CHAPTER II. 13
CHAPTER III. 21
CHAPTER IV. 27
CHAPTER V. 33
CHAPTER VI. 41
CHAPTER VII. 48
CHAPTER VIII. 54
CHAPTER IX. 62
CHAPTER X. 69
CHAPTER XI. 77
CHAPTER XII. 84
CHAPTER XIII. 91
CHAPTER XIV. 98
CHAPTER XV. 105
CHAPTER XVI. 111
CHAPTER XVII. 119
CHAPTER XVIII. 124
“THE LAND OF THE SKY;”
OR,
ADVENTURES IN MOUNTAIN BY-WAYS.
BY CHRISTIAN REID,
AUTHOR OF “A QUESTION OF HONOR,” “VALERIE AYLMER,” “MORTON
HOUSE,” “NINA’S ATONEMENT,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET.
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875,
BY D. APPLETON & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
TO THE
KIND AND PLEASANT COMPANIONS
OF A SUMMER IDLING
THESE PAGES
ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
“THE LAND OF THE SKY;”
OR,
ADVENTURES IN MOUNTAIN BY-WAYS.
[Illustration: The Consultation.]
CHAPTER I.
“Mountains that like giants stand,
To sentinel enchanted land.”
“I want you all to remember,” says Eric, decidedly, “that I do not
advise you to go.”
“I don’t know how you can say that, Eric,” replies Aunt Markham, “when
you have talked incessantly of the beauty of the mountains, and said
that everybody ought to go to see them.”
“He meant appreciative people,” says Sylvia. “_We_ are not appreciative;
therefore his remarks do not apply to us.”
“He wants to go alone with a gun and a microscope,” says Charley; “and
has no fancy for playing cavalier-of-all-work to a trio of ladies.”
“He need not fear any thing of that kind,” I remark, “for you are
going, and Rupert also. We shall, therefore, be well provided with
cavaliers.”
Scene: a family party on a veranda at sunset. Aunt Markham lying back
in a large chair, fanning as if her existence depends on keeping
cool—as perhaps it does, poor woman! since she weighs at least fourteen
stone; Sylvia reclining in a smaller chair, with her filmy dress
falling around her to the floor, her pretty face flushed with heat, her
gray eyes slightly languid; Eric on the steps with his back against a
jasmine-twined pillar, and a cigar, which he does not light, between
his fingers; Charley Kenyon stretched on the grass just below the
steps; Rupert hovering to and fro; I established in the hall-door, for
the sake of a through-draught—the month being July, and the thermometer
standing at eighty-five.
We have been discussing where we shall spend the months of August and
September, and we have finally decided to turn our faces westward, and,
crossing the Blue Ridge, explore as far as possible the comparatively
unknown country which lies beyond—a country so elevated that its
valleys lie more than two thousand feet above sea-level. The person
by whose recommendation we decide on this programme is my cousin Eric
Markham—a great hunter, a great lover of Nature, though outwardly the
most unenthusiastic of human beings, a person whom his mother has never
been able to drag to fashionable watering-places in her train, but who
has spent summer after summer among the fair, wild, Carolina mountains,
until his attachment to them is a family proverb.
“The reason why I don’t advise you to go,” he says, when our comments
have ceased, “is because I have no doubt you will be bored and
disgusted. You will find no fashionable hotels, no bands of music;
and then you will blame me! So I accept no responsibility, but simply
repeat what I have said before, that if you want fresh air and glorious
scenery—the grandest this side of the Yosemite—you must go to Western
North Carolina to find them.”
“We want just those things,” says Sylvia—Sylvia is my sister, and
we are Aunt Markham’s orphan nieces—“I am tired of dancing and
flirting and toilets! What a comfort it will be to put on a linen
traveling-dress and a pair of thick-soled shoes, such as Nora wore in
‘Quits,’ and set forth with an alpenstock to climb mountains.”
“A great comfort indeed,” says Charley, lazily.—Charley is Eric’s
cousin, but not ours; and he and Sylvia have been quarreling and
making love and tormenting each other ever since their childhood.—“You
will wish for your silk dresses before you have been gone three days.
Eric talks as if you were going into the wilderness, but that country
has been a resort for fifty years, perhaps longer, and Asheville is
decidedly a civilized place. I was there last summer, and I had the
pleasure of seeing a great deal of fashion.”
“Then we must take our trunks,” says Sylvia, alive to the importance
of appearing as fashionable as her neighbors. “I thought we were only
going to explore the mountains, but if we are likely to meet people—”
“Of course you must take your trunks, my dear,” says Aunt Markham,
decidedly. “One meets exceedingly nice people. Besides, it is always
well to be prepared for emergencies.”
“I shall take my gun,” says Rupert, following Charley’s example and
flinging his long and rather awkward length of limb on the grass. It is
impossible for anyone not to be awkward who is six feet high and only
seventeen years old.
“And is it definitely settled, then, that we will go to Western
Carolina?” asks Sylvia. “All in favor of the motion please say ‘Ay.’
Very well,” as a rather languid but unanimous “Ay” responds.—“Now,
Eric, tell us how to reach it.”
“There are two great gates of entrance,” says Eric, “Swannanoa and
Hickory-Nut Gaps. In the old time, when people traveled in their
carriages, it was the general custom to cross the Blue Ridge by one
gap in going to the transmontane country, and by the other in coming
away.—You remember that, mother?”
“Certainly,” answers Aunt Markham, “I went to Tennessee with your
father thirty years ago, and we crossed the Hickory-Nut Gap in going,
and Swannanoa in coming back.”
“Let _us_ go in that way,” says Sylvia.
“Impossible,” says Charley. “The railroad takes you to Swannanoa.”
“A fig for the railroad! We can go in our carriage, like the grandees
of thirty years ago. Which is the finest gap, Swannanoa or Hickory-Nut?”
“There is no comparison,” says Eric. “Hickory-Nut is infinitely finer.”
“Then we must see it,” says Sylvia, decidedly. She is of a nature
easily roused to enthusiasm, and it is evident that this enthusiasm
is beginning to wake in the interest of the long-neglected beauty
lying within our own borders. “Listen!” she says, sitting upright in
her chair, “why can we not go by the railroad to Swannanoa Gap, and
take the stage-coach from there to Asheville, leaving the carriage to
follow us to the same place, so that we can travel where we like in the
mountains, and finally return by Hickory-Nut Gap? Is not that a good
plan, Eric?”
“Only open to the objection that the carriage will be likely to be
broken to pieces,” says Eric.
“Why, I have heard you say that the roads beyond the Blue Ridge are
excellent.”
“The turnpikes are generally excellent, but I humbly submit that all
roads are not turnpikes; and, furthermore, that to reach the country
beyond the Blue Ridge it is necessary to cross the mountains—to do
which is no joke.”
“I don’t know a more serious matter,” says Charley. “You are jolted,
and bumped, and thumped, until you do not care for any prospect that
can be shown to you.”
“Pray speak for yourself,” says Sylvia. “I am quite sure that no one
else would think of putting a few jolts and thumps in comparison with
the grandest scenery—”
“In the Atlantic States!” says Charley. “I have heard that from Eric
several times. I contemplated this scenery on many occasions, and from
many different places, with no great degree of satisfaction; but the
trout-fishing—_that_ is something which warrants enthusiasm!”
“And the hunting!” says Rupert, with an ecstatic smile on his sunburned
face. “How many deer did you kill last season, Brother Eric?”
“About the carriage,” says Aunt Markham, “I am inclined to think with
Sylvia that it might be a good plan to send it to Asheville. The
idea of traveling about the mountains in stage-coaches and hacks is
insufferable!”
“But we are more than enough to fill the carriage,” says Eric.
“Take two saddle-horses, also,” cries Sylvia, with a bright light
springing into her eyes. “One for you, and one for me—how delightful!”
“And how economical!”
She makes a gesture signifying that this consideration is not worth a
moment’s attention.
“People expect to spend money when they are traveling,” she says,
“and the cost of the whole expedition will be less than a month at a
fashionable watering-place.”
“And I’ll take the horses along with the carriage,” cries Rupert,
eagerly. “The rest of you may go on the railroad if you like, but give
me a horse forever!”
“John will drive the carriage, and you can ride Cecil and lead
Bonnibelle,” says Sylvia, with the air of a general issuing orders for
a campaign.
“Eric, what do you say?” asks Aunt Markham, turning to her eldest son,
who is autocrat of the household.
“What is left for me to say?” responds Eric, lighting his cigar. “The
matter is apparently settled. I only desire that it may be clearly
understood that I am not accountable for consequences. If the carriage
is upset, and Bonnibelle breaks her own legs and Sylvia’s neck, nobody
is to blame me.”
“Nobody will think of blaming you,” says Sylvia, “You accompany us
under protest—and such trifles as broken legs and necks are to be
exclusively our own affair.”
The next two weeks are devoted to preparing wardrobes and studying
maps. Then, on a particularly warm Monday in August, we set forth on
our journey. Rupert and John, with the carriage and horses, started the
day before for Asheville, _via_ Hickory-Nut Gap. We take the railroad,
and turn our faces toward Swannanoa.
Our railroad-journey is uneventful, as railroad-journeys—unless varied
by an accident—generally are. The cars are filled with the usual
number of thirsty men and dusty women, of invalids, sight-seers, and
pleasure-seekers. During the long pauses at the stations, we learn
where most of these travelers are bound, and receive a great deal
of interesting information about their social and domestic affairs.
Few things strike one more forcibly in traveling than the general
garrulity and egotism of human nature. This is entertaining for a
time, but finally—taken in connection with a choking amount of dust,
and a simmering degree of heat—it becomes almost intolerable. At
last over the blazing noonday a grateful shadow steals, and, for the
first time since early morning, we lift our window-blinds and look
out. We are between the villages of Morganton and Marion, and fairly
among the mountains. Already there is a greenness over the land, in
striking contrast to the parched brownness of the low-country which
we left behind; great hills roll up on all sides, and on our right
the magnificent dark-blue masses of Table-Rock and Short-Off Mountain
stand clearly defined against a lurid thunder-cloud. The road just here
follows the lovely valley of the Catawba, and we see the river in the
foreground, with its level meadow-lands, over which suddenly a white
rain comes driving in a quick, sharp shower.
“I am sorry this gust has come up just now,” says Eric. “I wanted to
take you on the rear-platform of the car, and show you a very pretty
view of the river-valley, with a glimpse of the Blue Ridge.”
But we are not sorry, for the rain is delightful. It dashes in spray
against our windows, peals of thunder sound above the clatter of the
train, and flashes of lightning dart hither and thither to frighten
nervous travelers. It does not continue very long, however. As suddenly
as it began, the vehemence of the storm abates, the thunder rolls away,
the cloud is evidently passing. A minute later a ray of sunshine falls
on the scene, and lo! the earth is enchanted. The shower, which is
still falling, is lighted up with prismatic radiance; away in the south
dark clouds are piled, but around us all is freshness and beauty. Mists
rise, like the white smoke of incense, and when we lift our windows a
rush of odor enters—a hundred sweet scents of growing things mingled
and exhaled by the dampness.
After this the run to Old Fort is very pleasant. The dust is laid,
the heat is tempered, the sunshine is still partly obscured by clouds
that dapple the changing landscape with soft shadows, and now and then
we have a glimpse of blue heights far away. We pass beautiful valleys
glittering with the late rain; we glide by grassy meadows, and streams
where old-fashioned mills stand embowered in trees. There is a shimmer
over every thing—a mingling of mist and brilliance peculiar to a
mountain-scene.
Presently our leisurely rate of speed abates, and we find ourselves
at the end of our railroad journey—Old Fort. This place—which takes
its name from an old fort that is supposed to have existed in the days
of Indian warfare—has only risen to comparative importance since the
railroad abruptly and unexpectedly ended here. At least the railroad
_track_ ends here, but for many miles beyond the road-bed is graded, and
a great deal of heavy work in the way of bridging and tunneling is
done, the sight of which moves one to fierce and futile indignation
against the plunderers who have worked the people such grievous wrong.
“Is Old Fort a town?” asks Sylvia, looking round as we descend from the
train.
“It is before you,” says Charley, “Judge for yourself.”
What is before us is a hotel perched on a hill. A few other houses
are scattered widely and wildly around. Great wooded mountains rise
in the background. The hotel-piazza seems crowded as we approach—Aunt
Markham and Eric in front, Charley escorting Sylvia and myself. We are
the last of the straggling procession of passengers, and receive the
concentrated stares of all the languid ladies with yellow-backed novels
in their hands and sundowns on their heads, all the open-eyed children,
and lounging men.
“Why on earth do these people stay here?” asks Sylvia, struggling
with a veil which she is trying to draw down. “It looks like a very
uninteresting place.”
“It is healthy, and the rates of board are, no doubt, cheap,” says
Charley. “Many of the people may also lack courage to cross the
Gap—those being esteemed lucky who reach the other side whole of life
and limb.”
This appalling statement is treated with the incredulous contempt which
it deserves as we mount the hotel-steps.
Hamlet says that “there’s nothing either good or bad, but thinking
makes it so;” and this remark applies with peculiar force to Old
Fort. Some people think it a very good place in which to spend weeks
and months. Others are averse to spending more time there than the
necessary hour which elapses between the arrival of the train and
departure of the coach.
We belong to the latter class. After dinner we assemble on the piazza
and take a vote for going or staying; and it is nearly unanimous to go.
“Catawba Falls are in the neighborhood,” says Eric, anxious to fulfill
his duties as _cicerone_. “If you stay until to-morrow you may see them,
and they are well worth a visit.”
“Stay a night—stay two nights—here!” says Aunt Markham. “It is
impossible to think of such a thing!”
“Are the Falls easily reached?” asks Charley, with his usual air of
protest against any exertion.
“They are by no means easily reached,” answers Eric; “but they _can_ be
reached, which is the point, I take it.”
“By no means,” says Sylvia. “The point is to cross the Blue Ridge as
soon as possible. Who cares for falls and cascades on _this_ side? They
may be pretty enough, but we are bound to the land of the sky—and
yonder comes the coach to take us there. How splendid!”
It is not the coach which draws forth this commendation, but the
six beautiful gray horses which are harnessed to it. We watch them
admiringly, and Eric calls our attention to the manner in which they
are controlled by their driver, who is no less a person than the
renowned John Pence.
Of this famous character I have heard so much that I regard him with
great interest. My knowledge of stage-drivers in real life being
limited, I had drawn a fancy picture of a portly figure in top-boots
and a “sprigged vest;” instead, I see a spare, sinewy man, dark as an
Indian, with the eye of a hawk, who wears a pair of the brownest and
dirtiest of corduroy trousers, a striped shirt, the sleeves of which
are rolled up above the elbows showing thin, muscular arms, and a hat
slouched rakishly over his brow. This is John Pence, who for twenty
years has driven back and forth over Swannanoa Gap, and whom his
admirers declare to be the best driver on the continent. If success is
the test of merit, merit certainly must be his; for during these twenty
years no accident has ever happened to a coach driven by him; and those
expert in such matters say that one hardly realizes the art of driving
until one has seen him handle the ribbons.
That we have such a charioteer is a matter for congratulation, since
the appearance of the coach is not calculated to fill us with confident
hopes of a safe journey. It is evidently old and much dilapidated. It
is also heavily loaded. The boot is full of trunks, and as many are
piled on top as can possibly be put there. Besides which, Aunt Markham
has the anguish of beholding her largest and most valuable one standing
on the ground, while the proprietor of the house informs her that Mr.
Pence says he is overloaded, and that trunk cannot possibly “go over
the Gap this trip.”
[Illustration: John Pence.]
“Mr. Pence!” repeats the lady, indignantly. “Who is Mr. Pence, pray? My
trunk _shall_ go!—Eric, do you hear this?”
“I hear, mother,” replies Eric, “but I don’t think there is any
redress. The coach _is_ overloaded, and I should not consent for you to
enter it as it stands if anybody but John Pence was going to drive.
When you see the precipices past which that top-heavy vehicle must
pass—”
“Oh!” she says, turning pale, “if that is the case, tell him to take
off my other trunk, and Sylvia’s and Alice’s also.”
But Sylvia and Alice protest against this, and a Babel of confusion
follows. It is Eric who summarily ends it.
“Let me put you in the coach,” he says. “Leave the trunks to me. I will
arrange for them to be sent over safely to-morrow.”
Then the labor of stowing us away begins. There are already an old
lady, a middle-aged lady, two children, and an elderly gentleman,
within the coach. By the united efforts of Eric, Charley, and the host,
Aunt Markham is lifted and deposited inside. She sinks into her seat
with an apoplectic “How fearful!”
I am lifted in next; but, when it comes to Sylvia’s turn, that young
lady declines to enter.
“I am going up aloft—like the cherub that watches over poor Jack,” she
says.—“I know you don’t want me, Charley—you want to smoke. But Eric
will take me with him—won’t you, Eric?”
“I wonder if you think Eric doesn’t want to smoke?” says Charley.
“He can if he chooses, and you, too, for that matter—so don’t look so
disconsolate, but help me over this wheel.”
She is assisted over the wheel, and elevated to the deck-seat. Charley
sits down by her side, Eric springs to a place by the driver, that
illustrious person cracks his long whip, the six horses start with one
accord, the heavy coach sways. We are off.
“Over the Mountains of the Moon,
Down the valley of shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,
The shade replied,
If you seek for El Dorado.”
This is what Charley sings to an improvised air, as we rattle down a
steep hill and cross a clear, flashing, rocky-bottomed stream. The
mountains which we are going to scale rise in towering masses before
us—splendid heights that seem to defy the locomotive at their base. The
gentleman who is our fellow-passenger points out some of the unfinished
railroad-work. Aunt Markham looks at it regretfully.
“If only the road were finished to Asheville!” she says.
“No railroad in the country has been so mercilessly plundered, madam,”
says the gentleman, sternly. “Ever since the war, it has been in the
hands of rogues and swindlers, who have stolen every thing but the
road-bed—which could not conveniently be made away with.”
“I should not be surprised if you were one of the defrauded
contractors,” I think; but there is not much opportunity for
conversation on the great grievance of Western North Carolina. We have
begun the ascent of the mountain, and to say that the road is stony
would convey but a poor idea of its actual state. It is my settled
conviction that no one knows what stones really are until he or she
has traveled from Old Fort to the top of the Blue Ridge. The road is
covered with them, of every size, shape, and variety, and the constant
rolling, jolting, and pitching of the coach baffle description. A ship
at sea in a stiff gale is steady compared to it. We settle ourselves
grimly to our fate; endeavor to keep ourselves steady by straps or any
thing else that is convenient; gasp a brief “Excuse me!” when we are
hurled against each other; and, in the intervals of being tossed about
the coach, lean out of the windows to admire the wild beauty which
surrounds us. At least I do. Nobody else pays much attention to it.
Aunt Markham resigns herself to martyr-like endurance, and preserves a
martyr-like silence, until a tremendous lurch, which knocks her bonnet
out of shape, also exhausts her patience.
“Alice,” she says, severely, “if I had entertained an idea of any thing
like this, _nothing_ would have induced me to come.”
“There’s worse than this afore us,” remarks the old lady, placidly,
“I’ve been over the Gap times and times—for my daughter’s married and
living in Buncombe—and my bones always ache for about three weeks
afterward.”
“If nothing happens worse than a few jolts,” says the gentleman, “we
can stand them well enough, but I don’t like the look of this stage.
I told Burgin before we left Old Fort that it was a shame to send
travelers over the Gap in such a conveyance. He said it had been sent
from Asheville. I don’t believe it will go back there without an
accident.”
“Good Heavens!” says Aunt Markham, turning pale, as she remembers all
that she has heard of the precipices that border the road. “If I had
suspected that the coach was not safe, I would never have entered
it.—Alice, speak to Eric at once.—Dear me! what is that?”
_Chorus of children._ “O ma, did you hear something crack?”
Something undoubtedly cracked—and that loudly—under the body of the
vehicle. A convulsive swaying and jerking is followed by an abrupt
halt and the descent of Mr. Pence himself. Clamor immediately ensues.
All the passengers thrust their heads out of the windows and request
to be told what is the matter. Mr. Pence deigns no reply to their
inquiries, but he says a few words to Eric—who has also descended from
the top. The latter at once opens the door and tells us that we must
alight.
“A brace has broken,” he says. “Mr. Pence is going to send to Old Fort
for assistance to mend it—when the assistance comes, the coach has to
be lifted forward, so you must all get out.”
Remonstrance being useless, we are lifted down and set on our feet.
Sylvia, assisted by Charley, descends like a bird from her lofty
perch—she has a faculty of doing things gracefully which other women do
awkwardly. Our prophet of evil scrambles out, and pokes his stick, with
an air of triumph, under the body of the coach.
[Illustration: The Break-down.]
“I said this stage was unsafe as soon as I saw it,” he remarks, “It is
fortunate that the brace broke just here. If the accident had occurred
by one of the precipices a little farther on we should all, madam”
(this to Aunt Markham), “have lost our lives.”
“I never heard any thing more infamous!” says Aunt Markham, who
does not hesitate to use strong terms. “This What’s-his-name ought
never to be allowed to drive a coach again. The idea of risking our
_lives_!—Eric, do you hear this? We might have been dashed over a
precipice and—”
“Not with John Pence at the helm, mother,” says Eric; “the thing is
impossible.— Now, while we have to wait, suppose you come and look at
the tunnel a little farther on. It is an exceedingly interesting piece
of work.”
But Aunt Markham does not care for tunnels, and she declines to go. So
we leave her seated on a bundle of shawls and water-proofs, while we
follow Sylvia and Charley, who have already walked on in the direction
of the interesting piece of work. When we come in sight of the tunnel
they are just entering it, and by the time we reach it we see their
figures at the farther end, clearly defined against the light.
“I have a peculiar horror of these places,” I say, as we enter, and
Eric points out the admirable masonry. “I never feel nervous in
traveling except when passing through a tunnel; but then I always
think, ‘Suppose a collision should occur, and we should be crushed in
the _débris_ of a wrecked train down here in the bowels of the earth!’”
“What a cheerful reflection!” says Eric. “You will be particularly
partial to traveling on this road when it is completed, for there are
three tunnels just here—two short ones, and one very long one through
the Blue Ridge.”
“I certainly prefer going over it with John Pence and his six gray
horses to burrowing under it like a mole. By-the-by, if the railroad
ever should be finished, what will become of John Pence?”
“He will break his heart and die, I suppose.”
Midway in the tunnel we meet Sylvia and Charley. We turn and go back
with them. From Point Tunnel, looking east, there is a very beautiful,
though not very extended, view; and we sit down near the mouth of
the tunnel to admire it, while we wait for the coach. Giant hills,
clothed to their crest with verdure, rise around us. The road winds
like a thread along the side of the mountain on our left, a green
valley lies below, golden sunshine glints down through leaves to which
diamond-drops of rain still cling, stillness encompasses us—when our
voices cease we hear nothing save the sweet singing of waters in the
forest-recesses and the notes of birds. Sylvia makes a pretty adjunct
to the picture as she sits in her gray dress and blue veil on a pile of
stones, arranging some ferns which she has gathered. Charley, as usual,
is lying at her feet, regardless of the fact that the grass is very
damp. I open my sketch-book, and make a hurried outline of the scene,
writing underneath, “_En route_ to Arcadia!”
By the time this is finished the coach appears, and, as it halts, Aunt
Markham’s fan is seen at the window beckoning imperatively.
“This gentleman says the road is frightfully dangerous,” she remarks,
when we come up, “and the coach is certainly very unsafe. There is no
telling when we shall reach Asheville, or whether we shall reach there
at all. We can only trust in Providence.”
Some people grow pious whenever they are frightened. Aunt Markham
is one of them. She never alludes to Providence unless she desires
substantial aid from that quarter.
Eric laughs.
“Trust in John Pence, too, mother,” he says. “You may be sure he will
take you safely to Asheville.”
After this the ascent begins in earnest. The road is almost
perpendicular, and so narrow that there is barely room for the coach.
On one side the mountain rises in a sheer cliff, on the other are
precipices, down which the gaze is lost in twilight. At least once
in every half-mile we ford a stream of considerable size, while
innumerable rivulets cross our way. There is no point in our upward
journey where we miss the music of flowing water. Clear as crystal and
cold as ice, these streams come leaping in cascades down the rocky
glens, flash along our path, bordered by ferns, shadowed by laurel
and ivy, and at last plunge into the tangled greenness of the depths
far below. It is impossible to write, in terms which will not seem
extravagant, of the forest which covers the great mountains towering
across the gorge. The evergreens especially attract our notice and
admiration. We see familiar shrubs grown to stately trees, and trees to
giants. The spruce-pine, here in its native air, towers to an almost
incredible height, the hemlock, the white-pine, the “bonny ivy-tree,”
the holly, and mountain-laurel—what words can describe the beauty of
these, mingled with the lighter foliage of the oak, the chestnut,
the maple, the ash, and countless others? Beautiful berries gleam,
strange wild-flowers shine like stars, ferns run riot in luxuriance,
velvet-like mosses cover every rock and fallen tree.
Up, still up we go, as if we meant to pierce the very clouds. The
horses strain, the coach sways, the air grows fresher; in the great
shadow of the hills we forget the sultry heat of August lying over
the parched country below. We feel that we are on our way to the land
of the sky. I say as much to Aunt Markham, who resignedly expresses
a hope that we may reach it. After a while the children, who have
been devouring large slices of cake, cry out for water, and Mr. Pence
obligingly stops by a spring that gushes out at the foot of a gray
rock. Eric descends also, and asks for a cup.
“You must all drink,” he says, “for this is the head of the Catawba
River. A few miles from here, on the other side of the Ridge, is a
spring which is called the head of the Swannanoa, so that in the course
of one afternoon you can drink from the fountains of two rivers—one of
which is bound to the Atlantic Ocean, the other to the Gulf of Mexico.”
“Dear me!” says the old lady, “to think of their traveling so far! But
I always thought the Swannanoa emptied into the French Broad.”
“This is a beautiful place, Eric,” I say, hastily, looking at the
narrow defile in which the coach stands, the escarpment of the bold
cliff leaning over us, the green abyss on the other side, beyond which
mountains hem the gap. “I wonder if Mr. Pence would not stop long
enough for me to sketch it?”
“Impossible,” answers Eric. “We have been so much delayed that I doubt
if we shall reach Asheville before midnight.”
Aunt Markham groans at this. “I shall be dead!” she says. “I cannot
endure this terrible jolting much longer.”
Despite this dismal prophecy, we go on—higher and yet higher. Now and
then, glancing backward, we catch glimpses of the world below—an azure
sea broken into a hundred giant billows—and feel that it is pleasant to
be exalted so far above it. These glimpses, however, are very brief. We
struggle upward for another weary hour. Then comes a sudden halt, and
Eric cries:
“Look!”
We look. For one minute we grasp such a perfect pleasure as does not
often come in this imperfect world. The arduous part of our journey
is over; we are on the top of the Blue Ridge; looking back down the
mountain up which we have for three hours so laboriously climbed, we
see the country we are leaving spread out in the beauty of blue, misty
distance. The afternoon is clear and golden, the air of this great
altitude inexpressibly pure and fresh. The shower at noon has left
the day like crystal; and turning eastward the glance sweeps over an
infinite expanse of broken country, range after range of mountains
melting into each other, high, cultivated valleys lying between, soft
cloud-shadows falling in patches here and there, bold outlines against
the farthest distance, the graceful line of heavenly-looking hills
melting into the horizon, and over all the refulgent glory of the
sapphire sky.
We are now on the summit of Swannanoa Gap, and from this point begins
that gradual descent which will bring us to the elevated basin in which
Asheville lies. At “Curley’s” we change horses and drivers, and not far
from here meet the coach from Asheville. It is obtrusively bright and
new in appearance. The inside is lined with crimson plush—in contrast
to our faded leather—and on the seats three fresh and cheerful-looking
ladies sit. Two gentlemen are on the top. They all stare at us—we
return the compliment. The driver jeeringly tells our driver that he
is not likely to reach Asheville before morning—to which the latter
replies that he will be there by ten o’clock. With this interchange of
civilities we part.
“How odiously complacent those people looked!” says Sylvia. “I am glad
they have to go down that steep mountain.”
As we advance, the path widens, the mountains recede; dells, and coves,
and sweeps of cultivated land appear; now and then we see a farm-house
in some sheltered nook, looking very diminutive in the shadow of the
hills. Already the aspect of every thing is changed. A greenness like
that of early spring is spread over the land; there is a sense of
freedom, of freshness and repose, in the pure air. It is Arcadia which
we have entered, and which lies around us, serene and peaceful in the
long light and deep, slanting shadows of the afternoon.
Presently Sylvia’s voice is heard asking if we do not want some
information. “Eric is a walking guide-book,” she says, “and he has
been telling me all about the country. We have crossed the Blue Ridge
and left it behind, you know. These mountains on each side of us now
are spurs of that chain—those on the left are called the hills of the
Swannanoa, these on the right belong to the Black Mountain range. Eric
says that in a little while we shall see the Black itself.”
“_Vive le roi!_” I answer. “The Black is ‘the monarch of mountains’—at
least the monarch of Atlantic mountains. One cares nothing about those
enormous and no doubt ugly peaks in the West.”
“There is very good philosophy in valuing what we have, and despising
what we have not,” says Eric. “Yonder is the Black now! Look, what a
fine peak!”
“Very fine, indeed!” says Aunt Markham, gazing out of the wrong side of
the coach and nodding approvingly at one of the hills of the Swannanoa.
But I see what Eric means. Indeed if he had not spoken I think I should
have known that the magnificent crest upthrust against the evening
sky could only be the chief of Appalachian mountains. Shall I ever
forget that first sight of its majestic beauty? Its splendid peaks
were outlined with massive distinctness, and its dark-blue sides were
purpling in the light of a luminous sunset. Round the pinnacle a few
light clouds were floating, which caught the golden radiance of the
west.
“Those form the monarch’s crown,” says Eric. “It is rare to see the
peaks of the Black free from clouds.”
Besides the Black, there are other mountains—part of the same range—in
sight. Nothing can be more superb than the great lines of Craggy as
they trend westward. Its peaks, to the unscientific eye, look as high
as the cloud-girt pinnacle of its mighty neighbor, and their effect is
nearly as grand. That we see this beautiful range at sunset seems to us
a very gracious boon of Fate. Magical shades of color melt and blend
into each other as the nearer and farthest heights change their hues
with the changing light. Finally a soft mist, neither blue nor purple,
but something between the two, begins to steal over them, and deepen in
all the clefts and gorges, as if they were drawing their robes about
them for the night.
It is not long that we have this view. The road turns, other mountains
intervene, and we find ourselves facing a great pomp of sunset. In the
midst of it rises, like a dream of the celestial country, a glorified
azure peak of exquisite symmetry, and Eric says, “Pisgah!”
Presently the sunset fades, and twilight softly melts into moonlight.
All along their dark crests the mountains are touched with silver,
while the pearly radiance bathes valley, and rock, and stream, with
a flood of enchantment. The coach and the hours drag slowly on, but
the night grows more and more beautiful. We cross again and again a
swift, bright stream, which we are told is the Swannanoa, and at last
we find ourselves journeying along its banks. Is this an enchanted
land of pastoral delight to which we have come? It is impossible not
to believe so. Fertile fields and softly swelling hills surround us;
houses gleam in the moonlight; the level road over which even the coach
rolls smoothly is immediately on the river-bank. We see the current
rippling and swirling over its rocky bed with a music which fills all
the lustrous night with sweetness. Lovely depths of foliage—drooping
trees and tangled vines—fringe its banks. Nothing can be conceived more
fairy-like than this charming river. Though I am growing very sleepy,
I cannot refrain from expressing my admiration, and the gentleman by
my side begins to explain that “Swannanoa” does not mean “beautiful,”
but “great road, or pass, over the mountains.” I listen with disgusted
incredulity, and before he concludes have fallen asleep, indifferent to
the fact that it is the hard wood of the coach against which my head
rests.
[Illustration: Asheville.]
When I wake we are entering Asheville. The coach is rattling up a long,
stony street, lights are gleaming, and there seems a great deal of
movement about. Our journey is at an end, and with a sense of grateful
repose we soon lie down to sleep, waiting for the morning to show us
what manner of place this is which we have entered in the still, bright
beauty of an August midnight.