantities to make mining for them profitable, although none have been found in the Sapphire Country where the beryl-bearing rocks are less prominent. The most important of the beryl mines thus far opened are in the Black Mountain Country, particu larly near Spruce Pine, where mining operations have brought to light many lovely gems, notable among which are blue stones of large size and equal, we are told, to any from Brazil, with lesser numbers of fine aquamarine and honey-yellow gems. And the beryl- bearing rocks of North Carolina have, like the co rundum rocks, given a new gem to the world, al though it has not been found in the mountains. It is the beautiful new emerald known as hiddenite, which is being profitably mined at a place called Stony Point, in the foothills just below the moun tains, and where some very valuable stones have been found. Mica, which occurs plentifully and of very fine quality in the North Carolina mountains, was mined there even in prehistoric times, as has re- THE SAPPHIRE COUNTRY 271 cently been discovered, and it is from these mica mines that beryls were first obtained, the discovery of the sapphire gems coming later. No one can be in the mica mining regions of the mountains without noticing the glitter of the dry roads as well as the sparkling appearance of man and beast when these have traversed the highways, thereby becoming covered with "diamond dust." As well as the sapphire and beryl gems, the rocks of these fortunate mountains yield beautiful crystals of the cyanite group, closely related to topaz and named from a Greek word meaning blue, because of their prevailing color, the finest of these blue stones resembling Oriental sapphires. As to tourmalines, they seem to be awaiting their discoverer, only black ones of gem quality being generally found, although what one might call the haunts of the tourmaline are frequent enough. Very beautiful quartz crystals are abundant in different parts of the mountains, the finest gem of which is the purple amethyst, not the Oriental or sapphire amethyst, but still an exceedingly beauti ful stone. A valuable mine of these gems was once brought to light in an unusual and romantic manner. This happened on Tessentee Creek that enters the Little Tennessee a few miles south of Franklin. Here a landslide exposed a large vein of crystalline quartz to a depth of twenty feet, and in the decomposed rocks of this vein amethysts were found in large quantities, there being many beautiful ones from half an inch to three inches long, both light and dark 272 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS in color, the dark spots often of the deepest purple. These gems, thus offered open-handed by nature, were equal, it is said on authority, to those found in any country of the globe. Beautiful smoky and citron green quartz crystals abound in the Black Mountain region, and the choicest form of quartz, rock crystal, also occurs abundantly there, masses of several hundred pounds' weight having been found. From these have been cut many beautiful objects by the Tiffany lapidar ies of New York, among them a crystal ball five inches in diameter. One mass of rock crystal was found encrusted with a green substance so that when polished it looked like moss under clear water. Aside from those gems, whose very names have so long exercised a spell over the human heart, there are found here many lovely crystals bearing un familiar scientific names, but from which beautiful jewels can be cut; and while few of us will be fort unate enough to find priceless stones in the crystal streams that sparkle under the laurel, or stumble upon a newly disclosed amethyst mine, any one with a fondness for crystals and a little knowledge of how to proceed can gather many a lovely, unfading flower of the rocks to recall the days of happy wandering over the oldest and most gracious mountains in the world. Besides the crystals there are many rare and beau tiful minerals not only valuable to the collector, but available for purposes of art, among which quartz yields a lovely fawn and salmon-pink chalcedony, as THE SAPPHIRE COUNTRY 273 well as agates, green chrysoprase, and red and yellow jasper. And there are choice building stones to be found almost everywhere, among them serpentine and beautiful marbles, in some places the marble being white and fine enough for the sculptor's chisel. So that one who should, like Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure dome decree, could find choice materials for its construction close at hand, with beautiful and rare stones to ornament the interior and even en crust it with jewels — all from the rocks that other wise adorn the earth with their covering of beautiful plant growths. And beyond the minerals that are beautiful, there are many that are curious or useful, among them asbestos, that seems so little like stone and which is here found of the finest quality; and there is pure talc from which our best toilet powders are made, and soapstone, a form of talc, and graphite, and the queer flexible sandstone, a bar of which bends when you lift it ; and kaolin is mined for the making of fine white china. Indeed, almost everything one can ask from the rocks — even to the newly valued "rare earths" — here await man's pleasure. Crystals and the other rare minerals from the North Carolina mountains are treasured in the greatest collections of the world, in this country very fine ones being on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Nat ural History, both in New York, in the United States National Museum at Washington, in the Field Columbian Musuem at Chicago, as well as in 274 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS many smaller museums and private collections, and they have been shown in the great expositions of the world, where we are told their absence would leave a vacancy that could not be filled. Hunting in these later days has been transferred almost entirely from the destruction of animals to the finer sport of finding and treasuring precious stones and rare or beautiful plants. The animals that once abounded here are practically gone. The crystals, hidden away in the recesses of the earth and affording more difficult hunting, are only beginning to be objects of general interest. But the plants have long attracted attention, and the beautiful Sapphire Country, with its sparkling waters, its crystal flowers of the rocks, and its glorious plant flowers, is the home of a beautiful little blossom which has the most romantic history of any flower in the mountains, it having been the quest for nearly half a century of every botanist who came hunting to this paradise for botanists. It is the Shortia galaci- folia, with a leaf closely resembling the galax, to whose botanical family it belongs, but which, instead of blossoming in a spike of small white flowers, bears a single large and beautiful white or pink blossom on a slender stem. The flowers, with their delicate wavy petals standing close together above the clustered leaves, are extremely beautiful, although it was not this beauty that at first excited interest in the plant that became an object of eager quest long before any one had so much as seen its flowers! It was more than a hundred years ago that the THE SAPPHIRE COUNTRY 275 French botanist Michaux came to these mountains to explore the plant world, taking back to France many living specimens as well as a large herbarium. After him came other botanists, among them our own Asa Gray. In fact all botanists of note had first or last to come here, but it was a long time before all the wild flowers had been captured and named, if they are yet. Meantime, Dr. Gray being in Paris one day discovered in the collection of Michaux a little unnamed plant marked as having come from the high mountains of Carolina. The specimen was imperfect, consisting of only the leaves and one fruit — the leaves but not the fruit of the galax. This little nameless plant with its interesting peculi arities became an object of vain search to Dr. Gray, but he finally ventured to describe it, and named it in honor of Professor Short of Kentucky, whereupon Shortia became an object of general quest. Mean time Dr. Gray found a specimen almost identical with Shortia in a collection of Japanese plants, which of course greatly increased his desire to find it. But it was not until nearly a century after the specimen of Michaux had been gathered, and nearly half a century since the search for it began, that Shortia was really captured, not by Dr. Gray, but by Pro fessor Sargent who was exploring the Sapphire Country so rich in beautiful growths. The strangest part of the story is that having been traced to its home at last, Shortia was found, on the Horse Pasture River a few miles south of where Lake Toxaway now lies, literally coloring acres of the 276 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS earth with its charming flowers, and there any one so inclined will probably find it to-day, although it has been carried away by the wagon-load, not, how ever, becoming thereby exterminated, as happens to so many of our wild flowers when the thoughtless visitor tears them rudely from the soil. For it was not the thoughtless visitor who removed Shortia, but skillful gardeners, who took it and cultivated it with the greatest care and sent it out to beautify the gardens of the people all over the world. XXVI THE FORKS OF THE PIGEON RIVER YOU ought to go to the Forks of the Pigeon, the coves are so thick up there, there is scarcely room for the mountains." Thus the people advise, and to the Forks of the Pigeon, if you are wise, you will go, not for the reason given so much as that up there you will find a new and very interesting coun try to explore. Besides the coves there are Cold Mountain, Shining Rock, the redoubtable Sam Knob, and Pisgah itself, which is accessible from the East Fork. For you must know that the Big Pigeon River starts in the most remarkable cul-de-sac in the moun tains, a cul-de-sac formed partly by Pisgah Range, which, sweeping down in a southwesterly direction, meets a line of high balds coming down from the northwest. These two mountains ranges form, as it were, the prongs of a mammoth pitchfork, whose handle is the Tennessee Ridge reaching down nearly to Toxaway Mountain. At the point where the han dle joins the prongs, forming, as it were, a strong connective, is the beautiful Tennessee Bald, its sum mit covered with blue-grass and white-clover. The cup-shaped space between the prongs of the pitchfork is occupied by the nearly circular Cold Mountain uplift, that, at Sam Knob, its highest 278 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS point, rises to an elevation a little over six thousand feet. The two Forks of the Pigeon almost surround Cold Mountain, receiving the waters that rush down its steep sides as well as those from the western slopes of Pisgah and the eastern slope of the line of balds. The two Forks come together at the north end of Cold Mountain just above the settlement of Garden Greek, forming the Big Pigeon, one of the wildest streams of the mountains, and that speeds along in a general northwesterly direction, finally to break through a gorge of the Great Smoky Moun tains some miles south of where the French Broad makes its exit in gentler fashion, the Pigeon entering the French Broad when both rivers are well out of the mountains. Garden Creek, with its restful levels, its grain- fields and apple-orchards, and its fine outlooks to the western mountains, is a good place from which to explore the interesting country of the Forks. It is reached by driving up the valley of the Pigeon from Canton on the Murphy Branch. If Mr. Osborne is still at Garden Creek, he will tell you of the In dian mounds he helped to open, as well as of many interesting things of the surrounding country. There is one mound at Garden Creek with an apple tree growing out of the top, but the greater number have been found, and opened, in the present Cherokee boundary, and in those larger valleys like that of the Valley River, where the more important Indian vil lages stood. The contents of these mounds, principally bones, THE FORKS OF PIGEON RIVER 279 pottery, and stone implements, which do not differ essentially from the contents of other Indian mounds, have been placed in various museums of the country, principally in that of the Valentine Museum at Richmond, Virginia. Henson Cove, under Sugar Top Mountain, is not one of the wild Fork coves, but being at Garden Creek you will often go there for the sake of the pleasant walk through the woods and past the little farms, where the catbird and the thrush sing to you along the way, and for the sake of the friendly peo ple who live there. As you go along in the fresh morning, the air perfumed by the wild grapevine draping the tree above your head, the wild roses blossoming along the slopes, white azaleas on the edge of the woods, ripe strawberries hiding some where near in the grass, as you go along, the warm summer sun drawing the fragrance out of all sweet things, you decide that there is no better walk than that to Henson Cove. One of the joys of the road is the complete recov ery of one's senses. In the city you have no use for anything but eyes and ears, and not for the finer offices of those. But in the open — how many deli cate sounds attest the unsuspected register of the ear ! Day by day you hear new cadences in the tree- tops, in the shrubs and the grasses. Voices, silent at first, grow audible, sometimes you almost hear the flowers sing. And the eye, recovering from the dust and glare of the streets, sees finer tones of color, detects delicate movements in the leaves and in the 280 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS clouds, your spirit is stunned by depths of black thunder abysses and exalted by the softly shining tints of the morning sky. And in the open you acquire a new sense. You learn to smell. The most sensitive and poetical of all our senses, in the cities becomes deadened from disuse. But one day, in the sweet, clean air of the mountains, one makes the charming discovery that one can smell ! Perhaps, going along a lonely road, there comes a sudden waft of delicious fragrance — ah, strawberries ! — where are they? There is no one to tell, but the fragrance is wafted to you again, a little more certainly, and so you go in the direction indicated ; again it comes, but fainter ; you turn and try again, and soon you are sure and go straight to the knoll beyond the fence where the ground is red with the ripe fruit. Sitting down and tasting a berry here and there, you detect a flavor that exists only for him who has smelled his way to the feast. With the tuning-up of the senses come pleasures unguessed in the grosser uses of these divine faculties. One sometimes hears music in the fall of water over a cliff, in the sweep of the wind through forest trees, in the mingling crashes of a thunderstorm, or smells harmonies in the flowers, or tastes rhythmic cadences in a wild berry. And then at the spring of icy water you quench your thirst with something of the same elation you felt in the flavor of the strawberries, for did you not trace your way to this spring by reasoning out where it ought to be, and then finding the path that led THE FORKS OF PIGEON RIVER 281 straight to it? To what better use could one put the attribute of reason? With what pleasure one remembers those walks to Henson Cove, with its friendly people and its pictur esque houses, in which still linger interesting old customs, old counterpanes, and old looms. Is Me lissa Meese still weaving in Henson Cove? Can one still see charming coverlets in the home of Mrs. Nancy Blaylock? Who was it told us that "when a few funerals are made in this country the old weav ers are all gone"? Is that picturesque cabin yet standing under Pizen Cove Top? And do they still have to guard against the "milk-sick" over there in Pizen Cove? It was in this region that one first saw a "milk- sick pen," and heard of the curious sickness which, attacking cattle that eat grass or leaves in certain well-defined spots, through the milk poisons the people, sometimes fatally. What causes this strange illness no one seems to know, the vegetation in these places being the same as elsewhere; but what the people do know is just where these poisonous spots are, so that when you see a little space fenced off anywhere in the mountains for no apparent reason, you will generally be right in concluding it to be a "milk-sick" spot. Dutch Cove, also under Sugar Top, but separated from Henson Cove by a pathless ridge, is considera bly farther from Garden Creek, from which it is reached by a trail over the mountains. Larger and more thickly settled than Henson Cove, it has a road 282 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS leading out towards the railroad, that is to say, it is connected with the world. Its name betrays its origin, and you hear of old Dutch Bibles in the Cove, although you do not succeed in finding any. The people of the more secluded Henson Cove consider Dutch Cove altogether too thickly settled, one of them assuring you, as proof of the degeneracy of the rival settlement, that you could stand in her cousin's door in Dutch Cove'oi a morning and hear nine coffee-mills going at once. You can walk to Henson and Dutch Coves, but when you go up either of the Forks of the Pigeon you will get up "soon" in the morning, and you will not go afoot, for the fords of the forks are not to be trifled with. There are not even foot-logs to cause the timid to tremble, for the Forks of the Pigeon are master-hands at " getting up "and tearing to pieces everything they can reach. If one remembers rightly there are about twenty-six fords within six or seven miles up the East Fork, — which is as far as the road goes, — and heaven knows how many up the West Fork. To explore the West Fork you cross the main river just below the Forks, that is to say, you cross it if the river is down. If it is up, you stay at home. Hav ing crossed, — how innocent the stream seems! — you are surprised to find the valley of the West Fork very much like that of Garden Creek. Fertile acres lie about you, elderberries bloom in the fence corn ers, blossoming chinkapins hang over the roadside, the smell of warm, ripe strawberries lurking some- THE FORKS OF PIGEON RIVER 283 where near in the grass makes your sympathetic mouth water, while the roadside is gay with the pale leaflets and large bright-yellow, pea-shaped flowers of the Alleghany thermopsis. Green meadows where the cattle graze, orchards, thrifty-looking farm houses, blue mountains showing in the distance — the West Fork does not seem so very wild. Then you enter a ravine under shady trees. The road crosses and recrosses the stream over fords that are deep and full of rocks. The horse at times seems about to disappear permanently. The water runs over the sides of the wagon-box as the wheels sink in a hole on one side or mount a rock on the other. That you will be precipitated into the laughing waters of the West Fork seems inevitable. But then the kalmia clusters thickly at the water's edge, and a bird is singing in a tree-top. At the narrowest places you meet loaded tanbark wagons, or a long line of oxen moving slowly forward with a load of lumber that looks absurdly small until you think of the state of the road, when the wonder is that they can move it at all. Where the river forks, one branch of it — there are no "prongs" to the streams here — goes to the right, the other to the left of Fork Mountain, a spur of Cold Mountain that lies between the two nearly parallel arms of the stream. The left-hand or Little East Fork lies at the bottom of a long narrow "cove" so tightly squeezed in between the sides of Cold Mountain and the wild Fork Mountain that road and river continu ally become one. And here on either side are the 284 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS promised "coves" running up into the mountains, close together, one after the other, choked full of laurel and rhododendron, grown with forest trees, and each contributing a wild little stream to swell the waters of the Little East Fork. No wonder peo ple stay at home in this part of the country when the waters are up! At the end of the road you come, not to a lumber- camp, but to a house with a clearing where the occu pants apparently have lived for generations. The people here are glad to see you. A visitor up the Little East Fork is no everyday occurrence, and presently they are telling you all about themselves, their neighbors, and the surrounding mountains. Shining Rock, the southern end of Cold Moun tain, and over six thousand feet high, is just above your head, with a trail only four miles long up to it over the Scape Cat Ridge. Scape Cat has no name on the maps, being one of those countless ridges which are waiting for some one to come and, discovering how beautiful it can be made, occupy it and name it according to his fancy. In this way, let us hope, will be preserved some of the beautiful Indian names, the liquid sounds of which harmonize so well with the character of the landscape. For no matter how wild this mountain country, how inaccessible and rough, it is at the same time exquisite in the soft lights, with the all-pervading fragrances and the enchanting gfowths. Even the Little East Fork, now one sees it, is found to be lovable. Scape Cat owes its present name to the fact that "old man THE FORKS OF PIGEON RIVER 285 Campbell" went up there with a boy hunting for stock, and while they were off, some one stole their rations. Next day Campbell hid them and said to his boy, "Well, Andy, we'll 'scape them cats to-night." Old Sally Reese took the rations, everybody knew, and the ridge from that day was named, in her honor, "Scape Cat." In all this region turkeys, domestic as well as wild, are common, and a "gang of turkeys" is about as ordinary a sight as a gang of chickens, but we were not prepared way up here on the Little East Fork of the Pigeon River to behold a gang of peacocks. When we admired them with a sort of anticipatory pleasure in the time to come, when peacocks will sun themselves on the walls in the charming gar dens that charming people will make here, we were brought violently to earth by learning that the real value of the peacock is in its superiority to chicken meat. Peacocks, you learn, provide the finest dish you ever ate — and their tongues are not even men tioned. If you want to climb to Shining Rock, you will find a trail going up from here, and at the top one of those balds so common to these mountains, and always so delightful. The top of Shining Rock Mountain is so level that we were told that men and women had been seen running footraces all over it. There are small firs here and there, and splendid groups of Rhododendron Catawbiense whose royal red flowers must transform Shining Rock into a garden of delight at their blooming season. Also huckle- 286 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS berries grow up here in the greatest profusion, your new friend of the Little East Fork informing you that she would not mind climbing up to Shining Rock and picking and bringing home half a bushel of huckleberries any day. Shining Rock is named from the remarkable mass of white quartz, more than an eighth of a mile long and from thirty to sixty feet thick, that lies along the crest of the mountain and which is a conspicu ous landmark for miles around. From Shining Rock one looks across to the Richland Balsam, Lickstone Bald, and a dozen other high bald mountains, while on the opposite side rise the summits of Pisgah Ridge. Indeed, the short Cold Mountain Ridge stands separated by deep valleys from a circle of high mountains that completely surround it. Its southernmost and highest point, Sam Knob, almost separated from the main ridge and rising without spurs in wild precipices to an altitude of over six thousand feet, is such a labyrinth of cliffs, gorges, and impenetrable laurel and rhododendron thickets that the mountain cannot be approached from any side. It is considered inaccessible even by the hardy mountaineer, so that when a hunted bear reaches Sam Knob he is not pursued. The hunters consider him at home. There are not many bears left in the mountains, though each year records a number of captures in different parts of the wilderness. That Bruin was once common, however, is shown by the frequency with which his name occurs in the Bear Wallows, Bear Creeks, Bear Pens, and Bear Ridges THE FORKS OF PIGEON RIVER 287 throughout the mountains. All this region was noted for big game until very recent years. But now the lumbermen, before whose advance all life perishes, have found their way even into the coves of the Forks of the Pigeon. The road up the East Fork, closely following, con stantly crossing and recrossing the river, is, like the way up the West Fork, delightful on a summer day. Each ford is a picture, no matter how the crossing of it may affect your feelings. From Cruso, near the end of the road, the trail to the top of Cold Mountain is a trail up into the sky, where tall forest trees gradually lower their heads and finally disappear to be replaced by small firs and great gardens of the red- flowering Rhododendron Catawbiense, the glorious shrub that so loves to blossom high up under the dome of the sky. The trail leads at first up Cold Creek, under the chestnuts, oaks, locusts, and tulip trees ; then under rocky ledges and along such nar row crests that you look down on either hand into deep-lying coves filled with trees and wonderful in their intensity of lights and shades. The sun smites hot as it strikes you on one side, while a cold north wind strikes you on the other side.- The walk up this trail was made forever memor able by the fear your guide entertained of snakes. He was accompanied by his little son whom he constantly cautioned to be careful. Neither himself nor any of his friends or neighbors had been "snake- bit," yet every step of the way through the laurel was beset with unseen dangers, and from every ledge, 288 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS close under which we had to pass, a snake was ex pected to precipitate itself upon us, and every time we had to grasp the rock to help ourselves over a difficult place we were in danger of grasping also a snake, while from him walking on ahead floated back a monologue in a minor key whose subject was ever the same, and of which we caught such frag ments as this, "Be mighty careful now, look where you step! I'd rather give a thousand dollars than get you snake-bit up here." And so we continued our fearful way up the shining slopes and over the rocky ridges of Cold Mountain on a bright summer day. That there are snakes, the names of the many Rattlesnake Ridges, Dens, Knobs, and Mountains, stand as evidence, and that there are certain dry, rocky places frequented by these reptiles, there is no doubt, certain parts of Cold Mountain, we were told, being infested with them ; yet few people have been bitten, as the rattlesnake never acts on the offensive, but tries to escape unless cornered or frightened, and it does not strike without giving warning. Having wandered over these mountains at short intervals for more than a dozen years, and never having seen a living rattlesnake and but very few dead ones, one seldom thinks of them. The only precaution necessary is to be careful about going into huckleberry bushes or other thickets where the growth is so close that you cannot see the ground. No one can blame a snake for striking if it is stepped THE FORKS OF PIGEON RIVER 289 on, also when pursuing Rattlesnake Knobs, or Branches, or Ridges, or Dens, one may as well look first and give plenty of notice of his approach. But as a rule one does not go to such places. The people know where they are and carefully avoid them, one man who had killed many rattlesnakes summing up the sentiment of the mountains when he said, " I am not afeard of a knife, or a gun, or a varmint, but I am afeard of a snake." The top of Cold Mountain, to which cattle and sheep are driven for the summer, is an extensive pasture of blue-grass and white-clover, where a large spring of water, cold and delicious, wells forth. To spend a summer day roaming about one of these high balds is a pleasure one cannot repeat too often. In the splendid exhilaration of the air, which is not thin enough to be oppressive, and through the cold tissues of which the sun sends a delicious flood of warmth, the body seems taken up and rejuvenated. And where else is the sky so luminous, the clouds so purely white? From one point and another you look out over a world of mountains many of which are well-loved and familiar friends. The most beautiful wild flowers have arranged themselves in gardens to please you, and out of the rocks leap sparkling wa ters still more to refresh you. From the Forks of the Pigeon how many of these charming balds can be ascended by trails known only to the kindly natives, who will go with you if necessary or tell you the way where it is possible for you to go alone! XXVII PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS PISGAH, lying between Toxaway and Asheville, is the most noticeable and the favorite moun tain seen from Asheville. Everybody knows it. Rising, as it does, above the other heights, its beau tiful form outlined against the sky, it inspires a feel ing of affection in those who see it day after day. It is the highest point in the Pisgah and Tennessee ridges, that long mountain barrier winding in a southwesterly direction from Beaverdam Creek, a few miles from Asheville, to Toxaway Mountain, a distance of some twenty-five or thirty miles. There is said to be a trail along the whole length of this crest, a sky walk to be envied the mortal who can take it. It does not detract from the interest one feels in Pisgah to know that it has retained its height above other mountains of the region because its rocks are crystalline, — that, in short, Pisgah is high and strong because it is largely composed of garnets, of garnets and cyanite, the latter one will remember being very closely related to topaz. At Garden Creek, Pisgah often comes to view in your walks, and from Cruso, near where the trail goes up Cold Mountain, there is a road up Pisgah, that portion of the mountain now being included in PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS 291 the forest attached to the Biltmore estate. There is also an automobile road from Biltmore to Pisgah, a forecast, no doubt, of what will be true of many a high place in the near future. There is no sweeter road anywhere than that up Pisgah. In the coves and clearings at the foot of the mountain the people live in the homes of their fore fathers and give you a welcome that is more than cordial if you choose to rest awhile on their porch, or drink from their spring, and they will urge you to stay to dinner so heartily, that only the thought of finding some wind-swept, sun-bathed slope, where you can sit in the open air and look off over the dis tant mountains while you eat the luncheon provided at your last stopping-place, prevents you from ac cepting. Lying on the ground to rest and maybe sleep a little in the deep stillness of nature, you think with sympathy of the woman living far back in a certain cove from which she never emerged, and who in reply to a question, answered, "No, I don't want to go away. I ain't a lonely-natured person noway. I like a quiet life." The road follows up Pisgah Creek, which, after the fashion of streams here, winds back and forth, so that for more than two dozen times you have to cross the swift water on those marvelous footways the people find sufficient for their own use, but whose vagaries present difficulties to the stranger. What you get from a mountain road depends upon how you go. If alone, you hear and see and feel things that you never hear or see or feel with even 292 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS the most considerate and sympathetic comrade. Your comrade you need for the halt at the end of the day. But you should also often walk alone. And whether alone or companioned, you must never walk right on. You must linger along and listen attentively, and sniff the air for news, and you must look, not only at the clouds and the blue of the sky, at the distant landscape and the colors on the near slopes, but you must look at the ground. For there also you will get things to remember when the doors are shut on the wander-life. You will be able to recall, for instance, that brown slope where in the early summer you suddenly became aware of a round bright eye shining out near the ground close to a log. As you continue to look, a striped and speckled form becomes outlined among the fallen leaves, the sticks and the stones. Ah, yes ! — a ruffed grouse, but why so still? Why did it not escape at your approach? You look attentively at the ground close about you — nothing — yes, — there so close to your foot that another step would have crushed out its little life is a round brown puffball with a stripe down its back, and close to it another, and another and an other, until you have detached five new birdlings from the protective coloring of the ground. There are more, you know, but do your best you cannot find them. So you pick up the two nearest you, one after the other, and lay them in the palm of your hand. They show no sign of life excepting the shin ing wide-open eyes. They are just hatched, yet here they are, the accomplished young frauds, exercising PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS 293 the most practiced deceit, no doubt secure in their faith that you cannot see them, although you have them in your hand. You hold them thus only a mo ment, your pleasure in the contact clouded by thought of the suffering of that motionless little mother under the log. Yielding to a whimsical im pulse, you place a light kiss on the top of each little head, then lay them on the ground side by side, and retreat backwards at some distance, and watch to see them go. But they do not go. You stand with your eyes on that one spot until they ache, and then in a moment of forgetfulness you look off to the blue mountains beyond. But only for a mo ment, a little sound like a quick sigh brings you quickly back to business. You focus your eyes on the spot — it is vacant ! You know it is the spot, for you carefully marked it in your mind ; the stone is there — but they are not. Neither is that bright eye any longer visible under the log. They fooled you, after all. Not the slightest sound, the least mo tion that could attract attention, and they have van ished very much like a dream. They have fooled you? They think so, but it is really the other way, for see, those two you held in your hand did not really escape — you have them yet, and they have never been able to grow up or change since that day. Two little downy birds, like happy dreams, must run about the pleasant aisles of Pisgah forest to all eternity with a kiss hovering like a butter fly above each little head. The ruffed grouse, "pheasant," the people call it, 294 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS is native to these woods and an encounter with one is always a surprise, and nearly always pleasant, though you once got a shock from a grouse that must pretty nearly have balanced the bird's own distress of mind. It happened on a long, steep moun tain path one spring day. Going along thinking of anything but danger, you suddenly stop as you hear the sharp hiss of a snake. You stand perfectly still and search the ground with your eyes. You see nothing, and all is silent until you move, when again comes that terrible danger signal. You begin to feel shaky at thought of the near invisible reptile, no doubt coiled ready to strike, when something moves from over a fallen log and your startled eyes behold a long thin thing stretching towards you. But to your infinite relief and amusement the snake's head re solves into that of a ruffed grouse, and presently there fairly boils up over the log such a mass of irate feathers all on end, and outspread wings and tail, so crazy looking an object, with open mouth and hissing tongue, that you take the sufficiently obvious hint that your presence is not desired, and pretending all the fear the bunch of feathers thinks it is inspir ing, you beat a hasty retreat, it after you, swelling, hissing, and triumphant. But you escape, and it no doubt goes back to its nest all self-complacency and with a fine tale to tell those children, as soon as they shall be hatched, of how it saved their lives one day and drove away a terrible human monster. Yet you wish it could someway know how that monster loved it and only ran away to please it. PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS 295 Thinking of the many pleasant encounters you have had in bygone days with the woodland folk, and keeping eyes and ears alert for more, you follow up the winding way until you reach the bench of the mountain where Buck Spring, one of the famous springs of the mountains, gushes forth large, free- flowing, and icy cold. Near it now stands Mr. Van- derbilt's Buckspring Lodge on the edge of the bluff that looks off across the French Broad Valley to the Blue Ridge at the east and towards Asheville and its background of mountains at the north. The waters from Pisgah flow into the Pigeon River on one side, but into the French Broad on the other, and directly under the steep cliffs upon the top of which the lodge stands is that charming, far-famed level of the Blue Ridge plateau known as the "Pink Beds," because of the gorgeous garden of flowers it becomes in the springtime. There is every variety of surface on Pisgah, from dense forest growths to open treeless slopes, bushy benches, and rocky cliffs — and everywhere a be wildering variety of flowers. On each mountain you find characteristic flowers, as though each kept its own garden somewhat distinct from its neighbors. Not that you will not find these flowers elsewhere, but perhaps nowhere else the same species in equal abundance. And each mountain you remember because of some great floral outburst in process at the time of your visit, so that when you think of Pisgah, for instance, it is covered with the later sum mer flowers, — gardens of pink and white turtle-head, 296 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS asters, goldenrod, dozens of well-loved flower forms in luxuriance abound, as well as some you do not know, — instead of with a cloak of flaming azaleas, or wearing a crown of rose-bay, as would have been the case had your first visit been earlier in the season. From the top of Pisgah you get a wide view, and a very beautiful one, though perhaps the best is that plunge of the senses down among the rhododendrons, kalmias, and tree-tops that cover all the near slopes with a lovely surface of green, in which deep shadows lurk, and over which the light plays so beautifully. To the west from Pisgah, across the cul-de-sac in which lie the Forks of the Pigeon and the high form of Cold Mountain, rise the Balsam Mountains, and from Garden Creek, that lies about halfway between Pisgah and the Balsams, a road leads through Davis Gap and on to Waynesville at the very foot of the Balsam Mountains. As one follows this winding road, beautiful views of Pisgah come and go, as also of Cold Mountain, Sam Knob, Lickstone Bald, and other familiar forms. Then, upon crossing the Davis Gap, the glorious high Balsams rise up to view. The road passes a picturesque old mill with its tall wheel, where one stops to drink from the cold spring, and soon after reaches Waynesville, which has long been a noted summer resort because of its elevation of over twen ty-six hundred feet, its beautiful outlooks, and the fact that it lies on the railroad. Waynesville is not on the Pigeon River, but in the fertile and charming valley of Richland Creek which PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS 297 enters the Pigeon a little to the north of here. The village lies, as it were, in a nest of the Balsam Moun tains, which rise so close about it that one cannot see them to advantage, but from various points in the village one can look out towards the Newfound Mountains where the fine large mass of the Crab- tree Bald immediately attracts the eye. Crabtree Mountain ! — and below it and running half around it Crabtree Creek — what a picture rises before the imagination at those two names ! For the wild crab is one of the most precious gems of the forest. In the spring it blossoms, the first you know of this being the exquisite fragrance that pervades the woods. If, then, you go abroad you will find the wild orchards loaded with flowers like apple-blossoms, excepting that they are old-rose in color, delicately shaded with clear pink and white. No tree is more wonder ful in appearance, and none is so wonderful in fra grance. The perfume, powerful yet delicate and very refreshing, rises in a vast cloud of incense from the fire of the flowers until the whole forest seems steeped in it. And if you choose to press a few of these ardent blossoms between the leaves of a book, or drop them among your papers or your clothes, you will have reason to remember the ecstatic blooming of the crab tree for a very long time. The wild crab is not the only apple found in this fortunate land, for the orchards of Waynesville and the country roundabout yield apples that would not discredit the proud apple states of the North. In deed, when we of Traumfest get a particularly good 298 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS apple the question some of us ask is, "Did it come from Waynesville or New York?" There is a white sulphur spring near Waynesville, but that which most powerfully attracts the visitor is its nearness to the Balsams, into whose recesses one can penetrate by paths and trails to the very haunts of the bear, only that poor Bruin has been so driven from pillar to post that he has very few haunts left. The Balsams are among the highest remaining of these once towering mountains, and they, like Pisgah, owe their preservation to the cyanite and garnet in their rocks. The Balsams, as well as the Blacks, are named from the mantle of balsam firs that covers all their higher parts, so dark-green as to look black at times, although in the distance the magic light causes them to assume that wonderful blue color which is the prerogative of all these delectable heights. Balsam trees as a rule cover the higher slopes of all the mountains that rise above fifty-five hundred feet, sometimes on the highest ones running down the ravines much lower than that. These wide black mantles laid over the shoulders of the high moun tains give strength to the landscape. As seen from below, they seem completely to envelop the moun tains, but at a higher elevation, or upon approaching the summits, one discovers that the mountain-top is always treeless. This is true of the higher moun tains, whether they are fir-clad or not, the "bald" varying in size from a few yards across on some mountains to rolling meadows hundreds of acres in PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS 299 extent on others. The large balds, such as that of the Roan, the Big Yellow, and other well-known forms, also give character and added beauty to the landscape, in which they appear like peaceful islands in the billowing sea of tree-clad mountains. There is a road leading out of Waynesville and up to what is known as the Eagle's Nest, on one of the Junaluska spurs of the Balsam Mountains. This road, which is brown in color instead of red, winds up through a forest of hardwood trees, and towards the top there opens out a wide, gently concave mea dow of mingled blue-grass and white-clover, one of those beautiful natural meadows that occur so fre quently on the slopes of the higher mountains, and where the fragrance of white-clover mingling sud denly with the manifold sweet odors of the forest gives one a sensation of waking into the past inter penetrated with the events of the present. There is a hotel at the top near a large spring of cold water that wells forth close to a fine outlook, as though nature had planned it that way on purpose. There, before your eyes, Pisgah, Cold Mountain, Shining Rock, Lickstone, and the other balds we know so well, stand amidst the lesser mountains; and that far blue line to the southwest between nearer heights they tell us is Cullowhee Mountain. But that which most strongly affects one here is the colors of the balsams that are close enough for you to look into the deep, soft hollows that lie on the wonderful green of the slopes like lakes of midnight blackness. 300 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS Not far from the Eagle's Nest is another outlook, to the north this time, whence you get a glimpse of the Smokies, and can look off to Craggy and Mount Mitchell, while down at your feet lies the picturesque little valley of Jonathan's Creek; but here, too, the eye turns ever to the massive form of one of the near Balsam Mountains, big Cataluchee, with its wonderful deep colors. Walking over a beautiful natural meadow to get a full view of Plott's Balsams, you encounter such diversions as red columbine, gardens of pink turtle- head, fragrant and charming evening primroses, fire-pinks, phlox, lilies, and — sourwood, with its incomparable fragrance. The Plott Balsams that run southwest from here in a short and massive range are named from a family early inhabiting this region and among whom were several noted hunters. The grandfather of the present generation, some of whom still live up the wild and picturesque Plott Creek, killed a panther where the hotel now stands; but a hunter's fame here rested on the number of bearskins he could show, to hunt these dangerous animals with the primitive weapons of early days being well considered the true test of a man's cour age. But though dangerous when brought to bay, the brown bears of the mountains are quite harmless if let alone. "There has n't a bear in this country hurt a man in my memory, or my father's or my grandfather's," an elderly man assures you; and a hunter then present adds, "A bear ain't goin' to hurt a man noway unless he's hemmed, then he'll PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS 301 kill you." There are many bear stories yet told, though the most famous of the old hunters are no longer here to tell them. The railway train, thunder ing under the very walls of the Balsams and climbing across them through the high Balsam Gap, bespeaks a new era when people come in throngs to the mountains for other purposes than bear-hunting. XXVIII MOUNT MITCHELL ' FROM the top of Tryon Mountain on a fair spring day, a snow-white cloud was seen lying above the northern horizon. It was so beautiful in the pure blue of the sky that the eye involuntarily turned to it again and again ; and then, some trick of the light revealed an opalescent world below, and all at once one realized that the cloud was the snow- covered crest of the Black Mountains, which can be seen from Tryon Peak on a clear day. After this one saw the Black Mountains in the distance, like the Smokies ethereally blue or again pearly white. But unlike the impression created by the Smokies, this of the Blacks vanished upon near acquaintance, perhaps in part because the name stamped another vision on the mind. It is hard to escape the influence of a name, and the Black Moun tains live in your memory as a group of night-black domes topping a long black mountain crest that lightens to varied shades of green as it descends towards the valleys, or else loses itself below in depths of blue shadows, which is the way it appears when one is near it. Nowhere is the rounded contour of the Southern mountains so striking as in the high balsam-covered summits. Mitchell's High Peak, as it is now called, MOUNT MITCHELL 303 used to be the Black Dome, a name poetical and pro foundly descriptive. When near enough, perhaps on some neighboring slope or summit, the balsam- covered mountains are impressive to solemnity. The dark, unbroken mantle of fir trees covering all heights and hollows throws back the light with singular depth and softness, the color varying from deepest green to inky black, in which lie intense indigo shadows. The range of the Black Mountains, which is only fifteen miles in length, has, it will be remembered, thirteen summits above six thousand feet high. This short, high range, standing on a base less than five miles wide, its slopes sweeping up from either side to the crests more than three thousand feet above the surrounding valley bottoms, is, wherever visible, the most notable feature in the landscape. It runs north and south, its southern extremity merging into the Blue Ridge, which here, in its very irregular windings, comes so close to the Black Mountains as to leave only a narrow and deep val ley, that of the South Toe River, between. Two of the highest points of the Blue Ridge, Graybeard and the Pinnacle, noted landmarks, lie close to the Blacks. To the southwest of the Black Mountains, practi cally a continuation of them, lies the short high chain of the Great Craggy Mountains in which Craggy Dome and Bullhead Mountain rise, in the one case a little above six thousand feet, in the other, a little below. To the west of the Black Mountain 304 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS Range, tightly inclosing the narrow Cane River Valley, is a jumble of wild mountains, among which Yeates Knob reaches an elevation of six thousand feet, while to the north of the range lies the valley of Little Crabtree Creek between the Blacks and the rugged mountains beyond. Hence the valleys that nearly surround the Black Mountains are deep and narrow, and the streams rushing through them are very swift, clear, and, from the rapidity with which they rise during a storm, dangerous, the Estatoe, or Toe River, as it is commonly called, and its branches being among the most dangerous of the mountain streams. There is the same glorious wildness in the Black Mountain country that one feels in the regions of the Smokies and the Balsams ; and whoever ascends the Black Mountains, excepting perhaps over the trail to Mount Mitchell, unless he is a mountaineer of experience, must take a guide or run the risk of getting lost in the rhododendrons that heavily clothe the slopes of the mountain. To get lost in the rho dodendron on one of these big mountains, where the foliage is too dense for one to see the sky, and where the strong, twisted limbs form a labyrinth in places utterly impassable, is an experience none would court, for, besides the trap woven by the rhododen dron limbs, wild streams rush down, ledges and chasms obstruct the way, and fogs, the real danger in the mountains, are frequent. But on a pleasant summer day what is more de lightful than a climb to the top of Mount Mitchell! MOUNT MITCHELL 305 One can easily get to the Black Mountain country by way of the railroad that now crosses the Blue Ridge a few miles to the north of there ; or one can follow the old route from the Black Mountain Sta tion in the Swannanoa Valley, taking a long ride to the summit of Mount Mitchell and spending the night in a cave ; or there is that two days' drive from Asheville to the foot of the mountain, over roads which, speaking after the fashion of the Italians, are carriageable — though barely so. The road, good enough for some miles out of Asheville, runs northward to the Ivy River up which it follows through the "Ivy Country," so named because of the luxuriance with which the mountain laurel or "ivy" densely covered this region. At the forks of the river the road goes up the North Ivy, where the Craggy Mountains loom into view at the gaps, and where the valley, squeezed tightly in between the steep sides of the mountains, is as wild as a valley can be that contains picturesque little houses and has its slopes all tawny with chest nut bloom. It is a wild valley where sourwood loads the air with dainty perfume, morning-glories twine smilingly about the bushes, and deep-red or lavender bee-balm makes flower-gardens of the damp places. The road, zigzagging endlessly about, finally gets up out of this valley, crosses a wide gap, and de scends into the Cane River Valley near the house of Big Tom Wilson, the most famous bear-hunter of this region. Continuing up Cane River for a few miles you cross a picturesque ford and soon reach 306 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS the house of Adolphus Wilson, Big Tom's son, at the foot of Mount Mitchell. It is very wild here, the glorious wildness of this country where everything is softened and sweetened by the beautiful growths and the touch of the sun in the sparkling air. Near the house the woods are fine, the path through them takes you past basins of clear green water and past damp places full of flowers and down to a stream that hastens along, broad, swift, and clear, and famous for its trout. The Black Mountain country seems to you differ ent from the country south of Asheville. Indeed, all this northern region has a quality of its own. It seems so free, so superbly wild, so very remote from the world, and for ages it has been remote, there having been no railroad within easy reach until very lately. One advantage of settling down for a while in the Black Mountain country is that you will be more certain to visit Mount Mitchell in good weather; you can start when the right morning dawns. For this is a rainy country; the clouds hug close about the tops of the mountains sometimes weeks in suc cession; so that it is better to go to this region im mediately after a general storm and there await the one perfect day. Not that this whole region is con stantly deluged; on the contrary, the valleys are often clear when the mountain-tops are smothered in clouds. One can easily walk to the top of Mount Mitchell, but it will be well, if you mean to stay, to have your MOUNT MITCHELL 307 blankets and provisions for the night taken up on horseback. The best way is to let the guide go ahead, and then loiter on as you please, the hoof-marks affording a sure protection against getting lost. With a long staff you can cross the rushing trout stream dry shod on the projecting rocks, after which you begin a most joyous ascent into the clouds. The lower part of the mountain is covered with hardwood trees, the path leading past a tulip tree that twenty years ago measured over thirty-three feet in circumference — no one seems to have had the "ambition" to measure it since. This majestic column had a narrow escape from destruction a few years ago when a mountaineer was with difficulty dissuaded from chopping into it to get an imaginary bee's nest. The fine natural forest is composed of many kinds of trees, among which the path winds, now in the woods, now across a stream, now through an open glade. The air, heavy with the honey-like odor of linden trees in full bloom above your head, murmurs with the myriads of bees that hover about the flowers. The uneven floor of the forest is covered with moss and large violet leaves. The white flower clusters of treelike rhododendrons gleam on the slopes. Laurel presents dense tangles on all sides. Hemlocks darken the way, ferns and moss every where carpeting the earth beneath them. About three miles up, you pass through what is known as the^ beech nursery, a level bench grown with small beeches where grass and flowers cover the floor, a friendly vestibule to the dark forest that lies 308 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS above. For a little beyond here you enter the bal sams, and it is like entering another world, for in the balsam groves no other trees grow, and the young trees and the bushes that so lighten other forests are entirely lacking here. The tall, dark columns of the trees stand so close together that looking ahead there seems scarcely room to pass. The overarching roof shuts out the light. The pillared aisles are dark and sombre. A deep-green, fernlike moss covers the ground with an unbroken surface. This wonderful moss, sometimes a foot thick, curiously intensifies the loneliness of the forest. Over humps and hollows the flawless mantle lies, deep, soft, interminable, here and there patterned with lighter green oxalis leaves, always moist, always sucking in and holding fast the clouds that enter, the rains that fall. Contin ually saturated with the mists of heaven this ex quisite monster with its insatiable pure desire be comes the constantly renewing mother of the rivu lets that trickle through the mossy carpet, uniting to descend in crystal streams to the earth below. This still, dark forest, its sombre aisles unlighted by flowers, unwarmed by the sun, covering immense spaces of the upper world, seems to exist for itself alone, to resent, as it were, the intrusion of human life into its mysteries. But it does not exist for itself. It is lonely because absorbed with the gigantic task of endlessly and without rest transforming the clouds into the life-giving streams of the plains. For man to slaughter the trees and tear that marvelous veil of moss would be to strip fertility from the cotton- MOUNT MITCHELL 309 and the cornfields that lie thirsting from the moun tains to the sea. Ascending through the balsam forests one seems under the spell of the Black Dome. The Black Mountains have received their baptism. No matter how delicately blue and ethereal distance may paint them, to think of them or to see them must ever after recall these sombre depths beneath the dark boughs. The path is wet and muddy in places, and also steep, but at last you pass up out of the dark balsams into a sunny meadow where blue eyebrights look up from the grass, and from which a stony trail bordered with rose-bay leads through stunted firs to the open top, where a monument standing alone on the very summit of the mountain gives a feeling of solemnity to the place. It was erected here in 1888 to the memory, as the legend on the side reads, of the " Rev. Elisha Mitchell, D.D., who, after being for thirty-nine years a professor in the University of North Carolina, lost his life in the scientific explor ation of this mountain, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, June 27th, 1857." Dr. Mitchell, being greatly attached to the moun tain, then called Black Dome, and convinced that it was the highest in the Appalachians, had often been to the top to make his observations and prove his theory. One day he went up alone, and did not re turn at the appointed time. As soon as this became known, search was made, men and even women col lecting from far and near, for Dr. Mitchell was greatly loved. The search, led by several old bear 310 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS hunters, was finally given up when Dr. Mitchell's son, according to Big Tom, said to the men, " I give you a thousand thanks, but please hunt again to morrow." Upon which Big Tom volunteered to take the lead and it is said he went searching for the miss ing man crying all the way. The first trace was found eleven days after the disappearance, when Big Tom, sure of signs that no one less experienced in woodcraft could have seen, the mark of heel-tacks on a root, a stone displaced, weeds bent, a mark on a rotten log, went from point to point until he saw the missing man's hat on a log by a streamside. Above was a deep pool at the foot of a waterfall — the hat had floated down from there. Big Tom at this point tells the story thus. " I yelled and they answered me. They came on. ' I 've found his hat.' They all huddled up. And I walked on a log and saw him. ' Come around, boys, poor old fel ler, here he is.' 'Have you found him?' 'Ihave — '" and old Tom's voice breaks and the tears are stream ing down his face. Dr. Mitchell, although so well acquainted with the mountain, was believed to have become lost in a fog and to have fallen over the preci pice above the cataract whose icy water kept the body in perfect condition until it was found. It was finally buried on the summit of the mountain so dear to him, and whose name was changed in his honor. Big Tom was the most famous bear hunter in this region, but when we saw him years ago his hunting days were over, and his tall form was bent with age, but he loved to tell of the by-gone days and his bear MOUNT MITCHELL 311 hunts, and to show you the heavy, old-fashioned rifle he prized above all modern inventions. But best of all the old man loved to tell of how they went in search of Dr. Mitchell and found him looking as natural as life in the pure water of the mountain pool. So strong an impression has this brave and gentle old hunter made upon his community that the spot where his little house stands in the Cane River Valley is marked on the government map — "Big Tom Wilson's." The extreme top of Mount Mitchell is bare of trees excepting a few stunted firs; but yellow St. Johnswort blooms in cheerful profusion over the rocks that are daintily fringed with saxifrage and sedum, a few twisted rose-bays show traces of earlier bloom, and prickly gooseberry bushes are maturing fruit for the birds, while sounds in the leaves and a flutter of wings betray the presence of a flock of jun- cos. On all sides the dark fir-clad slopes descend into the shadows below, where streams rush through ra vines choked full of rhododendrons, and mossy slopes are impenetrable with laurel. Below the firs glorious hardwood trees cover the mountain-sides, the ravines, and the valleys, their intermingling hues of green blended and lost in tremendous depths of blue or purple spaces. The view from the summit, off over the ocean of land that rolls in stormy waves to the far horizon, is stupendous. Beyond the impressive and dark masses of the near heights, the great mountains of the region, from the Grandfather to the Smokies, 312 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS crowd the scene, melting as they recede into blue and misty shapes. Past the strong headlands of Craggy and the Blue Ridge, the mountains towards the south subside to rise again in far blue domes and pin nacles. Cultivated valleys, beautiful balds, uprising slopes, long curving lines, overlapping summits, — it is difficult to disengage individual forms from the wonderfully blended whole. And here as elsewhere that which most moves the senses is the sweep of the near majestic slopes down into the deep blue spaces. The cave near the top of the mountain is formed by an overhanging ledge, and here it is customary, for those wishing to watch the sunrise from the sum mit, to spend the night. And it is worth the effort, even if one only sees the mountains emerge from the clouds for a moment to be again swallowed up by them, for it is seldom that the visitor gets more than a glimpse of the whole world at one time, from Mitchell's cloud-capped peak. It was in this cave on top of Mount Mitchell that one once arrived in a pouring rain, after a perilous climb up the eastern slope, to find, as sole trace of former visitors, a little can partly full of condensed milk, which saved, not one's own life, but that of a young squirrel rescued on the way up, and who became the hero of many pleasant subsequent adventures. The Black Mountain Country is very wild, and also very beautiful, the ascent of Mount Mitchell being but one of many reasons for going there. The streams are crystal clear, and everywhere pictur esque houses are hidden away in the coves and vai- MOUNT MITCHELL 313 leys from which one gets superb views of the cloud- capped mountains that lie on all sides. There is no more romantically beautiful valley in the moun tains than that of Cane River, which, in its upper part, is over three thousand feet high, and nowhere falls below twenty-five hundred feet. It runs along the whole western base of the Black Mountain Range, and from it one sees round-pointed moun tains delightfully grouped in the landscape, and quaint houses placed in a superb setting of moun tains and streams. Cane River is named from the heavy canebrakes that clothe its banks in places, supplying fishpoles, pipestems, and reeds for the loom, but the river valley is more noted for the products of its farms — grain, grass, and apples. No one can visit this region in the summertime without noticing the orchards loaded with hand some apples, fruit of so fine a quality that it took a prize at the Paris Exposition, the people tell you with pride. The land in the Cane River Valley is valuable, not only because it is fertile, but because the people love it so. One man we were told refused a hundred dollars an acre for his farm because "he was that foolish over it." And the inhabitants of the valley are fine and friendly, as you would expect of people who so love their homes. Up Cattail Branch, and doubtless elsewhere, you can yet find men able to fell a tree and with the primitive whipsaw convert it into boards on the spot, and in the Black Mountain country one has seen a man sitting under a tree in front of his house 314 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS shaving shingles by hand, those broad, strong shin gles that add so much to the picturesqueness of a log house, and that last forever. As you drive on down Cane River, now along the bank, now crossing a wide ford, you see a village ahead of you very beautifully placed in an opening between surrounding mountains. This is Burnsville, one of the most important and interesting mountain villages north of Asheville. Here are schools as well as hotels, and from points in and near the village are superb views of the high mountains. Within a short time Burnsville has come into easy communication with the outer world by way of the railroad that crosses the mountains a few miles to the north of here, and it is safe to predict that this gem of the mountains will not be overlooked by those who are on the way with money and love and knowledge to help transform the wilderness for the few into an earthly paradise for the many. XXIX THE FORKS OF THE RIVER TOE THE Estatoe should have' kept its full name, but as the matter was not attended to in time, so that the river went down on the govern ment maps as the "Toe," it will probably be long before the mistake is corrected. The South Toe skirts the eastern base of the Black Mountains as Cane River skirts the western base. The North Toe, a long and winding stream, carries the waters from one side of the steep and high Yellow Mountain region, in places forcing its way through narrow gorges, and joins the South Toe a few miles east of Burnsville, the resulting river being known as the Toe. The Cane River finally enters the Toe, the two forming the Noli- chucky River. While the Cane River Valley is comparatively well peopled, the wild valley of the South Toe has as yet few inhabitants, but you will want to go there because the river, strong and wild and clear as crys tal, has coming into it the merriest of trout brooks straight down from the sky, and because the valley itself is a most glorious wilderness, to be in which gives one a feeling of having escaped. Enormous trees grow on the slopes of the mountains, — oaks, chestnuts, beeches, and magnolias mingling their 316 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS foliage above your head as you wander along the woodland paths where brooks murmur among the ferns, and the rhododendrons are grown to trees. From Burnsville one can get to this fair, wild valley by following down the Little Crabtree Creek four or five miles to Micaville, a village that consists of a post-office and very little else. The Toe River throughout its course is famous for its floods, which may be why the South Toe Val ley, which is quite wide in places, is so sparsely set tled. But it is the North Toe that holds the prize record in this matter. After the memorable flood- year when Bakersville was so nearly washed away, one saw debris in the tree limbs some twenty-five or thirty feet above the level of the stream in the nar row cut near Spruce Pine. Everything had given way before the fury of the waters, including the iron bridge that had recently been built across the troublesome stream. To have an iron bridge meant much to the people, you may be sure, and no doubt the story told was true of how they gathered to gether on the riverbank and stood for hours watch ing the bridge as the water rose and covered it, and how when at last it gave way and went with a crash downstream some of the watchers wrung their hands and wept. It is a memorable experience to cross the ford at Spruce Pine when the waters are up, as one dis covered when, after waiting for days weather bound at Marion, the chance came to ascend the mountains and attempt the ford. The road up the FORD AND BRIDGE OF THE SOUTH TOE RIVER THE FORKS OF THE RIVER TOE 317 Blue Ridge crosses Armstrong Creek several times, a good preparation for the graver perils of the Toe, for Armstrong is one of those streams that come like a millrace down the mountain-side, dangerous not only in time of general flood, but because it rises without warning, becoming impassable almost in a moment after a sudden downpour somewhere up in the high mountains. The entrance to the Toe ford, one found to be a newmade sandbank down which was a steep pitch into the rushing yellow-red water, while in the trees high above your head you saw the debris stranded there by the flood. The river was terrifying enough to look at, and once in, it seemed for a few moments as though the end had come. Although the driver headed well upstream so as not to be washed below the ford where was no exit through the rocky wall, it seemed as though we were being borne swiftly down to destruction. The water suddenly rose about your knees and the horses disappeared all but their heads : they were swimming. This lasted but a terrible few moments, however, while the driver sat still and pale, his eyes riveted on the horses, the reins held loosely in his fingers. It was discovered afterward that this foolhardy feat was the result of courage stored in a bottle in the driver's pocket. He had gone down the mountain before a long rainstorm came and raised the waters, and he had been detained so long that he was ready to take any chance to get home. Of course one did not know these things until afterwards, and the fording of the Toe in retrospect 318 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS has something of the emotional value of the conflict with the powers of the air on Whiteside. Doubtless there is a bridge over the river again, as this happened several years ago, pedestrians at that time being obliged to cross by way of a chain bridge. There is probably nothing worse than a chain bridge short of the bamboo bridges such as one sees in pictures of wild countries. The narrow footway is suspended high above the water, the floor being made of slats so far apart that you cannot help see ing the water rushing below, which gives you the feeling that you are going to step through. But worse than this is the motion of the bridge, that, the moment you step upon it, billows up and down as though trying to shake you off, the rope hand-rail on either side being but one degree better than no thing. These suspension bridges are used where the stream is too swift to allow of a "bench," and the people very truthfully say, "Strangers don't like them noway." One coming up the mountain now will not be likely to drive, as the railroad disdainfully spans the torrents and has a station, if you please, at Spruce Pine itself. In the old days upon reaching Spruce Pine one always stopped at English's. To enter this part of the country meant to stop at the large, pic turesque log house set back among the trees with its vines and flowers, and than which no place was better known the mountains over. It is also near Spruce Pine, it will be remembered, that one finds the most noted of the beryl mines, whence come THE FORKS OF THE RIVER TOE 319 shining crystals for ladies' necklaces and rings and brooches. Wild as parts of the Southern mountains yet re main, it is seldom one can get any real sense of the perils of primitive life. The wolves are gone.the bears are almost gone, the larger rivers are being spanned by safe bridges, contests with lightning are only for those peculiarly favored of the gods, new methods of lumbering are retiring the old-time logging train; yet it is in the forest that we can get closest to the eternal conflict between nature and man carried on by the early settlers, in the forest where the great immobile trees resent, as it were, the power that lays them low. Even to be an onlooker at the conflict is exciting, as one discovered that day in the woods when one sat down to rest near the upper edge of a rough, newly made trough that extended down the mountain-side. As far as one could see, on all sides, stood large trees, oaks, tulips, and chestnuts. Shouts were heard in the distance and loud crashing sounds. Nearer came the noise, and then down the steep hollow of the trough a yoke of oxen moved slowly, very slowly into view. They were straining forward until they were almost on their knees. Foam hung from their mouths, their eyes bulged, the veins stood out like cords under their sides and on their legs. A long whiplash came suddenly, out of space appar ently, and stung their panting flanks, a man's voice shouted commands, and the cattle strained yet harder down the slope. Behind them came a second yoke of oxen, fast- 320 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS ened to the same chain. They, too, were leaning forward on the yoke. They, too, dropped foam from their mouths and their flanks heaved. As these passed the opening in the trees, a third yoke fol lowed, straining like the others, their noses almost touching the ground, their flanks ridged with whip lashes. The descent was steep and rough, men shouted frantic commands to the near cattle and far back in the woods. Following the third yoke came a fourth, leaning forward like the others, disfigured with welts like the others, foaming at the mouth and with bulging eyes. Behind them came a fifth pair of cattle, their weight on the yoke, their muscles standing out, toiling as though they were trying to move the mountain itself. Suddenly there was a cry along the line, men came running, whiplashes stung the faces of the oxen, and they halted in their steep descent. The chain slackened and rattled, then suddenly tightened again, jerking some of the cattle out of their tracks. Wilder shouts came from the woods above, mingled with a rumbling and then a crashing sound. An instant's ominous silence and the commotion was renewed with tenfold vehemence in the rear. The men who had come forward ran back. The cattle stood panting in the trail. Minutes passed while the sounds of a struggle of some sort came loudly through the forest. At last the command to advance was given, the long lashes of plaited hickory bark swung out and the ten huge forms bent strongly to the yoke. Behind them came THE FORKS OF THE RIVER TOE 321 the sixth yoke, foaming at the mouth, with protrud ing eyes and every muscle tense. Slowly, terribly, the long line of cattle pulled down the rough descent, now stumbling, now jerked from the narrow trail to be at once mercilessly whipped into line. The seventh yoke, with lowered heads and panting sides', was followed by the eighth, a lordly pair, for the creatures were larger as the line advanced. These great brutes were dark-red with white stars on their foreheads, their breathing was audible, they were almost groaning, their flanks rose and fell in quick, short jerks, foam dripped from their mouths, their tongues hung out as they strained forward against the yoke. Suddenly the commotion in the rear was renewed, the taut chain jerked, the cattle veered, the chain suddenly slackened and one of the great red oxen lost his footing. He stumbled frightfully against a tree trunk, his foot sank into a hole, it seemed as though his legs must be broken and his great sides crushed as he fell forward against the tree on his neck, his head stretched out. Several whiplashes swung out and descended with sharp reports upon his quivering skin, a dozen men yelled, and he struggled to his feet with bloodshot eyes. Again the long line started, again the living en gines bent to their herculean task, and the ninth yoke came into view. The noise increased and the sound drew nearer as of a tremendous weight crash ing down the mountain-side, waking the forest to horrid clamor. The tenth yoke passed, a pair of 322 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS enormous brutes with bloodshot eyes and heaving flanks, like the others leaning their weight on the yoke, foam dripping from their open mouths. Be hind them came the eleventh and last yoke bending to their task, suffering with dumb endurance the agony of their brutal labor. The chain was longer behind these, and then there appeared at the opening and stopped, as the cry to halt rang down the line, the end of an enor mous tulip- tree log. Not less than ten feet in diame ter nor less than forty feet long, it lay in the trough that had been ploughed out by other logs. As it lay there it seemed malignant and conscious, as though resenting being torn from its place of pride in the forest where it had so long towered above the other trees. The trail changed its direction at this point and .the great log had to be turned. Shouts from the men, cracking of whips, creaking of yokes, rattling of chains — and finally the long line of cattle stood in the new line of advance. But the log lay as before: it had to be turned, not by the cattle, but by the army of men that had now come to view. Along the sides of the great column they ranged themselves, cant-hook in hand, and at the word of command tried to move it, pivoting it on the chain end and striving to swing the other end about until it should lie in the new line of direction. As the cattle had toiled, now toiled the men. The veins started on their temples, their eyes stood out, they were silent during the effort. THE FORKS OF THE RIVER TOE 323 The log moved, it turned, and then — in spite of their almost superhuman efforts, it rolled. Over it rolled down the slope, twisting the chain, dragging four yokes of oxen into the bushes as though they had been so many straws. There were shrieks of command and of fear as the men on the lower side leaped out of the way, while others horribly whipped, goaded, and shrieked at the cattle that had fallen down the hillside. The log had come to rest perilously near the perpendicular wall of a low ledge of rock and the men had the dangerous task of returning it to its place. Some below steadied it and pushed with levers, while those above struck into it with their strong hooks and put all their strength to the task. For an hour the struggle between the log and the men continued, a struggle fraught with danger to the lives of both man and beast. But the more active power won , and the great log lay in the new path. All was ready again, the whips cracked, the men shouted, the cattle bent to the yokes, the log yielded, the long line moved on. The way was very dangerous now, as a steep in cline lay just ahead. The men with their iron hooks jumped now this side and now that to keep the log in its track. The trail grew steeper and the great bolt began to move too rapidly. The men with their hooks in its sides held back with all their strength, others shrieked at the cattle and goaded them brutally that they might keep clear; they made a sudden pitch forward and fell over each other, the last yoke but barely escaping a lunge from the 324 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS dreadful object behind. The noise of the shouting was deafening. Thus had the great log been coaxed and driven, held back and drawn forth, out of the roadless forest. At last it was pulled up a gentle slope and on a level space came to rest alongside a group of others like it — to have its bark removed and await its turn at the portable sawmill that stood a few rods away. The logs are never barked in the forest; the men say they would be killed getting them out unless the bark was on to keep the logs from slipping. On the platform of the mill a log had just been rolled ; it was placed against the saw, it seemed to the imagination to shiver, then a long, piercing shriek rent the air, and a slab dropped from its side, the first step in the process of converting a tree into a pile of boards. These boards are placed in what seems light loads on rude wagons, before each wagon a line of oxen is attached, and over the rough roads the load is drawn, sometimes many miles, to the nearest railway station. Thus does the forest inflict its penalty of pain, and thus has the world been supplied with wood from the stricken giants of the beautiful, devastated forests of the Southern moun tains. xxx LEDGER AND THE ROAN THE name of Micaville explains itself. It lies in the most important mica region of the moun tains, where the rocks sparkle, the roads glitter, and nearly everybody is engaged one way or another in working in mica. You see women and girls sitting un der sheds cutting plates of mica into regular shapes, and piles of mica-waste glinting by the roadside or flashing near the mouths of the mines on the hillsides. Yet there is nothing here to suggest the hardships of a mining country, for the mines are for the most part near or at the surface, and the workers are the moun tain people themselves. It is here that, walking on a dusty day, you come home sparkling like a Christ mas-tree decoration, and here that the laurel bushes glitter with little points of light that do not come from their glossy leaves. Not only at Micaville, but all through this region the earth sparkles pro digiously. If you follow the road northeast from Micaville, you will not only get some very fine views of the Black Mountains, but you will cross a charming ford of the wild North Toe that enters the South Toe a little below here, and best of all you will soon come to Ledger, which, though it may be little more than a name on the map, is much more than that 326 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS to those who have enjoyed the hospitality of the friends once living there, and from whose home as a centre this whole beautiful country lay open. Ledger was as remote as any place in the moun tains when one first went there, but now the new railroad, that has performed the feat of crossing the mountains by ascending the wild Toe Valley and descending the Blue Ridge, has a station on the river a few miles from Ledger. Ledger will long be remembered as the home of Professor Charles Hallet Wing, who, after many years of notable service as professor of chemistry in the Boston Institute of Technology, came here before there had been any change in the customs of the country, to escape the turmoil of the outer world. Professor Wing vehemently disclaimed any share in changing — he would not call it "improving" — the life of the people, but he made his charming log house, his barn and outbuildings, also his fences with their help. In his carpenter and blacksmith shops the youth of the neighborhood learned the use of tools, and how to make many things. They also laid pipes to carry water to the house, and be came familiar with the electric motor that lighted the place. Professor Wing, with no thought of course of benefiting the people, built a school-house and lib rary building, the school-rooms seating one hun dred and twenty-five pupils, provided two teachers, and himself conducted a manual training depart ment which he fitted up in the basement. At the LEDGER AND THE ROAN 327 time of Professor Wing's first coming scarcely any one in that region could read or write, but that this was the fault of circumstances alone was shown by the fact that there were two hundred and fifty applicants the first year the school was opened, these ranging from six years old to forty, and this school was successfully conducted without the infliction of any sort of punishment. The library was in time supplied with some fifteen thousand books which were sent to Professor Wing by friends who wanted to help from all over the country. The library was kept by a native youth who was trained for the purpose and taught to rebind books, a very necessary art, since some of the most-used books were those that had been dis carded by the Boston Public Library. At the little Good-Will Library in the heart of the Carolina mountains, the old volumes were cleansed and re paired and books sent out all over the mountains, being loaned not only to those who came for them, but sent in the form of small, traveling libraries, each box containing seventy-five books, wherever a man would "tote" them in his wagon, be responsible for their distribution, and after three months bring them back again — and get another set if he so desired. The library was free, with rules but no fines, and it is illustrative of the quality of the people that the rules were not broken and that at the end of the first year not a book was missing, none had been kept out overtime, while less than six per cent of those taken out had been fiction! What a 328 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS boon it was to come upon one of these cases of books when storm-bound in some otherwise bookless place! One remembers whiling away several stormy days reading Froude's "Essays" from one of these libraries, which among more popular reading al ways contained a lure for the more sober-minded. In the home at Ledger the housework was done by mountain girls trained by the genial hostess, who loved her girl charges and taught them every thing they might need to know in making a home for themselves. One remembers the pretty sewing-room in a cabin in the woods, with its sewing-machine and work-table where the girls went afternoons to chat ter together and sew for themselves, with an occa sional visit from the beloved lady who dropped in to advise or praise. We accused the Professor and his wife of ruining the picturesqueness of the country for a radius of miles about their place, for paint and upright fences and buildings, tidy yards and farms, with every where signs of modern methods of life, had somehow followed their coming. But there were still left plenty of log houses to repay one's wanderings along the shady roads where the picturesque foliage of the buckeye mingled so prettily with the leaves of the other hardwood trees, and where wild plums offered you high-flavored fruits in the summer, and chinka pins showered bright brown nuts about you in the fall. Is it Uncle Remus with his Brer Rabbit who has cast such a glamour over the chinkapin — that mini- LEDGER AND THE ROAN 329 ature chestnut tree whose little sweet nuts are scat tered so plentifully about the roadsides in the fall? And what a pretty custom it is to speak of coins of small denomination as "chinkapin change." It quite takes the sordidness out of money. The buck eye, too, has over it a glamour of romance, and while its large glossy nuts are not to be eaten, it lights up the forest in an enchanting manner with its large clusters of red, pink, and yellow blossoms that cover the tree and open about the time the tulip-tree begins to bloom. Throughout the hardwood forests of the higher mountains it grows to perfection. One never thinks of Ledger without recalling de lightful walks in search of pictures, for there are no better fireplaces and looms, nor more picturesque little mills and bee-gums any where in the moun tains than in the neighborhood of Ledger. Can one ever forget Bear Creek and the friendly people there ! — how one would like to speak their names, for the names of the people recall cherished memories of the mountains, each region having its own names. It was up Bear Creek that we found an old lady of ninety spinning on her porch, and up Bear Creek we learned new patterns on old coverlets, and got many a picturesque washing scene and interior where the great fireplace was draped with strings of beans or of pumpkin, and where we saw big wild grapes strung like beads, and hung up to dry. Wandering about the country, how many an open-air cane-mill we visited where the people were grinding out their winter supply of "long sweeten- 330 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS ing," and who never failed to offer you a cupful of the boiling syrup. And following the pleasant fra grance of wintergreen, we found the "birch still" hidden in the woods, though not for reasons of se crecy, as no penalty is attached to the distillation of the essential oils that are, at the country stores, exchanged for shoes and sugar. One's youthful conception of birch bark, that it was something that grew out in the woods to be chewed, is here enlarged by discovering the birch still, wherever the sweet birch abounds, zealously extracting the fragrant oil that goes to flavor our candies and perfume our medicines under the name of ' ' wintergreen. ' ' Another youthful belief, gathered from literature that oil floats, is also modified by the discovery that birch oil at least could never be cast upon the troubled waters, because it is red and heavy, and sinks to the bottom of the bottle of water into which it runs from the "worm" in the still. The only objection one has to the birch still is the pathetic bare trunks left standing in the forest where the bark has been completely cut from the trees. This objection does not attach to the delightful pennyroyal still that one sometimes finds near the dry banks, where pennyroyal grows in intoxicating abundance, and the gathering of which seems to leave no scar nor in any way diminish the supply. Pennyroyal oil floats, as oil ought, on the surface of the water into which it drops, and the pennyroyal still has so thoroughly scented the halls of memory tha't one can never again smell the aromatic herb in LEDGER AND THE ROAN 331 any form whatever without seeing those open sunny banks hot with pennyroyal that lie on the side of Roan Mountain. And how many know the refresh ing quality of a sprig of pennyroyal on a hot summer day. To chew this, or one of the pungent mints that also grow here in abundance, can sometimes add a mile or two to the day's walk. There are oil stills in the mountains south of Asheville, but it happened to be these of the more northern regions that one first and most often happened upon, and about which cling so many fragrant memories. Pennyroyal and ginseng are by no means the only herbs gathered in the mountains. Indeed, the higher Appalachians are a principal source of supply for a great variety of medicinal herbs, many tons of which are yearly shipped to all parts of the country and to Europe. In the season you are always meeting the herb col lectors, either gathering herbs from the immense wild gardens where they grow or "toting" them down the mountains in great bags on their backs. One remembers gardens of balmony on the Grand father Mountain, where after the collectors had gone you would not notice that any had been removed, so dense was the growth. The herbs are taken home and dried and exchanged at the country stores, that carry on a lively traffic in this industry which keeps many a mountain- family in the necessities of life. You see the herbs, each in its season drying everywhere, spread out on the roofs, on the porch floors and — under the beds. The curious names of some of the places in the 332 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS mountains owe their origin to the sudden demand on the part of the Government for short, distinctive titles for post-offices. It takes either a great deal of time or a very quick wit properly to name a place, and so we have Spruce Pine not because spruce pines abound, — there are only two there, — but because somebody happened to think of it. For the same reason, no doubt, Ledger got its name, the true significance of which dawns upon you when discovering a few miles away a place called "Day book!" The pretty name of Lofus Lory, that so pleased and puzzled you until curiosity overcame discretion and led to inquiry, was not a sudden inspiration, though the reason for it is obscure, one being unable to discover that it in any way deserves its ortho graphic title. For "Lofus Lory" when spelled out becomes "Loafer's Glory." As it has no post-office, and has not yet been printed on any map, there is hope that phonetic spelling may be adopted in time to save it. The principal and perhaps the only family at Lofus Lory is distinguished for nothing worse than its efforts to raise melons in a sandy bottom near the Toe ; but when you inquire about the melons, with interested motives, you learn that the river one day removed a part of the farm with the melons thereon, leaving the ambitious Lofus Lory like unto the rest of the world so far as melons are concerned. The temptation to linger about Ledger is difficult to overcome, but there is the great Roan waiting but a little way north from here, to reach which one A PASTURE ON THE ROAN LEDGER AND THE ROAN 333 follows the road to Bakersville, preferably afoot, for it is only a few miles, and there are those charming views of the mountains, deep indigo in one direction, while in the other the Blacks appear, sombre, solid, and strong, or else seeming to hang suspended, half dissolved in gray rain-mists. To enjoy the way properly one should not only walk, but take time to sit on a rock and consider how the tall white spikes of the black snakeroot shine out of the dark woods, and ponder over the peculiar, penetrating odor of the sourwood that on a hot day pursues one like a dream, the fragrance seeming to lie in wait at the turns of the road to embrace one, the trees whence it comes standing somewhere unseen in the depths of the forest. Bakersville lies in the valley of Cane Creek that runs down the middle of the village with houses on either side, the road and the creek identical in places. This confidence in pretty Cane Creek was ill-requited when, in the terrible floods that occurred a few years ago, it rose and roared and thundered through the valley and nearly wiped out of exist ence Bakersville, which is the largest village in this part of the mountains, and which like Burnsville, is an educational centre. Now the railroad that has made its way up the wild Toe River passes close, making the fortunate village easily accessible to the outer world that stands knocking at the gates of the mountains. But to the visitor who comes to explore, Bakers- ville's principal attraction is its proximity to the 334 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS Roan and the Big Yellow, the most famous balds in the region, perhaps in all the mountains. The coves and valleys at the foot of the Roan are thickly settled, and a road crosses over the summit of the mountain connecting the hotel there not only with the new railroad to the south, but with another rail road to the north that originally came in from the west for the use of the iron company at Cranberry, and now crosses the Blue Ridge, so that the northern part of the mountains within a few years has be come almost as accessible as the regions about Asheville. The ascent of the Roan from either side is delight ful. From Bakersville the road leads up the pictur esque Rock Creek Valley that lies squeezed between the Pumpkin- Patch Mountain on the south and the slopes of the big Roan on the north. The Roan, standing boldly out in the landscape, is remarkable as being without trees excepting in the ravines and a narrow belt of firs towards the top. For this reason it is a mountain of pastures, as are Grassy Ridge Bald and the Big Yellow Mountain connecting with it towards the east. Near the top of Roan, which is over sixty-three hundred feet high, is Cloudland Hotel where one dines in North Carolina and sleeps in Tennessee, the hotel being cut in two by the state line. Roan Mountain has long been famous for two things, the circular rainbow sometimes seen from the summit, and the variety of wild flowers that grow on its slopes, it being reported that more species are LEDGER AND THE ROAN 335 found here than in any other one place on the conti nent. One not a botanist going up in the summer will be delighted with the luxuriance and variety of colors assumed by the bee-balm, blood-red prevail ing, although some of the springs and damp hollows are painted about with lavender, blush-rose, dark rose-red, pale honey-yellow or white bee-balm, and all of them, no matter what the color, are full of hum ming-birds. The botanies have no idea how many colors this charming plant assumes on the open slopes of the Roan. From these slopes one gets fine views of the surrounding mountains, views sometimes framed in rose-bay bushes, when your imagination paints a glowing picture of the scene when the rose- bay is in bloom. Near the summit you notice the little houstonia, with plumy saxifrage and pink oxalis everywhere in the mosslike growths that cover the rocks, and you will also notice, although you may not know how rare it is, the large buttercup-like flower with a geranium leaf, the Geum grandiflorum. If it is sum mer you will see the bright flowers of the lily named after Asa Gray, it having been first captured on the Roan, although it is abundant all through the mountains. And you will be sure to taste the little high-flavored strawberries hiding on the grassy ledges. There are a few spruce and fir trees, mountain ashes and alders scattered about near the top, but otherwise the Roan presents wide reaches of pasture land where flocks and herds are grazing, and where, 336 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS as you stand looking over the mountains beyond, a heifer, that has long been gazing stolidly at you, draws near and licks your hand, probably to find out what that motionless figure is really made of. There is no mountain whose name you more often hear than that of the Roan. And the estimation in which the people hold this great bald was shown one day when a stranger, seeking to entertain a moun tain woman, told her about Italy with its Vesuvius, its great churches, and its people with their strange customs. When the story was done, the woman looked intently at the narrator and then asked critically, "Have you-all been to Roan Mountain?" Being answered in the negative, she added, some what condescendingly, "Well, if you want to travel and see something, you ought to go to Roan Moun tain." From the summit of the Roan you can continue on and down the north side to the Roan Mountain Station on the railroad, or you can follow the long trail over Grassy Ridge Bald, along the side of the Big Yellow and Hump Mountains down to Elk Park, where you can take the train by way of Cranberry and its famous iron mines to the Linville Country. On a fair day the long walk over the trail is the better choice, but you will have to take a guide, though one remembers sitting down on a mountain-top where two paths crossed, and studying out the situ ation on the government map while the mountain woman who had come to show the way looked on. Of course we were not lost, nobody ever is, the LEDGER AND THE ROAN 337 nearest to it ever known being by a mountain man who admitted that he had once spent three days plumb bewildered in the woods. The Topographic Maps of the United States Geological Survey are the best guides one could have for general use; indeed, many of them are so detailed that one could follow the obscurest trails by their help. And they are always present, being printed in sections on sheets that can be folded small enough to be carried in the pocket, and they cost only five cents apiece. These maps are a splendid tribute to the work done by the Department that issues them. To get them it is only necessary to write to the Director at Washington, D. C, who will send a plan of the maps, from which you can select those you need. XXXI LINVILLE FALLS ONE goes to Linville Falls to see the beautiful river at the point where it takes that leap into the gorge, forming the most noted cataract in the mountains. Linville, under the Grandfather Moun tain, lies in a green bowl with tree-covered hills for its sides. Above the hotel, on the edge of the green bowl, look out cottages and summer houses, for Linville is a well-known resort. The river flows sparkling and dancing along one side of the bowl on its way to the falls ten or twelve miles south of here. The Linville is a delightful river, a clear trout stream from its birth-spring back of the Grandfather down to the falls and on through the ten-miles-long canyon below them, the canyon it has worn between Lin ville Mountain and wild Hawksbill and Tablerock. The way to Linville from Ledger is by a pleasant and varied route up the North Toe River, then over ridges, up the Plumtree Creek, across the Blue Ridge, past Crossnore under the Snake Den Moun tain, and on through Kawana, where you will stop to visit the Highlands Nursery that has done so much to make the beautiful growths of these mountains known to the outside world. It began twenty-five years ago with half an acre of land as an experiment. Now it covers one hundred acres, and every year LINVILLE FALLS 339 sends out many carloads of the beautiful things that grow here and which find their way, not only to different parts of our own country, but all over Europe. This nursery owes its existence to Mr. S. T. Kelsey, of New York State, who came here from Kansas, and, with the energy and optimism of the North and the West combined, tried to transform the mountains. But he came too soon; the hour of awakening had not struck; so when he laid out a whole town on the Highlands plateau after the Western fashion, the people looked on in amaze ment and Highlands remained untransformed, as remained the rest of the mountains at that time, excepting for the roads he projected. For Mr. Kelsey had yet greater genius for making roads than towns, and laid out the finest of those first made in the mountains, among them the beautiful Yonah- lossee Road that crosses the southern slopes of the Grandfather Mountain, scarcely changing its grade for a distance of nearly twenty miles. It was also Mr. Kelsey who planned Linville with its hotels and its lake. But the best thing he did was making the gardens and taming the most decorative and beautiful of the wild growths, not only the royal rhododendrons, laurel, and azaleas, and the noble forest trees, but the silver-bell, the sourwood, the leucothoe, the yellow-root, the wild lilies and or chids, and a hundred other charming wild flowers, including Shortia that gave the botanists such long search, inducing them to tolerate the limitations of a man-made garden, and also to bloom yet more 340 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS freely, if possible, there than in the wilderness. Al though no longer alone in its work, the Highland Nursery was the first native enterprise to distribute the decorative plants of this region from the North Carolina mountains, and from it the estate of Bilt more supplied its first needs. It is an interesting fact that, long before the people of America had learned to appreciate the beautiful plants with which their country is so richly endowed, these were used and highly valued in European gardens, and English estates were beau tified with our rhododendrons, laurels, and azaleas long before we had learned to value them as orna mental growths for cultivated grounds. It was Michaux, who, transported by the beauty of the wild flowers of the New World, took many of them home and introduced them to the people of Europe. It was he also who taught the mountain people the value of ginseng and how to prepare it for the Chinese market. It is but a few pleasant miles from Kawana to Linville, along a road very much interfered with by little tributaries of the Linville River, among them the pretty Grandmother Creek. But if you want to go directly to the falls from Kawana, you turn towards the south instead of the north, and follow the road a few miles down the river to the Linville Falls settlement: this is about a mile from the falls to which a rough road leads, for the country about here is extremely wild: the woods are choked with dense growths of laurel and rhododendron, and the LINVILLE FALLS 341 land is torn by ravines. For we are now on the outer side of the Blue Ridge adjoining the peculiarly wild foothill country, and whether the Linville River breaks through the wall of the Blue Ridge depends upon whether you consider the narrow Linville Mountain a part of the Blue Ridge or a part of the foothills, for it is over the upper edge of the deep gorge that separates Linville Mountain from a high ridge of the foothills that the river makes its escape. But however geology may decide the matter, in appearance the Linville Mountain belongs to the Blue Ridge, and one always thinks of it as ending the mountain plateau at that point. Across the clearing, at the end of the rough road that leads to the falls, stands a house on the very brink of the precipice. As you approach it, the thun der of the water grows louder: you have a sense of nearing some catastrophe in nature. At the brink the mountain stops short without the slightest preparatory slope, without a buttressing spur. It drops in an upright wall, along the face of which a path descends through the rhododendrons that have grown along a narrow ledge. Down the path you take your way. At a certain point in it you can step out on the top of a large rock and see the river raging between cleft walls directly below you. As you con tinue the steep descent beyond here, rhododendrons offer you long, curved arms to hold by, and lend you their roots to step on. Finally, you jump down to a broad stone floor, and before you in its bed of solid rock lies the large pool of the upper falls into which 342 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS the river enters in two wide, low cascades that are separated from each other by tree-covered rocks. The shining Linville steps down from the forest, through which it has sparkled and sung all the way from its source at the back of the Grandfather, to rest as it were in the beautiful pool and make ready for that great leap down the wall of the mountain. High walls clad with living green encircle the pool on whose calm surface are mirrored the trees and the sky. To the eye it is a scene of peace, but in the ears is the tumultuous beating of the waters. The outlet of the pool is a deep and narrow crack. It is as though the broad river-bed had suddenly been set up on edge. The water plunges with a roar into this winding channel, rages about the impediments there, and finally escapes through a cleft in the rock to leap over the wall of the mountain. Across a wide stone floor one walks to the scene of commotion in the narrow channel, but it is impossible to get a view of the final plunge without gaining a point of vantage by a jump too dangerous to think of. It fills one with a sense of impending danger to stand shut in by the high walls and hear the strife between the water and the rocks : and if it is terrible at this safe season of the year, imagine it in the spring floods! Standing on the wide, dry pavement, you look up to see a drift-log caught in the bushes on the cliff-side high above your head. It is hard to realize it, yet you know the water put it there. It was at a time of high water that the upper rim of the lower fall gave way, forming a step, and consid- LINVILLE FALLS 343 erably lowering the final leap, thus taking away something from its impressiveness. Climbing up again to where the path branches, if you want to go to the foot of the fall, where you can get a near view of it, you turn aside here — and take the consequences. A stream of water trickles down the slippery path, which is half rock, half rhododen dron roots. The limbs of the rhododendrons twist about you like enormous snakes. You step down where you can, but where the distance is too great you have to jump, that is, you jump if you dare, but it is not likely you will dare, knowing what is below. The alternative is to sit down and slide over the rocks covered with black and sticky mud. It is a breathless scramble and your arms ache from hold ing to the rhododendron cables. Finally, you reach the narrow ledge of rock that borders the deep pool into which the river drops. There it is, close to you, a high, white mass of foam and deafening you with its thunder. If the sun is shining you may see rain bows playing about it, and in any event you will get a wetting from the spray. A wall of rock rises above you and there is scarcely room to take a step, so close to your feet lies the deep water. There are big wise trout in this pool, the people say, but it takes a very wise angler to lure them out. Getting back again is worse than getting down. Unfortunately gravity prevents sliding up, and a sudden descent into Avernus seems quite fearfully imminent as you slip and struggle and cling to the rhododendrons. But before starting up you can if 344 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS you like follow along the edge of the cliff, as far as your nerve lasts, for the path is over rhododendron roots that have fastened themselves into the face of the rock. How they got footing here is a mystery; but here they are, and in behind their contorted limbs you creep along like an ant, hoping with every step that the roots will not give way. This path, that grows less as it goes on, is followed by ardent fishermen, who either go back if it gets too lonesome for them, or else keep on. For if you keep on long enough you can get down to the bottom of the gorge, — not so hastily as the descripton may seem to imply, though that too is possible, — and when you get down, it must be almost worth the effort, for you will find yourself in the famous Lin ville Gorge that for the next ten miles is seldom traveled by a human being, although it is the finest trout stream in the mountains. The river runs be tween walls that rise many hundreds of feet high, and in some places the gorge is so narrow that there is room only for the river, and he who ventures in must wade as best he can through the swift water as it dashes about and over the rocks and boulders. Those who have been in the gorge speak enthusias tically of its grandeur and beauty. Ordinary humanity, however, views the fall from a point down the ravine, on top instead of at the bottom of the mountain wall. To get to this point you follow a path partly through a scrubby undergrowth, partly through dark pine reaches that make soft walking, and where the edge of LINVILLE FALLS 345 the abyss is hidden by impenetrable rhododendron jungles. When you get to the open, rocky edge, you forget to look upstream to the fall, because of the wonder ful blanket of trees that covers the opposite side of the narrow gorge. There is nothing like it: the walls seem made of foliage; the river far below runs through walls of living green, the crowns of superb forest trees that have managed to grow on what appears to be an upright cliff. You scarcely see the stems, only the green crowns of the hardwood trees blending their colors and their shapes with black interspersed shadows and interwoven with the dark- green of firs and the pale feathery effect of white pines, a marvelous tapestry wrought by the hand of nature. The steepness of the walls makes this growth of large trees the more remarkable, and your heart aches to recall that this whole gorge, one of the wonders oi the mountains, has been bought by a lumber company. But looking at that tapestried wall falling sheer into the mountain torrent below, your sympathy takes a humorous leap to the side of the lumber company. Any tree they can get out of there they will have earned ! Float the logs down stream? " Not down that stream, unless you want to collect wood pulp somewhere beyond the foothills," a man who knows the gorge assures you. As you stand on the brink of the precipice you hear the confused thunder of the fall, that at this distance is a mere white ribbon hung from the end 346 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS of the gorge. Its voice alone asserts its importance. And how insistent, how unbroken, how hard and tiresome it is, a stupid unchanging roar, and blended with it is an echo as unresonant and monotonous as itself. You find yourself listening for a change that never comes, except a loudening when the wind blows towards you. Irritated by the monotonous sounds you go on and around a curve out of sight of the vociferous ribbon. You seat yourself on a bed of dry, crackling moss that sends out waves of fragrance every time you move. Here the murmur of the far-down river blends with the dull roar of the cataract. This voice of the river is full of modulations, the harsh sound of conflict has given place to gentler tones and the subdued roar of the fall itself now makes an agree able accompaniment. To the song of the river is here also added voices from the forest, a sighing from the pine trees over head, gentle rustlings from the crisp shrubs, a stac cato chirp from the grass, a trill from some bird in the air, the clapping of a woodpecker on a dead tree, the drumming of some unknown creature, the tick ing of a borer in a dead log. There are drowsy notes in this orchestra of the summer, with which the mighty perfume of the earth seems gradually to blend, and the warmth of the sun to mingle and hold all together in its tenuous threads — and — and — the sun conquers and you are sound asleep on the fragrant mosses, although it is mid-afternoon and you have planned a walk down that long ridge where LINVILLE FALLS 347 the huckleberries grow. Thanks, oh, sun ! — there is something altogether lovely in falling thus asleep against one's judgment. There are "chimneys" over the edge of the preci pice, whose tops have been conquered by brave little fir trees, and mossy things and a few flowers. And the precipice itself, do you realize that you are hang ing your feet over the edge of the mountains — that the wall across the river belongs to the foothill form ations? What a sweet place is this edge of the high world ! On a mountain-top all things unite to smell sweet, and on none more than on this. Crisp moss crackles whenever you move, hard-leaved, red-stemmed huckleberries crowd the crevices of the rocks, and Dendrium buxophyllum, whose thick carpet is seen to be made of tiny imitations of rhododendron bushes shares the crannies with other lovely growths. But everywhere, and by far the choicest thing here, is a species of dwarf rhododendron with a charming architectural structure, the curving brown stems crowned with upward-pointing, curled little leaves, green above, the under side dusted with a rich brown bloom, the red-tinged veins and red petioles giving a red flush to the whole plant. Seed pods on these charming shrubs tell of bloom earlier in the season, and who would not be here then! It would be hard to imagine a wilder, sweeter place than this edge, overlooking the gorge. To be here fills you with contentment. You imagine you would like to stay with the rabbits the rest of the summer. 348 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS The long and narrow Linville Mountain that borders the gorge on the west is not very well known to outsiders, but the people tell you of won derful minerals there, among them large quantities of flexible sandstone. The Linville Country is very wild, but nowhere does the galax more riotously abound, this region being one of the favorite col lecting grounds for this charming little plant. XXXII BLOWING ROCK THE noble Grandfather towers head and shoul ders above the sea of mountains that surrounds it. It is the giant of the Blue Ridge, and in a sense dominates the whole Appalachian uplift, not be cause of its superior height, — we know how many higher mountains there are, — but because it is so commanding. For Nature fashions mountains as she does men, here and there one so striking that it becomes a landmark for its era. The Grandfather was believed to be the highest mountain in the eastern half of the United States until, not so very long ago, the surveyors came with their instruments and told the people there were forty mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee higher than the Grandfather. But of course nobody believed it: the people who had always lived under the shadow of the great mountain knew better than those men who flew in one day and out the next. The surveyors were doubtless right in a way, but theirs was that mere scientific accuracy that proves nothing but the fact. Beyond that lies the real truth of the matter; forty mountains may measure higher, but to those who know the Grandfather, not one is really quite so high. In 1794, the French botanist, Andre Michaux, wrote of the Grandfather Moun- 350 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS tain," Aug. 30, climbed to the summit of the highest mountain of all North America with my guide, and sang the Marseillaise Hymn, and cried, 'Long live America and the French Republic! Long live liberty!'" The mountain owes its supremacy not only to the comparative insignificance of its near neighbors, but to its position at the point where the Blue Ridge makes a sudden turn, swinging as it were about the Grandfather as about a pivot, the mountain rising in splendid sweep directly up from the abysmal depths of the foothills, with no intervening terraces. It has the effect of standing alone, its feet in the far- down valleys, its head in the clouds. It is also notable for its striking summit of bare rock as black as ink, a long, scalloped line as seen from Blowing Rock, a sharp tooth as seen coming towards it from Linville Falls. These bare, rocky summits are peculiar to the mountains of this region, as cliffy walls are of the Highlands country. None of these summits, however, can approach the Grandfather's black top in size and impressiveness, it being a landmark far and near. The most impressive view of the Grandfather is from Blowing Rock that lies some twenty miles to the east of it on a brink of the Blue Ridge, which there makes a drop of a thousand feet or more into the foothills below. From Blowing Rock to Tryon Mountain the Blue Ridge draws a deep curve half encircling a jumble of very wild rocky peaks and cliffs that belong to the foothill formations. Hence Blowing Rock, lying on one arm of a horseshoe of BLOWING ROCK 351 which Tryon Mountain is the other arm, has the most dramatic outlook of any village in the moun tains. Directly in front of it is an enormous bowl filled with a thousand tree-clad hills and ridges that become higher and wilder towards the encircling wall of the Blue Ridge, the conspicuous bare stone summits of Hawk's Bill and Table Rock Mountains rising sharp as dragon's teeth above the rest, while the sheer and shining face of the terrible Lost Cove cliffs, dropping into some unexplored ravine, come to view on a clear day. Far away, beyond this wild bowlful of mountains, one sometimes sees a faintly outlined dome, Tryon Mountain, under which on the other side one likes to remember lies Traumfest, Fortress of Dreams. Off to the left from Blowing Rock, seen between near green knobs, the shoreless sea of the lowlands reaches away to lave the edge of the sky. And look ing to the right, there lies the calm and noble form of the Grandfather Mountain, its rocky top drawn in a series of curves against the western sky. Long spurs sweep down like buttresses to hold it. Trees clothe it as with a garment to where the black rock sur mounts them. The view from Blowing Rock changes continually. The atmospheric sea that incloses mountain and valley melts the solid rocks into a thousand enchant ing pictures. Those wild shapes in the great basin which at one time look so near, so hard, and so terri ble, at another time recede and soften, their dark col ors transmuted into the tender blue of the Blue 352 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS Ridge, or again the basin is filled with dreamlike forms immersed in an exquisite sea of mystical light. Sometimes the Grandfather Mountain stands solidly out, showing in detail the tapestry of green trees that hangs over its slopes; again it is blue and flat against the sky, or it seems made of mists and shadows. Sometimes the sunset glory penetrates, as it were, into the substance of the mountain, which looks translucent in the sea of light that contains it. As night draws on, it darkens into a noble silhouette against the splendor that often draws the curves of its summit in lines of fire. Blowing Rock at times lies above the clouds, with all the world blotted out excepting the Grand father's summit rising out of the white mists. Some times one looks out in the morning to see that great bowl filled to the brim with level cloud that reaches away from one's very feet in a floor so firm to the eye that one is tempted to step out on it. Presently this pure white, level floor begins to roll up into bil lowy masses, deep wells open, down which one looks to little landscapes lying in the bottom, a bit of the lovely John's River Valley, a house and trees, per haps. The well closes; the higher peaks begin to appear, phantom islands in a phantom sea ; the rest less ocean of mists swells and rolls, now concealing, now revealing glimpses of the world under it. It breaks apart into fantastic forms that begin to glide up the peaks and mount above them like wraiths. The'sun darts sheafs of golden arrows in through the openings, and these in time slay the pale dragons of BLOWING ROCK 353 the air, or drive them fleeing into the far blue caverns of the sky, and the world beneath is visible, only that where the John's River Valley ought to be there often remains a long lake of snowy drift. Sometimes the clouds blotting out the landscape break apart suddenly, the mountains come swiftly forth one after the other until one seems to be watching an act of creation where solid forms resolve themselves out of chaos. The peaceful John's River Valley, winding far below among the wild mountains, is like a glimpse into fairyland, and one has never ventured to go there for fear of dispelling the pleasing illusion. Near the village of Blowing Rock, at the begin ning of those green knobs between which one looks to the lowlands, is a high cliff, the real Blowing Rock, so named because the rocky walls at this point form a flume through which the northwest wind sweeps with such force that whatever is thrown over the rock is hurled back again. It is said that there are times when a man could not jump over, so tremend ous is the force of the wind. It is also said that vis itors, having heard the legend of the rock, have been seen to stand there in a dead calm and throw over their possessions and watch them more in anger than in mirth as they, obedient to the law of gravity instead of that of fancy, disappeared beneath the tree-tops far below. Blowing Rock, four thousand feet above sea-level, is a wonderfully sweet place. The rose-bay and the great white Rhododendron maximum crowd against the houses and fill the open spaces, excepting where 354 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS laurel and the flame-colored azaleas have planted their standards. And in their seasons the wild flow ers blossom everywhere; also the rocks are covered with those crisp, sweet-smelling* herbs that love high places, and sedums and saxifrages trim the crevices and the ledges. Blowing Rock is also noted for the great variety of new mushrooms that have been captured there, though one suspects this renown is due to the fact that the mushroom hunters happened to pitch their tents here instead of somewhere else. For other parts of the mountains can make a showing in mushrooms, too. It sometimes rains at Blowing Rock, but there are other times when one stands there on the brink in bright sunshine and sees, it may be, four showers descending on different parts of the country at once. Blowing Rock has long been a favorite summer resort, and at present is most easily reached by way of a drive twenty miles long, up the ridges from Lenoir, where a short branch railroad connects with the main line at Hickory. At Blowing Rock, the Blue Ridge, as so often hap pens along its course, presents a steep wall towards the foothills, but keeps its elevation at the top, extending back in a wide plateau ; hence the country back of Blowing Rock and the Grandfather Moun tain has a general elevation of from three thousand to four thousand feet ; that is, the valley bottoms are thus high, which is what gives to this part of the country its peculiar charm. It is the walker's para- BLOWING ROCK 355 dise, deliciously cool all summer, and totally free from any form of insect pest. South of the Grand father the valley bottoms average about a thousand feet lower, although one there finds the highest mountains. But there are no finer views anywhere than from the Grandfather, the Beech, and other high summits of the Grandfather country. And here as elsewhere the people are so friendly and so good that one can if so inclined start out alone and with perfect safety spend weeks walking from place to place, stopping at the little villages for the night or where there are none, with whoever happens to be nearest when the sun goes down. Leaving Blowing Rock one day in mid-June, you perhaps will walk away to Boone, some ten miles distant, three miles of the way a lane close-hedged on either side with gnarled and twisted old laurel trees heavy-laden with bloom so that the crisp flower cups shower about you as you pass and the air is full of their bitter, tonic fragrance. Large rhododendrons stand among the laurel, but their great flower clusters are as yet imprisoned beneath the strong bud-scales. When the laurel is done blooming, you will perceive that you must come this way again for the sake of the rhododendrons. Little streams of crystal clearness come out from under the blossoming laurel, flash across the road, and disap pear under the laurel on the other side. How sweet the air where all the odors of the forest are inter woven with the bitter-sweet smell of the close-press ing flowers! How the pulse quickens as one steps 356 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS along. Is that a bird? Or is it your own heart sing ing? Before the first freshness of that laurel-hedged road has begun to dim from familiarity, you emerge into the open where the view is of wide, rolling slopes, green hills and valleys dotted with roofs, and beyond these the great blue distant mountains soaring up into the sky. That steep hill to your left is bright- red with sorrel, a sorry crop for the farmer, but a lovely spot of color in the landscape. You climb up this sorrel-red hill to the top of Flat Top Moun tain, up over the rough stones and the dark-red sorrel to where the view is wide and fine. But Flat Top Mountain offers you more than a view. It is noon when you get there, for you have not hurried, but have stopped every moment to smell or to see, or just to breathe and breathe as though you could thus fill your bodily tissues with freshness and fragrance to last into your remotest life. As you climb up Flat Top, you detect a fragrance that does not come from the flowers, a warm, delicious fragrance that makes you look eagerly at the ground. Seeing nothing, you go on half disappointed, half buoyant with the certainty of success — ah, it comes again, that delicious warm fragrance. You abandon your self to primitive instincts and trusting your senses turn about and walk straight to where the ground is red with ripe strawberries. You sit down on the warm grass and taste the delectable fruit. A bird is singing from a bush as though sharing in your pleasure. When you have gathered the best within BLOWING ROCK 357 reach, you lie back and watch the clouds sailing like white swans across the sky. Then you take out the bread you have brought, the most delicious bread ever baked, for it has in some magical way acquired a flavor of blossoming laurel, and rippling brooks, and blue sky, and the joy of muscles in motion, of deep-drawn breath, of the lassitude of delicious exercise, with a lingering flavor of the spicy berries whose fragrance is in the air about you. Such bread as this is never eaten within the walls of a house. And then you rest on the warm hillside fanned by the cool breeze, for no matter how hot the summer sun, there is always a cool breeze in the high world at the back of the Grandfather. Before starting on, you must taste again of the exquisite feast spread for you and the birds, whose wings you hear as they come and go, fearless and ungrudging, for there is enough for all. Farther along on the mountain stands an old weather-boarded house whence you see Boone in the distance lying so sweetly among its mountains. A path here leads you down to a deserted cabin in a lovely hollow. That well-worn path at the doorstep leads to the spring only a few steps away, such a spring as one is always looking for and always finding at the back of the Grandfather. Its water is icy cold and it is walled about with moss-covered, fern-grown stones. This cabin in the lovely hollow, with its ice- cold spring, the surrounding fruit trees, the signs of flowers once cultivated, gives you a strange im pulse to stop here, like a bird that has found its nest, 358 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS but you go on along a woodsy by-road whose banks are covered with pale-green ferns, and where the large spiraea in snowy bloom stands so close as almost to form a hedge. The velvety dark-green leaves of wild hydrangea crowd everywhere, its broad flat heads of showy buds just ready to open. Enormous wild gooseberries invite you to taste and impishly prick your tongue if you do. The blackberries make a great show, but are not yet ripe. The roadside now and then is bordered with ripe strawberries. This shady way brings you again into the "main leadin' road" you left some distance back when you climbed the sorrel-red hill to the top of Flat Top Mountain, and which now also has its wealth of flowers, among which the pure-white tapers of the galax shine out from the woods, while here and there a service tree drops coral berries at your feet. Soon now you cross the deep, wide ford of Mill River on a footbridge, substantial and with a hand rail, and where you stop of course to look both up and down the stream overhung with foliage, and just beyond which is a pretty house with its front yard full of roses. It is only two miles from here to Boone, and you breathe a sigh of regret at being so near the end of the day's walk; yet when you find yourself in Mrs. Coffey's little inn with its bright flowers you are glad to sit down and think over the events of the day. Boone, at the foot of Howard Knob, is a pretty snuggle of houses running along a single street. Boone says it is the highest county seat in the BLOWING ROCK 359 United States, and that Daniel Boone once stayed in a cabin near here, whence its name. However all that may be, the lower slopes of Howard Knob are pleasantly cultivated and valleys run up into the mountains in all directions, as though on purpose to make a charming setting for Boone the county seat. That first visit to Boone! — what a sense of peace one had in remembering that the nearest railroad was thirty miles away ; and then, — what is that? — a telephone bell rings its insistent call and Boone is talking with Blowing Rock, or Lenoir, or New York City, or Heaven knows where! For though this part of the country was the last to get into railroad communication with the outer world, it was by no means the last to grasp the opportunities within reach. With what delicious weariness one sinks to sleep after the day's walk over the hills ! Your eyes seem scarcely to have closed when a loud noise wakens you with a start — what is it? Nothing excepting that the day's work has begun, broad daylight flood ing in at the window. Breakfast is ready, coffee, cornbread, fish from some near sparkling stream, rice, hot biscuit, eggs, wild-plum sauce, honey and wild strawberries — you can take your choice or eat them all. And what a pleasant surprise to find every thing seasoned with the wonderful appetite of childhood, that reappears on such occasions as this! Your body seems borne on wings, so light it feels as you leave the inn and again take to the road. 360 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS Back to Blowing Rock? No, indeed ; not even though you could return, part way at least, by another road. The Wanderlust is on you — the need of walking along the high valleys among the enchanted moun tains. That seems the thing in life worth doing. As you leave Boone you notice a meadow white with ox-eye daisies, and among them big red clover-heads, and, if you please, clumps of black-eyed Susans — for all the world like a summer meadow in the New England hills. Ripe strawberries hang over the edge of the road. From Boone to Valle Crucis you must go the longest way, for so you get the best views, the people tell you. And so you go a day's walk to Valle Crucis, where the Episcopal settlement lies in the fine green little valley. From Valle Crucis to Banner Elk, under the Beech Mountain, is another day's walk, when again you take the longest way, up Dutch Creek to see the pretty waterfall there, and where the clematis is a white veil over the bushes, and up the steep road by Hanging Rock where the gold tree grows. This is an oak, known far and near because its top is always golden yellow. The leaves come out yellow in the spring, remain so all summer, and in the fall would doubtless turn yellow if they were not already that color. The people say there is a pot of gold buried at the roots, but this pleasant fancy has not taken a serious enough hold to menace the life of the tree. Stopping at a picturesque, old-time log house to rest, a little girl invites you to go to the top of Hang- BLOWING ROCK 361 ing Rock, which invitation you gladly accept, there by getting one of the most enjoyable walks of the summer, your little guide telling you all the way about the flowers and the birds, and stopping under an overhanging cliff with great secrecy to show you a round little bird's nest with eggs in it cleverly hidden in the moss. One suspects it was the chance to show this treasure that led the child to propose the long climb to the top of the mountain. The gooseberries of Hanging Rock are without prickles, perhaps because the wild currants growing there have stolen them. Imagine prickly currants ! There is plenty of galax on Hanging Rock, and mosses and sedums and all the other growths that make moun tain-tops so agreeable. The top of Hanging Rock is a slanting ledge, from which the mountain gets its name. At Banner Elk you will want to stay awhile, it is so pretty, and you will also want to climb the beautiful Beech Mountain with its grassy spaces and its charming beech groves. From Banner Elk you take the short walk over to "Calloways," close under the shadow of the Grand father, and from here the long and beautiful walk down the Watauga River at the base of the Grand father, then along the ridges back to Blowing Rock, watching as you go details of the mountain beneath whose northern front you are passing. The open benches, the rocky bluffs, and abrupt, tree-clad walls, of this side of the mountain, which we call the back of the Grandfather, are not impressive like those long southern slopes sweeping from a summit of a 362 THE^. CAROLINA MOUNTAINS little less than six thousand feet down into the foot hills. For the mountain on this side is stopped by the high plateau from which it rises. Yet it is good to be at the back of the Grandfather. From the Watauga road we see the profile from which the mountain is said to have received its name, although one gets a better and far more impressive view of it from a certain point on the mountain itself. And so you return to Blowing Rock after days of wandering, only to rest awhile and start again, gain ing endurance with every trip until the ten miles' walk that cost you a little weariness becomes the twenty miles' walk that costs you none. You cannot tire of the road, for every mile brings new sights, new sounds, new fragrances, new friends, new flowers, one charm of walking here being the endless variety. No two days are alike, each has its own pleasant adventures. XXXIII THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN DOWN in the plains and in all the cities it is August. Up here it is some celestial month not mentioned in any calendar. For we are camping at the back of the Grandfather Mountain; our tents are pitched on a slope that is separated from the base of the mountain by a narrow, wedge-like little valley down which ripples the silvery beginning of the Watauga River. To be at the beginning of a river is guaranty of many pleasant things. Opposite us the mountain rises, steep, rough, and covered with beautiful growths. It is so near we can see the shades of green and even make out the forms of the tree-tops. On its side the clouds form, welling up as from a caldron of the storm gods. We are shut in by tree-clad slopes, excepting towards the east, where the view opens down the valley upon distant blue hills. Ripe blackberries hang over the roadside, and the bushes growing about the rocks in an abandoned field near us are loaded with extra good fruit. There is a certain pleasure in gathering one's food from the bushes; one is apt to gather so much more than bodily sustenance. You think of things in a berry patch, for instance, that never come to you any where else; you solve the problems of the universe 364 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS differently. In a brier patch you think in cycles and flavor your food with dashes of cosmic philosophy. And there is profit as well as pleasure in gather ing your food from the bushes. At the back of the Grandfather, berries are important in our daily fare. We eat them as they grow, and also prepared in many ways. We makejiiscoveries in culinary aesthe tics as well as in cosmic philosophy, dealing with blackberries. You have never reajly tasted a black berry pudding, for instance, until you have stood on a stone in the Watauga River, stripped the heavy, shining clusters of ripe fruit into your tin "bucket," carried them back to camp, and made your pudding; for your true blackberry pudding must be flavored with warm sunshine glinting between green leaves, the sparkle of running water, and the remembered fragrances of herbs and trees and bushes, with mem ories of pleasant reveries, and it does it no harm to be spiced with scratches. There is a certain sensuous pleasure to be derived from the scratches of a berry patch. The hot rip of the thorn through the skin, the crimson line of blood that appears at the surface, but does not overflow, the tingling sensation that courses over your whole body for a moment, — for this you willingly endure the smart that comes for hours afterwards whenever your wounded members touch anything. Moreover, you would endure the scratches so soon forgotten for the memory that lasts of the feel of the sun, of the beleaguering fragrances, and for the rich booty you carry home. < ZO « waH< toQZ toO WW THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN 365 And your blackberry pudding, to be perfect, must be eaten in a tent, or sitting on a rock by a brookside, or in a shakedown bower under a big tree. Our dining-room is a bower roofed with evergreen boughs. Out through the open front, through the overhang ing ends of the evergreen boughs, we see the top of the Grandfather Mountain and the clouds that come and go over it. The country people bring us food, apples, butter, eggs, and milk. The butter comes out of a tall earthenware churn whose dasher is moved up and down by a mountain friend whom we see sitting in the doorway of her house busily churning, with a background of the black interior in which are faintly outlined the kitchen utensils. Under the slopes of the Grandfather we go down the valley to pictur esque houses shaded by fruit trees. Sometimes we spend the day on the Grandfather Mountain and such days cannot come too often. Sometimes we walk over the gap under Hanging Rock, or we cross over to Banner Elk, or go down to Linville, and wherever we walk the air stimulates like wine and the wayside is abloom with summer flowers, among them goldenrods and asters for memories of life in the North, and the hillsides are solid masses of white bloom, or they are yellow or pink with flowers, — but the slopes along the northern bank of the Watauga River are distinct in your mind from every thing else. In the late summer they may be a mere tangle of flowers and plumy grasses, but did you not come along here once and discover them carpeted 366 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS with strawberries? You could not then walk over them without dyeing your feet in the juice of the ripe fruit. Above the strawberries red-clover was thickly blooming, and above the clover ox-eye daisies. The odor of this field was perceptible before you otherwise noticed it — a chorus of sweet smells seemed shouting to you to come up. As soon as the land is left untilled about here, wild strawberries rush in as pink azaleas do about Traumfest. You can buy them for five cents a gallon, but you will be foolish to do that when you can stain your own fingers with their juices, and fill your tissues with sunshine and fresh air and fragrances out on the slopes when strawberries are ripe. Shading our camp is the remains of a grove, for most of the trees lie on the ground, bleached skele tons, which, however, prove to be a blessing rather than a misfortune for us. For towards night the air grows cold — and then comes the crowning pleasure of the day: a royal camp-fire suddenly blazes forth. We have a perfect firemaker in the mountain man who lives in the canvas-covered wagon that brought us here, bag and baggage. Every mountain man is a perfect firemaker, though he is by no means a fire worshiper. He makes his fire for homely uses, not for any spiritual cause such as we imagine kindled those fires of early man in the Far East, fires that yet burn in poetry to warm the heart even at this dis tant time. The mountain man always starts his fire with a stick whittled into a brush. He scorns paper even when he can get it, seeming to whittle into his THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN 367 brush a sort of magic, for try as you will you cannot whittle a brush that will burn like his. It never fails, and he uses only one match. Our back-log is the trunk of an ash tree seasoned to perfection. Against this is laid various kinds of wood, each kind giving forth its own flames and its own sparks ; for trees do not all burn alike. The oak, for instance, expresses itself as distinctly in its flames as in its leaves and fruit, or in its voice in the wind, or its color or the odors it sends forth. Even the different species of oak burn differently. One can sit in reverie before the calm blaze of a white-oak fire, but your Spanish oak explodes and sputters and shoots out sparks in a way to induce anything but reverie. Hickory burns with a steadfast glow, but the unstable chest nut pops and sputters worse, if anything, than Spanish oak. Your firemaker says it is linwood that sends out those fascinating broods of fiery dragons that leap with lashing tails high into the air. There are some things one would like to know about trees. One would like to know from the flames what tree is burning, how old it is, and what have been its experiences in life, as well as how to tell, by the sound of the wind among the leaves, beneath what tree one is passing, and by the smell of the opening buds al you go along what trees are about you. As we lie on the fragrant earth watching the flames and the fiery serpents ascend into the black vault above, this seems to us no common fire, but rather the sudden rush into elemental freedom of those 368 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS, patient giants of the forest that have lain here wait ing for us to come and free them. Sometimes a bat flies across the fire, and one night a dark toad was discovered sitting close to your ear. But he had nothing important to say. He sat still for a while, his eyes glistening in the firelight that seemed to fascinate him. Then he attempted to enter the heaven thus suddenly opened to his imag ination. In pursuit of his dream he went straight into the fire. What he expected to find, who can say? And what a disillusionment it must have been when he found himself sitting on a red-hot fagot! He made a quick backward movement, to be swept into safety by a merciful human hand. If a toad had the wings of a moth, it would doubtless fly into the fire in the same way. A toad followed a lantern a long distance one night. It is impossible not to like the toad when you once really know it. Besides its friendly manners it has the most beautiful eyes in the world. Those eyes so soft and bright betoken a good heart. What is the old fable of the toad wear ing a jewel in its head? The truth of that is, the toad wears two jewels, and they are its lovely golden- brown eyes. As the firediesdown, talking ceases, the black trees come out more plainly, and the head of the Grand father wears a crown of stars where great Scorpio lies along the sky. If you chance to waken in the night, out through the triangular space between the open tent-flaps you see the slopes of the Grandfather bathed in THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN 369 moonlight, or dimly looming in the faint light of the stars, or shrouded in white mists like a ghost. One sleeps soundly in the keen, thin air and at daybreak wakens, not slowly but all at once with a sense of buoyancy in every member. How the cold spring water stings the skin and makes it glow suddenly hot ! And as we step out of doors we see the moun tain emerging from its robe of white mists, its colors fresh and fine as though it, too, had slept well. Oftener than anywhere else we go up on the moun tain. One can easily, by jumping from stone to stone, cross the Watauga's pretty rippling water, where the trout hide. Some of our little party may stop to fish, and that is good for those of us who come home hungry at night — and how hungry we do come home ! — but the Watauga has better uses than fish ing, an occupation apt to absorb one's attention too closely, withdrawing it from matters more import ant than trout. There is a matter of real interest, however, connected with fishing in this region. For it was either here or in the Linville that we saw the sacred piscatorial art pursued with woolen mittens instead of rod and fly. Thus equipped you wade in and grab the fish where they lie in the clear pools. The path beyond the river is cut through the dense kalmia and Rhododendron maximum that make a wide band along the base of the mountain, then it leads up and up and up through the more open forest. There is no sweeter walk in the world than that up Grandfather Mountain, where the path winds among the trees, a canopy of leaves screening 370 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS the sky, the forest shutting from view the outer world. Once, there were large wild cherry trees on the slopes of the Grandfather, but the wood being valuable, — it is what the people call mahogany, — there are only saplings left, and a few patriarchs that, though useless for lumber, give an air of dignity to the forest in company with the clear gray shafts of the tulip-trees, the grand old chestnuts, the oaks, the maples, beeches, birches, ashes, and lindens that mingle their foliage 'with that of the pines and spruces. You pass beside or under large detached boulders covered with saxifrages, sedums, mosses, and ferns, and in whose crevices mountain-ash trees and twisted hemlocks have taken root as though for pur poses of decoration; and in the damp hollows away from the path great jack- vines hang from the tree- tops. The rock ledges sometimes make caves where bears were wont to live, for the Grandfather was once a famous place for bears. Squirrels still "use on the mountain," as the people say, and a " boomer " will be apt to bark down at you as you go along. You hear the waters of a stream in the ravine below, and here and there you cross a natural garden of "balimony" or some other precious herb that the people gather in the season. About two thirds of the way up you take a path that branches off to the left and leads you over the mossy rocks to an open place on the edge of a gorge where looking off you see the clear-cut profile of the Grandfather sculptured on the edge of a rocky bluff, the bushy hair that rises from THE GRANDFATHER PROFILE THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN 371 the forehead consisting of fir trees that when whit ened by the winter snow give a venerable appear ance to the stone face. Somewhat above this profile from this point is also visible another, with smaller and rounder features, which of course is the Grand mother. Returning to the main path and continuing the ascent, the way grows wilder and if possible sweeter. One has a sense of rising spiritually as well as phys ically. At the base of a high cliff, framed in foliage and crowned with the rosy-flowered Rhododendron Catawbiense, gushes out the famous Grandfather Spring that is only ten degrees above freezing throughout the summer. Up to this point there is a bridle path ; beyond here it is necessary to walk. The rose-bay still in bloom clings to the rocks, in whose crevices little dwarf trees have taken root along with the mosses, ferns, and saxifrages. The path gets very steep and rocky. You are now among the balsam firs, those trees to name which is to name a perfume, and you go climbing up over their strong red roots. The pathway becomes a staircase winding about moss-trimmed rocks in whose crevices are tiny contorted balsams like Japan ese' flower-pot trees. Enormous coal-black lichens hang from the cliffs and the ground is softly carpeted with mossy growths and oxalis, out from whose pretty pale leaves look myriads of pink-and-white blossoms. Long after the Rhododendron Catawbiense is done blooming below, one finds it in its prime on the high peaks of the Grandfather. 372 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS Up among the balsam firs and about the rocks grow large sour gooseberries and enormous sweet huckleberries, and it was here we found a new and delicious fruit. The bushes crowding the woods in places were loaded with bright red globes the size of a small cherry, each dangling from a slender stem. These delightful berries were mere skins of juice, tiny wine-bottles full of refreshment for a summer day. The natives were afraid to eat them, but hav ing decided that they were cousins to the huckle berries, we ventured, and added these jocund fruits to the many attractions (that called us again and again to the top of the Grandfather. One wishes it could truthfully be said that these berries grow only on^the Grandfather Mountain, but the fact is we discovered them on other mountains, though never much below an altitude of six thousand feet. Finding them thus among the mossy rocks up in the sweet, keen air on the summit of our favorite mountain gave them a charm that was enhanced by the fact that they belonged to us and the birds. Now we shall have to share them with every passer-by, for when we ate and survived, our mountain friends ventured to partake, and doubtless they will spread the news that you can eat with impunity the juicy red berries on top of Grandfather Mountain. One woman even took home a pailful and made from them the most exquisite jelly imaginable, ruby-red, clear, sparkling* and with a delicate wild-flower flavor that made one think of the sweet things growing on the mountain-top. We named them THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN 373 "Our Berries," and with them quenched our thirst instead of carrying water when we went above the spring. Up through the spruces and the balsams you mount in the resplendent day, lingering at every step. The trees below you are sending up songs as the wind sweeps over them, the balsams about and below you are pouring a vast cloud of fragrance into the blue bowl of the sky, and you yourself someway seem to be a part of the general rapture. Thus climbing up through the wonderful day, you reach the summit, "Calloway's High Peak," the highest point on the mountain, but from which one cannot command the circle of the horizon. It is necessary to get the view from two points, which is all the better. The rocks at the lookout towards the south being covered with "heather," one can lie on a delightful couch studded all over with little white starry flowers, to rest and receive the view. Lying thus on the earth, warmed by the sun and cooled by the fragrant breeze, one looks over a sea of blue mountains that breaks against a bluer sky. Out of the sea of mountains rises many a well-known form, among them the big beech with its memories of lovely pastures and groves of beech trees, for it is needless to say that a mountain of beeches is a sort of enchanted place. In the distance lies White Top on whose summit three states meet, a heaven for the moonshiner, one should think, if he is able to take advantage of the situation. Leaving this place and walking on to the point 374 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS that looks to the south, one shares the feelings and almost the faith of Michaux. The view is very im pressive, because of that steep descent of the moun tain into the foothills, the long spurs sweeping down in fine lines to a great depth. Above them one looks off over scores of noble forms overlapping and blend ing in the hazy distance. The Black Mountains stand forth very high and very blue, and beyond them, among the many familiar forms, are distin guished what one supposes to be the faint blue line of the Smokies — or is it the nearer Balsams? The greater mass of the Grandfather lies on the south side, where those long buttresses sweep down into the valleys of the Piedmont region, glorious ridges with broad bald shoulders where cattle pas ture and rhododendrons, laurel, and azaleas stand in regal beauty. Between the long spurs, as well as between the many smaller ridges, glance rivulets that finally become the John's River, whose valley one sees from Blowing Rock winding so prettily between the foothills. Sooner or later you will find your way to McRae's, which is to the south side of the Grandfather what Calloway's is to the north side, a farmhouse where one can stay awhile. There is a trail over the end of the Grandfather by which you can go directly from Calloway's to McRae's, but to strike this trail you have to walk down the Linville River, which, rising in an open space but a stone's throw from the head of the Watauga, flows in quite the opposite direc tion, and through so narrow a pass that you have to THE GRANDFATHER^ MOUNTAIN 375 keep crossing and recrossing it, no small matter in a season of rains. For there are no foot-logs at all. Evidently you are not expected to walk along this road, and if you do you must cross the river, jumping from rock to rock as best you can. But the Linville is one of the streams you are glad to know through all its sparkling length, from the spring behind the Grandfather to where it escapes in wild glee through the gorge below the falls. There are peacocks at McRae's, and Mr. McRae has not forgotten how to play on the bagpipes those ancient airs that have so stirred the blood of his race. One of the pleasant memories of this side of the Grandfather is Mr. McRae walking up and down before the house playing the pipes. But you will have to coax him to do it. McRae's stands on the Yonahlossee Road that connects Linville, just below the mountain, with Blowing Rock, — Yonahlossee, trail of the bear, — but one need fear no bear on the Yonahlossee Road to-day. From McRae's there is a path up the Grand father, not to Calloway's High Peak, but to another peak reached by a very sweet climb through the balsams, which, in all this region, are smaller and more companionable than the straight giants of the Black Mountains, these of the Grandfather being twisted and friendly and profoundly fragrant. From this peak one can see in all directions, excepting where one of the Grandfather's black summits obstructs the view. 376 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS It is the lichens growing on the rocks that give so sombre an appearance to the top of the Grandfather, those big, black lichens with loose and curled-up edges. Grandfather's black, rocky top is eight miles long, and once Mr. Calloway and our friend the post master — he who brought us our mail, walking four miles every day for the pleasure of doing a kindness — and the men of the camping party blazed out a rude trail so that we could all take that wonderful knife- edge walk up in the sky over the peaks of the Grand father; Indian ladders — that is, a tall tree trunk from which the branches have been lopped, leaving protruding ends for steps — helping us up otherwise insurmountable cliffs. It was the great event of the season, a very wonderful walk, and one seldom taken by anybody. The Yonahlossee Road ought to be followed early in the summer. For then the meadowy tops of the long spurs are like noble parks created for man's pleasure. The Rhododendron Catawbiense lies massed about in effective groups and covered with rosy bloom, beyond which one looks out over a wide landscape of mountains and clouds. From these open, flower-decked spaces the road passes into the shadowy forest, to emerge upon a bushy slope where blazing reaches of flame-colored azaleas astound your senses. There are other flowers along the way, but you scarcely see them, intoxicated as you are with the glory of the rhododendrons, and after them the azaleas, for these marvelous growths almost never blossom within sight of each other. You would THE YONAHLOSSEE ROAD THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN 377 say they know, like ladies at a ball, how important it is to avoid each other's colors. Under the trees along the roadside the earth is covered with a superb carpet of large and handsome galax leaves, for the Grandfather is distinguished by the great beauty and abundance of its galax. Laurel, too, claims standing-room on the side of the grand old mountain, and here as elsewhere one no tices the apparent capriciousness of the laurel, which forms an impenetrable jungle for long stretches and then stops short, not a laurel bush to be seen for some distance, when with equal suddenness it ap pears again. The splendid slopes of the Grandfather are en chanting also when autumn colors them, — deep red huckleberry balds, trees wreathed in crimson woodbine, vivid sassafras, tall gold and crimson and scarlet forest trees — it seems more like the brilliant display of a Northern forest. You would say the outpouring of fragrance must pass with the summer. Not so. As you walk among the trees in their thin, bright attire you have a feeling of their friendliness. The forest, as it were, breathes upon you, you are drowned in the sweetness of resinous perfumes that distil from a thousand pines, firs, and hemlocks. When the leaves of the trees are growing scarce and changing to duller hues, into the open spaces witch- hazel weaves its gold-wreathed wands and brightens the woods like sunshine. Turning to the right from the Yonahlossee Road, a short distance up from McRae's, you walk along 378 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS under the chestnut trees just beginning to open their burrs, away from the Grandfather out over a beautiful spur that ends in an open, rounded sum mit. The road to this place has side paths that lead you to high cliffs, whence you look off towards Blowing Rock, and where the sweetest of mountain growths cling to the crevices and drape the edges of all the rocks. For some reason the trees here are small, the chestnuts being not much larger than bushes, but the nuts are proportionately large, the largest nuts one ever saw on our native chestnut trees, and they are peculiarly sweet, again a hint to the fruit-makers who from this could doubtless create a nut as large as the chestnuts of France and as sweet as those of America. The summit of this little mountain of the large chestnuts is one of your favorite places to go for a day of rest and contempla tion. It is a lovely, soothing place, as it ought to be, for it is the Grandmother Mountain. XXXIV THE HOLIDAY OF DREAMS BACK to Traumfest one comes, after each expe dition out over the mountains. And one day the truth dawns upon you, — the title so arbitrarily bestowed upon Traumfest belongs to the whole region. Yes, this whole stretch of enchanting and enchanted mountains is the "Holiday of Dreams." And thinking back over those days of happy wan dering, how many interesting places appear before the mind's eye that have not been so much as men tioned in this book; how many lovely scenes have been witnessed, how many pleasant adventures encountered that have not been recorded, how many flowers have blossomed without mention, how many birds have sung unchronicled, how many quaint native phrases have been passed over in silence ! And as the years have slipped by, with what pangs of regret one has watched the passing of the primi tive life of the mountains, and with what pleasure one reverts to those old days when everybody was uncomfortable and everybody happy. How many to-day, seeing the train with its line of Pullman sleepers come in on time at Traumfest, remember those days when the track went only as far as Hen dersonville, and when, with the old-time courtesy of the Southern man, the conductor politely stopped 380 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS his two cars on request of any lady passenger who wished to gather a few wild flowers, willing to please so long as he could get in before dark. Since then, like a cosmic spider, the Southern Railroad has woven its meshes below the Carolina mountains on either side, and thrown its steel threads across them in several places, while now yet another line is being surveyed across the Blue Ridge to the north of Tryon Mountain, up the Broad River Valley, past Chimney Rock, and on as far as Bat Cave where it follows a devious route of escape by way of the Pigeon River Gorge. The Blue Ridge that looks so ethereal in the distance presents almost insuperable obstacles to the civil engineer, as do also the guarding ramparts of the valleys of the plateau, but the great transcontinental line, that is to reach from the Atlantic coast of North Carolina to Seattle on the Pacific, will doubtless find a way. Occasionally one sees an old-fashioned, boat- shaped wagon covered with a canopy of white cloth, a survivor of those trains that crossed from Tennessee to the Carolinas over the hard-won roads where no longer move trains of wagons, droves of cattle, hogs, and sheep, all these now passing over another form of highway behind the iron horse that pulls the con tents of a hundred caravans in one load. And what means that sudden appearance of two dozen automobiles on Traumfest's modest "Trade Street" the other day? Two or three of these won ders of the age belong to people living here, and those others came on a mission, which was, to further their THE HOLIDAY OF DREAMS 381 own interests by making plans for the extension of the road that brought them here. They came up from Spartanburg, a sign of the new era that has dawned to transform the mountains. For already from Spartanburg there comes a wide, new road, a great red serpent whose head is pointed up the Paco let Valley, and that will never stop until it has coiled and writhed its way over the helpless rampart of the Blue Ridge to its goal — in Asheville? No, not in Asheville, but through it and on and down out into the now teeming Western world beyond. The auto mobile, which is doing for this country what the military power has so long been doing for Europe, networking it with perfect roads, will soon speed from Jacksonville, Florida, across the plains, the foothills, and the astonished mountains, down to Knoxville, Tennessee, over the broad highway now being constructed for that purpose. Wherever you go the portable sawmill is ahead of you, the temporary railway of the lumberman dis dainfully penetrating the "inaccessible" places. And wherever you go the people of the mountains are waking up out of the care-free, simple life of the past into the wearing, tumultuous life of the present, and that is what causes those pangs of regret. The comforts that are pouring in are not in themselves regrettable; it is only the price one has to pay for them, the exchange of Arcadia for Gotham. Social transitions are always trying, and perhaps peculiarly so here, where the awakening conscious ness suddenly sees the glitter of the prize without 382 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS understanding the law of exchange. But the people are sound. To native intelligence they add a rude but strong sense of honor and of justice which with the passing of time will undoubtedly mould them happily into the new conditions. The world is coming; the old-time mountaineer is going, but he will never be wholly metamorphosed so long as human nature remains fundamentally unchanged and the sun continues to exact obedience to its great command, "Thou shalt not hurry." And so long as human nature remains as it is, the new comer will in time have the sharp edge of his "ambi tion" dulled by the same resistless force: "Thou shalt not hurry" applies to all alike. And now, into the increasing turmoil of many interests there comes like an emblem of peace the great Appalachian Park, that, lying in calm expanse over the slopes of the Blue Ridge and the Smoky Mountains, shall save forever for the happiness of the people a part of this glorious wilderness. With the park will come a new world to the mountains. Not only will railroads and highways open up all parts of the country, but an increasing number of those people who need to rest or to play will find their way here, and build themselves homes. Sum mer homes for the Southerner, winter homes for the Northerner, all-the-year-round homes for many from both sections are already growing up in the laurel thickets and under the trees. Those who desire an estate in the forest primeval can no longer, it is true, buy a whole mountain cov- THE HOLIDAY OF DREAMS 383 ered with virgin forest for a few cents an acre, as was the case not sp long ago, when "inaccessible" locali ties were looked upon as encumbered rather than benefited by their burden of big trees. But whoever wants a mountain-side, with a laurel-bordered stream and a wide view of enchanting heights, can have it, and if all the forest is no longer primeval it is nevertheless charming. The half-grown trees and the saplings, with the few large trees that generally manage to escape destruction, afford a starting- point for the creation of delightful landscape effects. And although the mountains have no great agri cultural value, frequent statements to the contrary notwithstanding, they are capable of responding cordially to him who, desiring a garden, a fruit orchard, or a vineyard, goes about it in the right way. New methods will doubtless increase the bearing capacity of the earth, but when all is said neither soil nor climate is as well suited to the pro duction of food crops for man's needs as they are for the production of laurel and azaleas for his pleasure. Where the mountains stand supreme is in their gracious climate that seems to caress the world- weary ; in that and in the subtler beauties of nature that everywhere cover them as with a garment. The chance to build a castle out of fancies and a few firmer materials, to snare the vagrant fragrances that float free, to fix the rose-bay on the cliff, to clear a vista to the heavenly heights, moves the desire of every lover of beauty who comes here sighing for release from the bondage of icy winds or city conventions. 384 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS Nor is a lordly mansion full of cares the proper hous ing for this country. Far better for those who seek their freedom is the restfully-proportioned "bunga low," with spreading roof and broad porches, appro priate to the climate and harmonious in the land scape, and which is now growing so greatly in favor. The world may be coming, but the colors and the fragrances, the wonderful air and the ardent sun remain the same, and ever will. The change that is going on may have its trials, but one has only to project the imagination far enough into the future to see these heights transformed from glorious wild ness into glorious order. One looks ahead with undaunted courage to the time when both visitor and native will enjoy without destroying the charming efforts of nature; to the time when man will — to adapt Emerson — name the birds without a gun, love the wild rose and leave it on its stalk; to the time when, undisturbed, the arbutus will again carpet the woods close to the houses, and the flaming azaleas cover the slopes, pressing down as they once did against the wheels of the carriage as you drove along the' more frequented roads. For Nature is long-suffering and very kind, so kind, indeed, that in moments of discouragement one has only to re member that even if the worst were to happen, and these beautiful mountains become devastated by ignorant invaders, when the time came, as come it would, that the profaner departed, Nature would begin anew her beneficent task of creating beauty. These mountains, with their tremendous fecundity THE HOLIDAY OF DREAMS 385 and their resistless allies of sun and rain, in half a century would erase all but the ineradicable signs of the presence of the destroyer, presenting to some future generation the privilege of joining the beauty of the wilderness to the graces of civilized life. For the whole world is now one population, all knowing each other, and it is incredible that the work of the future will not be in the direction of abolishing war, misery, and ugliness. When the vitality of man and the energy of money are freed from the barbaric waste of to-day, physical and municipal, as they will be freed, and can be di verted into making the earth beautiful, then, if not before, this enchanting region will be transformed into the paradise which is so evidently its function in the scheme of nature. For these mountains have been preserved as though on purpose for man's pleasure. Nowhere else does such variety of beauti ful trees grow in natural forests, nowhere else do such flowers bloom in gardens of nature's planting. The long line of the Appalachian Mountains, the oldest land in this country, perhaps in the world, having in its southern part escaped the cold death of the glacier, is probably the original home whence many of our hardwood trees have spread over the Northern Hemisphere. Once connected by land with eastern Asia, North America shared the flora of that part of the world, and when the Ice Age spread its destroying mantle over the whole northern part of the earth, the plants of the New World, — which is, geologically speaking, a very old world, — re- 386 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS ceding before it, took refuge in these mountains where soil and climate were alike favorable to their sustenance. So that here has been preserved in a great natural botanical garden and arboretum some of the choicest growths of recent millenniums, growths which but for these friendly heights would have been numbered with the long list of forms of beauty that doubtless lived and vanished before man came upon the scene to witness and enjoy. And here to-day it is man's privilege to enhance the loveliness of the earth by use of the wonderful trees and flowers that grow spontaneously, as well as by the introduction of the many beautiful forms that recent years have made accessible to us from that sister continent where the people of the Celes tial Empire and the Flowery Kingdom have so long made their part of the world enchanting with flow ers, foliage, and trees ; and where they have created a form of beauty expressing the personality of their race. Seeing the exquisite results obtained by them, one imagines our own civilization expressing itself with equal force and originality, and here in the Southern mountains, with every natural advantage to draw upon, evolving a form of landscape garden ing sympathetic to the region, as beautiful as that of any nation, and free from those traditional conven tions of ours, which introduced here would convert a possible paradise into a stupid repetition of build ings and gardens that whatever may be their excuse in other climates and other regions, are utterly out of place here. THE HOLIDAY OF DREAMS 387 Already lovely homes, and grounds beautifully planted with the natural growths of the mountains, testify to the possibilities of the country, and form, let us hope, the beginning of a vast domain of beauty, a domain created, not by a few great land holders, but by the many who shall come to take possession. The Italians have a graceful way of placing in their village parks a notice to the effect that the park is entrusted to the honor of the people for whose pleasure it was made, and in the same spirit one would like to confide nature's great park of the Southern Appalachian Mountains to the loving care of the people. May it be the pleasure of all to assist the charming efforts of nature and to pass on, as a right ful inheritance to future generations, an ever more enchanting Holiday of Dreams. THE END INDEX Appalachian Mountains, 6, 106. Appalachian National Park, 30, 31, 32, 382. "Bald," 105, 298, 299. Baptists, 130, 131, 219, 220. Baskets, 186, 230, 238. Bears, 243, 286, 298, 300, 370. Bee-gums, 21, 329. Birch still, 330. Birds: Bluebird, 37. Buzzard, 83. Cardinal, or red-bird, 37, 83. Carolina wren. See Wren. Catbird, 279. Cedar waxwing, 67. Chat, 37. Chickadee, 37. Creeper, 37. Dove, 63. Finch, 37. Grouse, 152, 292, 293, 294. Hermit thrush, 83. Junco, 37, 311. "Moaning dove," 63. Nuthatch, 37. Owl, 5, 64, 65. Peacock, 285, 375. Pine warbler, 37. Quail, 86, 152. Red-bird. See Cardinal. Robin, 37. Song sparrow, 37. Tanager, 37. Thrush, 37, 63, 83, 279. Titmouse, 37. Turkey, 152, 245, 285. Veery, 37. Whip-poor-will, 5, 64. Woodpecker, 37, 346. Wood thrush, 63. Wren, 37, 79, 82. Bridges, 109, no, 238, 291, 316, 318. Brooms, 186. Canopus, 4. Children, 165, 166, 222, 223. Chipmunk, 84. Christmas, 78, 81. Church, 90, 116, 120, 130, 131, 218, 219, 220. Cornfields, 72, 73. Coverlets, 194-197. Crystals and Minerals: Agate, 273. Amethyst, 266, 271. Aquamarine, 270. Asbestos, 273. Beryl, 270, 271, 318. Cape rubies, 269. Chalcedony, 272. Chrysoprase, 273. Corundum, 265, 266. Cyanite, 271, 290, 298. Emerald, 266, 267. Flexible sandstone, 273, 348. Garnet, 268, 269, 290, 298. Graphite, 273. Hiddenite, 270. Jasper, 273. Kaolin, 273. Marble, 273. 390 INDEX Mica, 270, 271, 325. Quartz, 271, 286. Quartz crystals, 271, 272. Rare earths, 273. Rhodolite, 268, 269. Rock Crystal, 272. Ruby, 266, 268. Sapphire, 266. Serpentine, 273. Soapstone, 273. Talc, 273. Topaz, 266. Tourmaline, 271. Deadenings, 24. Deer, 152, 243. Dyspepsia, 163. Episcopalians, 130, 219, 360. "Fat pine," 16. Feuds, 207, 208. Fireplaces, 184, 185, 366, 367. Fires, 15, 16, 25. Flowers, Fruits, and Trees: Adder's-tongue, 38. Alders, 36, 86, 335. _ Alleghany thermopsis, 283. Anemones, 38. Apples, 67, 116, 191, 192, 278, 297. 313- "Apricots," 68. Arbutus, 37. Ash trees, 245, 367, 370. Asters, 296. Azaleas, 59, 339, 340, 374; pink, 39; flame-colored, 49-56,60, 251, 265, 354, 376; white, 250, 265, 279. Balmony, 331. Balsam trees, 240, 298, 299, 3°3. 308, 309, 371, 375. Beans, 66, 93, 191. Bee-balm, 305, 335. Beech, 19, 71, 94, 245, 307, 315. 370. Benzoin, 46. Birch, 19, 370. Bird's-foot violet, 38, 39. Blackberry, 43, 358, 363, 364. Black-eyed Susan, 360. Black walnut, 20, 252. Blood-root, 38. Blue-grass, 289, 299. Broom corn, 186. Broom-straw, 186. Buckeye, 329. Cane brakes, 80, 313. Carolina pine-sap. See Pine- sap. Cherry, 20, 29, 67, 245, 370. Chestnut trees, 18, 245, 287, 305. 315. 319. 370. Chinkapins, 282, 328, 329. Clematis, 62, 243, 360. Clover, 289, 299, 360, 366. Columbine, 41, 265, 300. Compositae, 66. Corn, 65, 66, 75, 81, 205. Cotton, 88, 89. Crab tree, 297. Cucumber tree, 21. Currants, 361. Daisies, 360, 366. Dendrium buxifolium, 253, 347. 373- Dogwood, 40, 49, 70, 82. Elderberry, 282. Elm, 19. . Evening primrose, 300. Eyebright, 38, 309. Ferns, 183, 245, 307, 316, 370. Fig, 49. °7- Fire-pink, 300. Fir trees. See Balsam trees. Flowering shrub, 47. Fringe-tree, 42, 100, 251. Galax, 45, 348, 358, 361, 377. INDEX 39i Gentian, 72. Geum grandiflorum, 335. Ginger, 38. Ginseng, 257, 258, 340. Goldenrod, 296. Gold tree, 360. Gooseberries, 100, 311, 358, 361, 372. Grape, 62, 67, 68, 69, 279. Grass, 9, 92, 289, 299, 313. "Heather." See Dendrium buxifolium. Hemlock, 29, 1 16, 237, 245, 250. Hepatica, 38. "Herbs," 331. Hickory, 19, 71. Holly, 81. Honeysuckle, 43. Horse-brier, 72, 81. "Horse sugar, "47. Houstonia, 335. Huckleberries, 45, 192, 286, 347. 372- Hydrangea, 358. Iris verna, 38. Judas-tree, 40. Jack-oak, 81. Jack-vine, 249, 370. Kalmia latifolia. See Laurel. Laurel, 49, 54, 55, 56, 59, 60, 240, 251, 305, 339, 355. Leucothoe, 44, 183, 339. Lichens, 371, 376. Lilies, 41, 265, 300, 335, 339. Lily-of-the- valley (wild), 251. Linden tree, 307, 370. Liquidambar, 21. Locust tree, 245, 287. Magnolia, 20, 315. Mahogany, 20. Maple, 19, 20, 370. Maypop, 68. Mistletoe, 79. Morning glory, 62, 305. Moss, 307, 308. Mountain ash, 335, 370. Mushrooms, 69, 354. Oak trees, 18, 71, 81, 94, 245, 287, 319. 367, 370. Orchids, 41, 339. Oriental and monotypic plants, 19, 21, 22, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 52, 258, 275, 385, 386. "Our berries," 373. Oxalis, 245, 335, 371. Oxydendrum arboreum. See Sourwood. Passion-flower, 63, 68. Peach, 1, 2, 4, 67, 96, 192. Pennyroyal, 330, 331. Pepperidge, 21. Persimmon, 62, 76, 77. Phlox, 300. Pine-sap, 36, 86. Pine tree, 9, 16, 17, 18, 40, 41, 79,94, 116,345. Pink, 41. Plum, 2, 67, 242, 328. Pumpkin, 73, 191. "Ramps," 259. Red-bud, 40, 49. Rhododendron, 49, 50, 60, 1 16, 236, 240, 251, 284, 307, 311, 316, 339. 340, 34i. 343. 344. 347. 355. 374- Rhododendron Catawbiense, 57, 58, 59, 245, 251, 285, 287, 309. 3H. 335. 353. 37L 376. Rhododendron, early pink, 39, 57. 99. 264. Rhododendron maximum, 57, 58, 59, 242, 353, 369. Rhododendron Vaseyii, 59. Rose, 279. Rosebay. See Rhododendron Catawbiense. Rye, 75. 93- Sassafras, 46, 70. 392 INDEX Saxifrage, 41, 265, 311, 335, 354. 370. Sedge-grass, 80, 186. Sedum, 311, 354, 361, 370. Service-tree, 2, 358. Shortia galacifolia, 274, 275, 276. 339- Shrub-yellow-root. See Yellow- root. Silver-bell tree, 42, 339. Smilax, 62. Snakeroot, 333. Sorghum, 74. Sorrel, 356. Sour-gum, 21. Sourwood, 22, 70, 300, 305, 333, 339- Sparkleberry, 45, 100. Spice-bush, 46. Spirea, 358. Spruce, 29, 335, 370. St. Johnswort, 311. Strawberry, 67, 279, 280, 282, 335- 35°. 357. 358, 360, 366. Strawberry shrub (sweet bub- by), 47- Sumac, 71. Sweet-fern, 61-265. Sweet-gum tree, 21, 70. Symplocos tinctoria, 47. Trillium, 38. Trumpet-vine, 62. Tulip-tree, 19, 29, 39, 71, 94, 245, 287, 307, 319, 370. Tupelo tree, 21. Turtle-head, 295, 300. Umbrella tree, 21. Umbrella leaf, 44. Vetches, 62. Vines, 62. Violets, 36, 38, 39, 41. Watermelons, 67. Weeping willow, 49. Wheat, 75, 76, 93. White pine, 116, 345. Wild cherry, 20, 29. Wistaria, 44. Witch-hazel, 81, 377. Woodbine, 62. Yellow-root, 42, 339. Fords, 241, 242, 282, 283, 317, 325, 358. Forest, 15-35, 245. 246, 307. 308, 370, 37T- Fomalhaut, 5. Fruits. See Flowers. Glacial action, 15, 107. Good Roads Movement, 152. Goodwill Library, 327. Honey, 22, 359. Indians, 24, 122, 233-238. Indian mounds, 278, 279. Insects, 41, 63, 64, 65, 82. Jug-making, 187, 188, 189. Lakes. See Streams. Logging, 319-324. Log house, 184, 185, 190, 258. Loom, 183, 193-196, 281, 329. Lowlands, 49, 89, 90, 92, 97, 351. Lumbering, 25, 29, 30, 33, 34, 319- 324- Maps, government, 336, 337. Methodists, 130, 219. "Milk-sick," 281. Mills, 73, 74, 235, 329. Minerals. See Crystals. Molasses, 74. Moonshiners, 9, 10, 91, 201-217. Mountaineers, 11, 12, 150, 151, 153, 191; history of, 138-147; customs and character, 161- 170, 182-200; language, 171-81. INDEX 393 Mountains: Bald, 229. Balsam, 104, 248, 249, 296-300. Beech Mountain, 355, 361, 373. Big Yellow Bald, 299, 334, 336. Black Dome, 303, 309. Black, 104, 302-314, 333. Blue Ridge, 2, 3, 6, 88, 102, 106, 250, 341, 349, 350, 354, 380. Bullhead Mountain, 303. Caesar's Head, 88, 92, 93. Calloway's High Peak, 373. Cataluchee Mountain, 300. Chimney Rock Mountain, 97, 99. 100. Chimney Top, 253. Chunky Gal, 259. Clingman Dome, 240, 244, 246. Cold Mountain, 277, 278, 286- 289, 296. Cowee, 104, 232. Crabtree Bald, 297. Craggy Mountain, 303, 305. Devil's Court-House, 254. Elk Mountain, 126. Flat Top, 356. Fork Mountain, 283. Glassy Mountain, 89, 90, 91. Grandfather Mountain, 58, 59, 102, 349-352, 355, 362, 370- 378. Grandmother Mountain, 371, 378. Grassy Ridge Bald, 334, 336. Graybeard, 102, 303. Great Hogback, 264. Great Smokies. See Smoky Mountains. Hanging Rock, 360, 361. Hawksbill, 338, 351. Hogback, 6, 9, 53, 89, 93, 113. Howard Knob, 358, 359. Hump, 336. Junaluska, 299. King's Mountain, 7, 12, 96. Lickstone Bald, 286, 296. Linville Mountain, 338, 341, 348. Melrose Mountain, 55, 210. Mount Guyot, 240, 244. Mount Mitchell, 31, 103, 306- 312. Nantahala, 103, 105, 253, 258, 259- Newfound, 104, 297. Old Rumbling Bald, 95, 96, 97- Pinnacle, 102, 303. Pisgah, 31, 104, 135, 290, 291, 293. 295. 296. Pizen Cove Top, 281. Plott's Balsams, 300. Pumpkin Patch Mountain, 334. Rabun Bald, 253. Rat, The, 135. Richland Balsam, 286. Roan Mountain, 334, 335, 336. Rocky Spur, 9, 51, 53. Saluda Mountains, 93. Sam Knob, 277, 286, 296. Satulah, 252. Scape Cat Ridge, 284, 285. Shining Rock, 277, 284, 285, 286. Shortoff, 253. Smokies, 29, 103, 104, 105, 232, 239-247- Snake Den Mountain, 338. Soco Mountain, 235. Standing Indian, 102, 259. Sugarloaf, 97. Sugar Top, 279, 281. Table Rock, 92, 338, 351. Tennessee Bald, 277. Tennessee Ridge, 277, 290. Toxaway Mountain, 264, 265. 394 INDEX Tryon Mountain, 6, 53, 208, 350, 35i- Unaka Mountains, 102, 103, 105. Warrior Mountain, 53. Whiteside Mountain, 251-256, 260. White Top, 373. Yeates Knob, 304. Yellow Mountain, 315. Museums: American Museum of Natural History, 273. Field Columbian Museum, 273. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 273- Morgan Bement Collection, 267. United States National Mu seum, 273. Valentine Museum, 279. 'Music, 167, 168. Negro, 12, 13, 14, 67, 77, 78, 114. Nurseries, 153, 338, 339. Opossum, 76. Panther, 243, 300. Paper-pulp mill, 27, 28, 30. Pennyroyal still, 330. Persons: Alexander, Captain, 134. Ashe, Samuel, 123. Aunt Eliza, 13, 14. Aunt Hootie, 13. Baird, Zebulon, 123, 125. Baring, Charles, 115, 116. Big Witch, 237. Bismarck, 117. Blaylock, Mrs. Nancy, 281. Boone, Daniel, 359. Bradley, 142. Buncombe, Col. Edward, 128. Calloway, Irving, 376. Campbell, 285. Choiseuil, Count de, 116. Chunn, Samuel, 130. Coffey, Mrs., 358. Craddock, Charles Egbert, 103. Davidson, William, 134. Dickson, Dr. Samuel, 130. Drayton, Rev. John G., 117. Elliott, 116. Foster, 142. Gray, Asa, 275, 335. Hampton, 142. Hampton, Gen. Wade, 260. Hunt, Richard M., 120. Kelsey, S. T., 339. King, Dr. Mitchell C, 117. Lanier, Sidney, 42. Lowndes, 116. " Mac," Jim, 243 (MacMahon). Madcap, 166. McClure, 142. McRae, 375. Meese, Melissa, 281. Memminger, G. C, 117. Metcalf, 166. Michaux, 275, 340, 349. Middleton, 116. Mitchell, Rev. Elisha, 309, 310, 3H- Molyneux, 116. Morgan, 142. Newton, Rev. George, 126. Olmsted, Frederick Law, 120, T54- Osborne, Adoniram Judson, 278. Pack, George W., 133. Patton, James, 127, 128, 130. Patton, Montreville, 128. Pinckney, 116. Ravenel, Capt. S. P., 252. Reese, old Sally, 285. Rhodes, 142. INDEX 395 Robbins, Mrs., 195. Rogers, 142. Rutledge, 116. Sargent, Prof., 275. Short, Prof., 275. Simms, Greenville Female Seminary, 13. Smith, James M., 128. ¦Stradley, Rev. Thomas, 130. Swain, David Lowry, 126. Swain, George, 125. Tomson, Mrs. Hint, 195. Vance, Zebulon B., 133. Vanderbilt, George W., 120, 132. Walker, Felix, 129. Ward, Mrs. Levi, 196. Williams, Rich, 187, 188, 189. Wilson, Adolphus, 306. Wilson, Big Tom, 305, 310, 3H- Wing, Prof. Charles Hallet, 326, 327, 328. Places: Alexander, 134. Allenstand, 229. Asheville, 122-136. Bakersville, 316, 333. Balsam Gap, 301. Banner Elk, 360, 361. Bat Cave, 97, 98. Bear Creek Settlement, 329. Beaver Dam, 126. Biltmore, 120, 132, 147-160, 230. Blowing Rock, 350-355. Boone, 358, 359. Brevard, 119, 262. Broad River Valley, 94, 97, 99. 100. Bryson City, 232. Buncombe County, 122, 128, 129, 133. Burnsville, 314. Caesar's Head, 88, 89, 92, 93. Cane River Valley, 304, 305, 313. 3H- Calloways, 361. Canton, 278. Cashier Valley, 260. Cherokee, 235. Chimney Rock, 88, 93-100. Cloudland Hotel, 334. Corundum Hill, 258, 266. Cranberry, 334, 336. Crossnore, 338. Cruso, 287, 290. Cullasagee Valley, 257, 258, 267. Cullowhee Valley, 248. Dark corners, 10, 90, 209-212. Davis Gap, 296. Day Book, 332. Dillsboro, 232. "Dismal," 92, 93. Dutch Cove, 281, 282. Eagle Hotel, 128. Eagle's Nest, 299. Elk Park, 336. "English's," 318. Esmeralda Inn, 97. Flat Rock, m-118. Franklin, 257, 258. French Broad Valley, 262, 263, 295- Garden Creek, 278, 290. Gum Spring, 134. Hendersonville, 119. Henson Cove, 279, 281, 282. Hickory, 354. Hickorynut Gap, 94. Highlands, 250-253, 257, 263, 339- Horse Cove, 252. Hot Springs, 98, 124, 127. "Ivy Country," 229, 305. John's River Valley, 352, 353, 374- 396 INDEX Jonathan Creek Valley, 235. Kawana, 338. "Laurel Country," 229. Ledger, 325-329, 332. Lenoir, 354. Linville, 338, 339, 340, 344. Lofus Lory, 332. "Logan's," 95. Lost Cove Cliffs, 351. Lynn, 42. McRae's, 374, 375. Micaville, 316, 325. Mountain View Hotel, 97. Morristown, 123. Old Fort, 124, 132. Pacolet Valley, 41, 80, in. Paint Rock, 127. Pigeon River Valley, 30. " Pink Beds," 295. Pisgah Forest, 151, 152. Pizen Cove, 281. Plumtree Country, 242. Ravenswood, 117. Roan Mountain Station, 336. Rock Creek Valley, 334. Saluda, in. Sapphire Country, 119, 158, 261-266, 274, 275. Spruce Pine, 270, 316, 318, 332- Swannanoa Valley and Gap, 124. Sylva, 232. Toxaway, 158, 263. Tuxedo, 119. Traumfest, 2, 3, 6, 7-14, 55, 65, 67, 88. Valle Crucis, 360. Waynesville, 232, 296, 297, 298. Whiteside Cove, 259, 260. Whittier, 232, 235. Pottery. See Jug-making. Presbyterians, 130, 219. Rabbits, 85, 86. Railroad, 119, 124, 131, 132, 232, 258, 263, 305, 314, 326, 380. Rat, 84. Rattlesnakes, 288, 289. Rivers. See Streams. Roads, 8, 108, 113, 124, 127, 129, 149. I5L 158, 305, 339- Schools, 126, 197, 221, 223; Bre vard Institute, 225, 226; Allen stand, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230; Biltmore Industries, 230, 231; Indian, 237; Ledger, 326, 327. Scorpio, 368. Sled, 14, 82. Snakes. See Rattlesnakes. Snow, 81, 82. Snuff, 169, 170. Spinning-wheel, 183, 193, 227. Springs, 106, 295, 299, 371. Squirrels, 84, 370. St. John-in-the- Wilderness, 116, 117. Streams and Lakes: Armstrong Creek, 317. Bear Creek, 329. Big Laurel Creek, 229. Broad River, 94, 98. Cane Creek, 94, 333. Catawba River, 31. Cattail Branch, 313. Cold Creek, 287. Cowee Creek, 267, 268. Crabtree Creek, 297. Cullasagee River, 258. Davidson's River, 134. Dutch Creek, 360. Estatoe River. See Toe River. French Broad River, 93, 98, 121, 124, 127, 263. Grandmother Creek, 340. Green River, 94, in. Hickorynut Creek, 98. INDEX 397 Horsepasture River, 261, 262, 275- Ivy River, 305. Lake Fairfield, 261, 262. Lake Sapphire, 261, 262. Lake Toxaway, 261, 262. Laurel Fork, 243. Linville River, 243, 338, 341, 342, 374. 375- Little Crabtree Creek, 304, 316. Little Tennessee River, 258. Mill River, 358. Nolichucky River, 315. Oconalufty River, 235, 237, 238. Pacolet River, 7, 80, in, 131, 381. Pigeon River, 277, 278, 282, 283, 284, 287. Pisgah Creek, 291. Plumtree Creek, 338. Pool Creek, 98, 99. Plott Creek, 300. Richland Creek, 296. Soco Fall, 236. "Sugar Fork," 257. Swannanoa River, 127, 134, 305- Tessentee Creek, 271. Tiger River, 187, 188. Toe River, 304, 315-318. Toxaway River, 262. Tuckasegee, 249. Valley River, 278. Vaughn's Creek, 210. Watauga River, 361, 363, 369. Waterfalls, 98, 99, 236, 249, 257, 264, 360; Linville, 340- 346. "Tar-heel," 84. Thermal belt, 3, 96. Trees. See Flowers. Toad, 368. Trout, 243, 307, 338, 343, 344, 369. Tumble-down stile, 115. Typhoid, 163. Washing clothes, 198, 199, 200. Weaving, 193-197, 227-231. Weeks Bill, 30, 31. Whipsaw, 313. Whiskey, 9, 10, 66, 201-217. Wildcat, 243. Wood-rat, 85. Woodcarving, 230, 231. Woodchuck, 85. Yonahlossee Road, 339, 375, 376. Zodiacal light, 5. <3f>e ffiftrcrfibe pte#j CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A