miles below. This sort of a solitude is not infrequent on a highway
across a mountain range, but the like is seldom seen along a river. Rich
forests are entered just below Campbell’s. The trees grow to an unusual
height. With underbrush they cover all the landscape, except the few
cliffs on the summits of the peaks, and at the water’s edge. The variety
is something remarkable. I counted twenty-three distinct species of
timber in one woodland. The road, at times, winds around the mountain
100 yards above the river. It sparkles directly below through the trees.
Across the gorge the Nantihalas lift their shaggy heads, at some points,
like that of the Devil’s chin, exposing bare rocks above the clambering
forests. Storms through this section are fierce, but of short duration.
With the wind bearing down the river, a flash of lightning in the clear,
narrow strip of sky will be the first premonitor of the storm. Then a
black shroud will drift over half the strip; and with it comes, along
between the valley’s green walls, thin clouds like smoke that fling
themselves upon the piny spurs of the mountains, hiding them from view.
Immediately you hear the rain drops pattering through the leaves, and
the trees swaying beneath a blast that soon carries off the rack.
Frequently not a drop of rain will touch you, while close by, the
mountain steeps are drenched. The waters of the river grow deeper, roar
louder, and a few minutes after the last rain drop fell, a sullen flood
is sweeping between the banks. It is strange in how short a time a flood
is created in a mountain valley, and how soon it wears itself away. At
your stand far down the valley, you may not even know that a storm has
been visiting the sources of the stream, for the black clouds rolled
over the summits of the lofty mountains have escaped your observation.
But a few minutes elapse, and the fords are impassible. Wait patiently,
however, and you can see the waters subside and the landmarks appear as
before.
Between Campbell’s and the next farm there is an exposed vein of
soap-stone. From all indications it is inexhaustible, but at present it
is unworked. Wherever cliffs are exposed, huge marble slabs, white and
variegated, extend into the river. Where these slabs cross the road,
their angular corners make a road-bed of the roughest character. At
every road-working the gaps between the rocks are filled up, but the
next freshet carries away the filling. It is not advisable to attempt a
journey over it, except on horseback or a-foot. The Western North
Carolina railroad will occupy the larger portion of this road. The
question is, Where will they lay, for the mountaineers, a road in place
of the one they have taken? The requirements of the statute will not be
complied with, unless a miracle is performed.
Miller’s is a frame house that, from the fact of loose clapboards
hanging to it, looks well ventilated. If it was ever painted, there is
no evidence to show it; for the sides are as dingy as twenty years could
make them. A two-story porch is in front, and before that a treeless,
grassless yard. Miller looks like Rip Van Winkle. The last time we
passed, he was carrying an armful of fodder to some starved-looking
cows. It was 2 o’clock, and we had had no dinner. On inquiring whether
our wants could be satisfied, he directed us to his “old woman.”
One of our number unfastened the rickety gate, and walked towards the
house. A vicious dog came forth with loud barking from a hole under the
porch, where he had been premeditating an onslaught. The sight of a
stone in the hand of the new-comer caused him to defer operations until
a more convenient season.
“Can we get something to eat here?” was asked of the woman who had
appeared to call the dog under shelter.
“I’ll see,” she said, and turned to go in.
A line of bee gums on the sagging upper porch had already been observed
by our forager, and consequently he was not taken by surprise when a
swarm of bees alighted on his head and shoulders. Nevertheless, he was
discomforted, and without waiting for the returns he struck in a
straight line for the fence. The dog, with considerable alacrity,
followed suit, and succeeded in securing a nip as he scaled the rails.
The bees reached us all just at that time, and turning up the collars of
our flannel shirts, we started our horses up the road like racers
bearing down on the winning pole. This was our only attempt to call at
Miller’s.
The scenery for the next four miles is a series in close succession of
views wilder than any on the French Broad. There is nothing like it
elsewhere in the Alleghanies. The valley between the mountains, through
which the Nantihala pours, is much deeper than that of any other
mountain river. The only passage-way that equals it in narrowness alone
is the cañon of Linville river, lying below the falls, and between the
craggy steeps of Jonas Ridge and Linville mountains. At the most
picturesque points the waters sweep in thundering rapids over great
marble ledges. The road is stone-paved at the feet of broken-fronted
cliffs, dripping with icy water, green with mosses, or brown in
nakedness of rock. Across the narrow channel, brilliant leafed birches
lean over the agitated current. At the margin of the stream the slope of
the opposite mountains begins, which, with impending forests on their
precipitous fronts, lift themselves to dizzy altitudes. At times
whimpering hawks, circling above the crags, may be heard and seen; but
rarely will any other evidences of life be manifest. In two places
abandoned clearings lie by the road. They are over-run with wild
blackberry bushes and clumps of young forest trees. Two roofless cabins
are in their centers; and a few apple trees rise above the rank growth
of briers. From appearances, one would judge it to be a score of years
since last a barking dog raced back and forth behind the scattered fence
rails concealed by the thickets; or its owner, from the entrance to the
cabin, saluted the passing traveler.
[Illustration: A NARROW WATER-WAY]
About one mile below Miller’s is a spot eminently characteristic of the
Nantihala’s scenery. The valley has narrowed to a cañon. The road runs
through a dense wood. Not a rock is exposed under the trees, or on the
perpendicular faces of the mountains. You seem to be in a great, deep
well. Only a small circle of sky is visible.
In the course of its windings, the road at length is crowded into the
river and fording is necessary. There is no danger, unless the water is
high from a freshet; and there is nothing to dread in the passage,
unless you are on foot. In the latter case you must wade. The water is
too deep for rolling up your pantaloons, but your upper garments may be
kept on and dry, unless the swift current and slippery rocks conspire to
give you a gentle ducking. The river is quite wide at this only ford on
the valley road. From mid-stream a long stretch of river is visible.
Usually a shimmer of sunlight lies on the ripples down its center, while
cool shadows darken its surface by the banks. The green trees lean
lovingly over it, and a soft breeze, as constant in its blowing as the
flowing of the water, will fan your face. A fascinating solitariness
pervades the picture; and this was enhanced, when we saw it, by a group
of three deer, a buck and two does, which, with the antlered monarch in
the lead, had just left the forest and were standing knee-deep in the
icy water at some distance from our point of observation. A moment they
stood there with erected heads looking toward us; and then, with quick
movements, regained the nearest bank and disappeared into the wild wood.
If the traveler is observant, he will notice, soon after passing the
ford, a long dug-out fastened to the bank at the end of a beaten path;
and between the trees see a lonely cabin on the opposite side of the
river. The dug-out and a slippery ford near by, are the only links
connecting the cabin’s occupants with a road. The spot appears too
isolated to be either pleasant or romantic. One of the many fish traps
seen in all the mountain rivers is near this cabin. It is built, like
they all are, in a shallow reach of the river. It consists of a low V
shaped dam, constructed of either logs or rocks, with angle pointing
down stream. The volume of the water pours through the angle where is
arranged a series of slats, with openings between, large enough to admit
the passage of a fish into a box set below for its receptacle. Every day
its owner paddles his canoe out to the angle of the dam, and empties the
contents of the box into the boat. This method of fishing is
unsportsmanlike, to say the least.
Near the head of one of the islands of the Nantihala, the road from over
Stecoah mountain appears on the opposite bank, and by a wide ford
reaches the main road. By the Stecoah mountain highway, it is twenty
miles to Robbinsville in the center or Graham county. There are no
scenes of striking grandeur along the route, but the traveler will be
interested in way-side pictures. A primitive “corncracker” at one point
is likely to produce a lasting impression. It is a tall, frail structure
with gaps a foot wide between every two logs. Through these cracks can
be seen the hopper, and the stones working at their daily bushel of
grain, deposited therein at dawn by the miller, and left, without
watching, to be converted into meal by his return. One would conceive
that other mills than the gods’ grind slowly. It is a small volume of
water that pours through the flume, by means of a race,--a long, small
trough, made of boards, rotten and moss-grown, and elevated on log
foundations, about ten feet above the ground. Reaching back toward the
wooded hill-side, fifty yards away, it receives the waters of a mountain
stream. I have seen mills in the mountains, forming with roof, hopper,
and all, a structure no larger than a hackney coach.
Along the road to Robbinsville, for fifteen miles, the predominating
family is Crisp. It is Crisp who lives in the valley, on the mountain
side, in the woods, by the mill, on the bank of Yellow creek, and in
numerous unseen cabins up the coves. In fact Crisp seems ubiquitous.
Robbinsville has eight or ten houses, one of which serves for a hotel; a
store; a court-house, church, and school-house. Near it flows Cheowah
creek, through fertile valleys. The finest tract of land in the county
is owned by General Smythe, of Newark, Ohio, and is called the Junaluska
farm. It is situated near the village, on the banks of Long creek, and
consists of 1,500 acres, 400 or 500 acres of which are cleared valley
land of rich, loamy soil. In this locality a number of Indian families
own homes.
After this slight digression, let us turn to the Nantihala. A short
distance from the Stecoah highway ford, the river empties into the
Little Tennessee. Just before reaching that point, the road diverges
from beside the crystal current; the valley widens out; a deeper roar of
mightier waters arises; and, soon after, having reached the bank of the
Little Tennessee, you enter its ford, and, turning in the saddle, take a
parting look at the closely parallel mountain ranges, and the narrow
space between them, known as the valley of the Noon-day Sun.
WITH ROD AND LINE.
Blest silent groves, O, may you be,
Forever, mirth’s best nursery!
May pure contents
Forever pitch their tents
Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains!
And peace still slumber by these purling fountains,
Which we may every year
Meet, when we come a-fishing here.
--_Sir Henry Wotton._
[Illustration: S]treams, from which the angler can soon fill his basket
with trout, are not wanting in these mountains. It is the cold, pure
waters, that spring from the perpetual fountains of the heights, that
this royal fish inhabits. Show me a swift and amber-colored stream,
babbling down the mountain slope under dense, luxurious forests, and,
between laureled banks, issuing with rapids and cascades into a
primitive valley, and I will insure that in it swims, in countless
numbers, the prized fish of the angler. You or I may not be able to
demonstrate this assertion; but the urchin with smiling face, yellow
hair, torn shirt, suspenderless pantaloons, bare feet, and legs nude to
his knees--this untaught boy, who lives in yonder homely hut amid the
chestnut trees--will soon convince you of the truth of what I say, and
besides, give you a few points, impossible to secure from piscatorial
books, on how to catch the trout. I do not mean to say that the angler
will meet with success at every point on one of these streams; for along
its lower stretches, as the primeval character of the valley vanishes,
as the water grows warmer under frequent floods of sunshine, and, losing
its resinous color, flows with glassy surface between more open banks,
the sport becomes less captivating, until only the chub and shiner rise
to the fly.
The best trout-fishing, like the best hunting, is to be found in the
wildest sections. The advance of civilization lessens the sport as
rapidly as it thins the herds of deer along the wooded margins of the
streams. Whether it be the disturbance of the waters by the line of
active saw-mills, that with each year reaches deeper into the mountain
solitudes, and the receding of the forests beneath the woodman’s axe; or
the advent of the barefoot angler, that effects this change, makes no
difference with my statement; for it is advancing civilization that
brings them both.
But few persons are unfamiliar with the trout. What they have not
learned from actual experience concerning its habits and appearance, has
been obtained from books. The trout has been a standing theme for poets,
and more has been written about it than any other fish. That honest and
enthusiastic old angler, Isaak Walton, thus sums up, in a few words, his
nature and habits:
“The trout is a fish highly valued in this and foreign nations. He
may be justly said, as the old poet said of wine, and we English
say of venison, to be a generous fish: a fish that is so like the
buck, that he also has his seasons; for it is observed that he
comes in and goes out of season with the stag and buck. Gesner says
his name is of German offspring, and says he is a fish that feeds
clean and purely, in the swiftest streams, and on the hardest
gravel; and that he may justly contend with all fresh-water fish,
as the mullet may with all sea-fish, for precedency and daintiness
of taste, and that, being in right season, the most dainty palates
have allowed precedency to him.”
The brook trout of the North Carolina mountains seldom exceeds a foot in
length, and weighs from a few ounces to three-quarters of a pound. It is
of a brown color on its back with darker brown, reticulated stripes. Its
sides are of a lighter color and speckled with bright pink and golden,
round dots, while its belly is silver white or light yellow. The dorsal
fins are reddish; the first row of fins behind the gills and those on
its belly are generally edged with white and black. This is its usual
appearance, but trout caught in the same pool often vary in their
colors. Different waters also change the shade of the body-coloring and
strikingly vary the hue of the spots. In deep pools the trout is of a
darker shade with deep red spots; while in the shallow ripples it runs
to the other extreme, showing a silver belly and sides sprinkled with
bright pink. It has no scales; nor does it require--like its scaleless
brothers, the slimy cat-fish and bull-pout--hot water and a scraping
knife to fit it for the table.
The mountaineer’s plan of frying it with its head on in butter and
corn-meal is the best for the palate. The color of the trout when cooked
is generally salmon-yellow, but frequently it is as white as the flesh
of a bass. It would require a finely tempered palate to discover any
difference between the two varieties. As you buy them of the native
fish-boy, at the rate of a cent a piece, it takes a long string to make
a respectable meal for a man with a mountain appetite. The quaint
pronunciation of “mounting” for mountain might better be used, in this
connection, to convey an exact but wider meaning. I have knowledge, from
seeing the feat performed, of one man who, in a single meal, devoured
twenty-seven of these fish, and that without apparent discomfiture.
However, he probably picked out the smallest of the fry.
For fishing in the mountain brooks, the most important thing required is
a pair of rubber boots. Those knee-high will suit the purpose; for,
although in the wildest streams a man is compelled to wade almost all
the time, he can avoid the deepest holes by springing from rock to rock.
The kind used for marsh, duck hunting, which reach to the hips, would be
too burdensome to wear for miles down an impetuous current. As far as
rods are concerned, a slender birch cut from the bank of the stream will
answer every purpose of a ringed and jointed rod; for reels with lines
of fifty or more yards can not be used with any advantage. A silk or
hair line, as long as the pole, is all the length required. If the
sportsman, however, wishes to indulge in fishing for bass, salmon, or
perch in the broad creeks or rivers, it would be well to have the
angler’s complete outfit. In many sections he can take a turn at this
sport in connection with what is considered the higher branch of the
art. As for artificial flies, have a supply with you, and use the one
nearest like the one in season; or, what is better, let the tow-head
urchin give you a suggestion. It makes a great difference in the choice
of your flies whether the stream is crystal in clearness, or is slightly
discolored by a recent rain; and whether you have ventured out before
breakfast, or the day is drawing to a close. It would be strange if at
the latter hour a white or yellow fly, like those dropping on the
surface of the stream, could not be used with pleasing returns.
The best fishing I ever saw done was by a mountaineer, one day in early
June, who used a green-winged, yellow-bodied, artificial fly with a
stick-bait worm strung on the hook. As we followed down the current, at
every cast of his line he pulled a speckled trout from the water. The
stick-bait is a small, white worm found in tiny bundles of water-soaked
twigs along the edges of the stream. The twigs seem glued together, and
when opened, reveal an occupant. In early spring, with a light sinker on
your line, the common, red angle-worm on a featherless hook can be used
with advantage.
A great deal has been written on how to catch trout, but these kindly
suggestions are of about as much value as rules on how to swim without
practice in the water. It requires a knack to catch trout; it is really
an art; and no one can ever succeed in bringing into camp a long string
of the speckled beauties, until after a novitiate of several days actual
fishing,--or unless he meets and strikes a bargain with a small boy who
has had a successful morning sport.
May is the paragon of months for the angler. Take it in the middle of
the month, and if the tourist following and whipping some well-known
trout stream, fails to catch fish, let him neither condemn the stream or
the season, but with reason draw the conclusion that he is a bungler in
the art of trout-fishing. The genial breezes and soft skies should draw
every genuine lover of nature to the mountains. The deciduous forests of
the valleys are again beautiful with their fresh foliage, destroying the
contrast of the winter between their dun outlines and the green fronts
of the higher pine groves, or the bodies of the giant hemlocks scattered
in their midst. Winter’s traces, however, are not fully concealed; for
there is still a line of bare woods between the green line slowly
creeping up the slopes and the lower edges of the lofty, black balsam
wildernesses. But every day, new sprouts of leaves appear, and soon the
entire body of the wood-lands will have donned its summer mantle. The
grass is of a bright green on the hill-sides; in the orchards, the apple
trees are in full bloom; while the blossoms of the cherry are being
scattered on the wings of breezes from the aromatic balsams. The
valleys, on either side the narrow woods lining the banks of the
streams, are dark green with sprouting fields of wheat and rye, or of
lighter shade where the tender blades of the corn are springing.
In the forests which belt the streams, the bell-wood is white with
blossoms, and every dog-wood white with flowers. “When the dog-wood is
in bloom, then is the time to catch trout,” is a true, though trite,
observation. At the same time the sassafras is yellow with buds, and the
red maple, purple. A straggler along the wood-land path, between hedges
of the budding kalmia, or ivy as the mountaineers term it, will be
regaled with the delicious fragrance of the wild-plum and crab-apple
whose white and pink blossomed trees are often entirely hidden by the
clumps of alder or the close sides of the hedges. The wild grape also
sheds an unequalled perfume. The path occasionally issues from the
shrubbery, and pursues its way under the open trees, with the hurrying
stream on one hand, and pleasing glades on the other. The woodland is
vocal with the robin, red-bird and oriole, and the liquid murmur of the
stream. The early violet still graces the sides of the path, and the
crimson-tipped daisy is to be found in sunny spaces.
Let the evening come. At its approach, the keen-piped “bob-white” of the
male quail grows less and less frequent in the fields, and after its
call has entirely ceased, and the mountains grow gray, then finally
resolve to black, formless masses, the cry of the whip-poor-will rings
wild and peculiar out of the darkness above the meadows. If the night is
free from rain, the forests and clearings will be ablaze with
fire-flies. Millions of these insects spring into life with the dusk.
Every yard of air is peopled with them; and for one who has never
ventured into the country at night, their bright bodies flashing above
the road, and under and amid the branches of the trees, would certainly
fill him with profound astonishment.
As has been described in the geographical sketch, in this volume,
Western North Carolina is a mountainous expanse, measuring about 200
miles in length by an average breadth of mountain plateau of 30 miles,
yet in all this area there is not one lake. This seems a singular fact
when contrasted with what is known of the waters of other mountain
regions. There is no lack of water, however, in the Carolina mountains.
It gushes up from thousands of springs in every valley, on every
mountain slope and summit; but nowhere does it find a deep, wide basin
in which to rest itself before hurrying to the sea. There are a few
ponds in some of the valleys, but they are small, and are all
artificial. Many are stocked with trout, from which the owners’ tables
are easily supplied. One of these ponds is at Estes’ place near Blowing
Rock. Trout are, at intervals, bagged in the brooks near by, and then
freed in its waters. The tourist can be paddled in a boat over the clear
surface, under which the standing trunks of the flooded trees are
visible, and may be fortunate enough to pull out a few fish; but the
fascination of killing the game in the mountain torrents is wholly lost.
Colonel Hampton, of Cashier’s valley, has a well stocked trout pond
formed by the dammed up waters of Cashier creek. A screen fastened into
the dam allows the escape of nothing but the water. The spawn is
deposited high up the channels of the limpid streams, which empty into
this pond. A fortune could be made in fish culture in the Carolina
mountains. The valley of Jamestown, six miles east of Cashier’s valley,
is admirably suited for an enterprise of this kind. A lake of six square
miles could be formed here by damming, at a narrow gorge, a fork of
Toxaway.
The headwaters of all the rivers may be whipped with success for trout.
An exception to this general statement must be made of the slow-flowing
Little Tennessee; the headwaters of its tributaries, however, teem with
speckled habitants. Those streams most widely known as trout streams,
while they, in fact, afford fine sport, are not to be compared with many
loud-roaring little creeks, almost wholly unknown, even by the denizens
of the vales into which they descend. Let the angler go to the loneliest
solitudes, strike a stream as it issues from the balsams; and,
following it to its mouth through miles of laurel tangle, he will cover
himself with glory. It will be a well filled basket which he carries;
therefore his wet clothes, his bruised body, tired legs, and depleted
box of lines and flies left behind him on the branches of the trees,
ought not to discourage him from trying it again.
For the angler of adventurous spirit and fond of the picturesque, that
prong of the Toe river which flows between the Black mountains and the
Blue Ridge, would be the stream for him to explore. With its North fork,
this fork unites to form a wide and beautiful river, which flows along
the line between Yancy and Mitchell counties, and empties into the
Nolechucky. Its course is due north. Along its upper reaches, for mile
after mile, not a clearing is to be seen; not a column of smoke curls
upward through the trees, unless it be from the open fire before the
temporary shelter of a benighted cattle-herder, or a party of
bear-hunters; not an echo from the cliffs of dog or man; only the
sombre, mossy woods, the rocks, crags and the stream beside the
primitive path; the loud roar of rapids and cascades, or the low murmur
of impetuous waters, sweeping under the rich drapery of the vines. One
is not only outside the pale of civilized life, but is widely separated
from visible connections with humanity. Let him shout with all the
strength of his lungs, no one will hear him or the deep, sepulchral echo
that comes up from the black-wooded defiles. A jay from out a wild
cherry may answer him, or an eagle, circling high over-head, scream back
as if in defiance to the intruder.