From Burnsville the next point in our route was Asheville, the most
considerable city in western North Carolina, a resort of fashion, and
the capital of Buncombe County. It is distant some forty to forty-five
miles, too long a journey for one day over such roads. The easier
and common route is by the Ford of Big Ivy, eighteen miles, the first
stopping-place; and that was a long ride for the late afternoon when we
were in condition to move.
The landlord suggested that we take another route, stay that night on
Caney River with Big Tom Wilson, only eight miles from Burnsville, cross
Mount Mitchell, and go down the valley of the Swannanoa to Asheville. He
represented this route as shorter and infinitely more picturesque. There
was nothing worth seeing on the Big Ivy way. With scarcely a moment's
reflection and while the horses were saddling, we decided to ride to Big
Tom Wilson's. I could not at the time understand, and I cannot now, why
the Professor consented. I should hardly dare yet confess to my
fixed purpose to ascend Mount Mitchell. It was equally fixed in the
Professor's mind not to do it. We had not discussed it much. But it is
safe to say that if he had one well-defined purpose on this trip, it was
not to climb Mitchell. “Not,” as he put it,--
“Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,”
had suggested the possibility that he could do it.
But at the moment the easiest thing to do seemed to be to ride down
to Wilson's. When there we could turn across country to the Big Ivy,
although, said the landlord, you can ride over Mitchell just as easy as
anywhere--a lady rode plump over the peak of it last week, and never got
off her horse. You are not obliged to go; at Big Tom's, you can go any
way you please.
Besides, Big Tom himself weighed in the scale more than Mount
Mitchell, and not to see him was to miss one of the most characteristic
productions of the country, the typical backwoodsman, hunter, guide. So
we rode down Bolling Creek, through a pretty, broken country, crossed
the Caney River, and followed it up a few miles to Wilson's plantation.
There are little intervales along the river, where hay is cut and corn
grown, but the region is not much cleared, and the stock browse about in
the forest. Wilson is the agent of the New York owner of a tract of
some thirteen thousand acres of forest, including the greater portion of
Mount Mitchell, a wilderness well stocked with bears and deer, and
full of streams abounding in trout. It is also the playground of the
rattlesnake. With all these attractions Big Tom's life is made lively in
watching game poachers, and endeavoring to keep out the foraging cattle
of the few neighbors. It is not that the cattle do much injury in
the forest, but the looking after them is made a pretense for roaming
around, and the roamers are liable to have to defend themselves against
the deer, or their curiosity is excited about the bears, and lately they
have taken to exploding powder in the streams to kill the fish.
Big Tom's plantation has an openwork stable, an ill-put-together frame
house, with two rooms and a kitchen, and a veranda in front, a loft, and
a spring-house in the rear. Chickens and other animals have free run
of the premises. Some fish-rods hung in the porch, and hunter's gear
depended on hooks in the passage-way to the kitchen. In one room were
three beds, in the other two, only one in the kitchen. On the porch was
a loom, with a piece of cloth in process. The establishment had the
air of taking care of itself. Neither Big Tom nor his wife was at home.
Sunday seemed to be a visiting day, and the travelers had met many
parties on horseback. Mrs. Wilson was away for a visit of a day or two.
One of the sons, who was lounging on the veranda, was at last induced
to put up the horses; a very old woman, who mumbled and glared at the
visitors, was found in the kitchen, but no intelligible response could
be got out of her. Presently a bright little girl, the housekeeper in
charge, appeared. She said that her paw had gone up to her brother's
(her brother was just married and lived up the river in the house where
Mr. Murchison stayed when he was here) to see if he could ketch a bear
that had been rootin' round in the corn-field the night before. She
expected him back by sundown--by dark anyway. 'Les he'd gone after the
bear, and then you could n't tell when he would come.
It appeared that Big Tom was a thriving man in the matter of family.
More boys appeared. Only one was married, but four had “got their time.”
As night approached, and no Wilson, there was a good deal of lively and
loud conversation about the stock and the chores, in all of which the
girl took a leading and intelligent part, showing a willingness to do
her share, but not to have all the work put upon her. It was time to go
down the road and hunt up the cows; the mule had disappeared and must
be found before dark; a couple of steers hadn't turned up since the day
before yesterday, and in the midst of the gentle contention as to whose
business all this was, there was an alarm of cattle in the corn-patch,
and the girl started off on a run in that direction. It was due to the
executive ability of this small girl, after the cows had been milked and
the mule chased and the boys properly stirred up, that we had supper.
It was of the oilcloth, iron fork, tin spoon, bacon, hot bread and
honey variety, distinguished, however, from all meals we had endured or
enjoyed before by the introduction of fried eggs (as the breakfast next
morning was by the presence of chicken), and it was served by the active
maid with right hearty good-will and genuine hospitable intent.
While it was in progress, after nine o'clock, Big Tom arrived, and, with
a simple greeting, sat down and attacked the supper and began to tell
about the bear. There was not much to tell except that he hadn't seen
the bear, and that, judged by his tracks and his sloshing around, he
must be a big one. But a trap had been set for him, and he judged it
wouldn't be long before we had some bear meat. Big Tom Wilson, as he is
known all over this part of the State, would not attract attention from
his size. He is six feet and two inches tall, very spare and muscular,
with sandy hair, long gray beard, and honest blue eyes. He has a
reputation for great strength and endurance; a man of native simplicity
and mild manners. He had been rather expecting us from what Mr.
Murchison wrote; he wrote (his son had read out the letter) that Big Tom
was to take good care of us, and anybody that Mr. Murchison sent could
have the best he'd got.
Big Tom joined us in our room after supper. This apartment, with two
mighty feather-beds, was hung about with all manner of stuffy family
clothes, and had in one end a vast cavern for a fire. The floor was
uneven, and the hearthstones billowy. When the fire was lighted, the
effect of the bright light in the cavern and the heavy shadows in the
room was Rembrandtish. Big Tom sat with us before the fire and told bear
stories. Talk? Why, it was not the least effort. The stream flowed on
without a ripple. “Why, the old man,” one of the sons confided to us
next morning, “can begin and talk right over Mount Mitchell and all the
way back, and never make a break.” Though Big Tom had waged a lifelong
warfare with the bears, and taken the hide off at least a hundred of
them, I could not see that he had any vindictive feeling towards the
varmint, but simply an insatiable love of killing him, and he regarded
him in that half-humorous light in which the bear always appears to
those who study him. As to deer--he couldn't tell how many of them he
had slain. But Big Tom was a gentleman: he never killed deer for mere
sport. With rattlesnakes, now, it was different. There was the skin of
one hanging upon a tree by the route we would take in the morning,
a buster, he skinned him yesterday. There was an entire absence, of
braggadocio in Big Tom's talk, but somehow, as he went on, his backwoods
figure loomed larger and larger in our imagination, and he seemed
strangely familiar. At length it came over us where we had met him
before. It was in Cooper's novels. He was the Leather-Stocking exactly.
And yet he was an original; for he assured us that he had never read the
Leather-Stocking Tales. What a figure, I was thinking, he must have
made in the late war! Such a shot, such a splendid physique, such
iron endurance! I almost dreaded to hear his tales of the havoc he had
wrought on the Union army. Yes, he was in the war, he was sixteen months
in the Confederate army, this Homeric man. In what rank? “Oh, I was a
fifer!”
But hunting and war did not by any means occupy the whole of Big Tom's
life. He was also engaged in “lawin'.” He had a long-time feud with a
neighbor about a piece of land and alleged trespass, and they'd
been “lawin'” for years, with no definite result; but as a topic of
conversation it was as fully illustrative of frontier life as the
bear-fighting.
Long after we had all gone to bed, we heard Big Tom's continuous voice,
through the thin partition that separated us from the kitchen, going on
to his little boy about the bear; every circumstance of how he tracked
him, and what corner of the field he entered, and where he went out, and
his probable size and age, and the prospect of his coming again; these
were the details of real everyday life, and worthy to be dwelt on by the
hour. The boy was never tired of pursuing them. And Big Tom was just a
big boy, also, in his delight in it all.
Perhaps it was the fascination of Big Tom, perhaps the representation
that we were already way off the Big Ivy route, and that it would, in
fact, save time to go over the mountain and we could ride all the way,
that made the Professor acquiesce, with no protest worth noticing, in
the preparations that went on, as by a natural assumption, for going
over Mitchell. At any rate, there was an early breakfast, luncheon
was put up, and by half-past seven we were riding up the Caney,--a
half-cloudy day,--Big Tom swinging along on foot ahead, talking nineteen
to the dozen. There was a delightful freshness in the air, the dew-laden
bushes, and the smell of the forest. In half an hour we called at the
hunting shanty of Mr. Murchison, wrote our names on the wall, according
to custom, and regretted that we could not stay for a day in that
retreat and try the speckled trout. Making our way through the low
growth and bushes of the valley, we came into a fine open forest,
watered by a noisy brook, and after an hour's easy going reached the
serious ascent.
From Wilson's to the peak of Mitchell it is seven and a half miles; we
made it in five and a half hours. A bridle path was cut years ago, but
it has been entirely neglected. It is badly washed, it is stony, muddy,
and great trees have fallen across it which wholly block the way for
horses. At these places long detours were necessary, on steep hillsides
and through gullies, over treacherous sink-holes in the rocks, through
quaggy places, heaps of brush, and rotten logs. Those who have ever
attempted to get horses over such ground will not wonder at the slow
progress we made. Before we were halfway up the ascent, we realized the
folly of attempting it on horseback; but then to go on seemed as easy as
to go back. The way was also exceedingly steep in places, and what with
roots, and logs, and slippery rocks and stones, it was a desperate climb
for the horses.
What a magnificent forest! Oaks, chestnuts, Poplars, hemlocks, the
cucumber (a species of magnolia, with a pinkish, cucumber-like cone),
and all sorts of northern and southern growths meeting here in splendid
array. And this gigantic forest, with little diminution in size of
trees, continued two thirds of the way up. We marked, as we went on, the
maple, the black walnut, the buckeye, the hickory, the locust, and the
guide pointed out in one section the largest cherry-trees we had ever
seen; splendid trunks, each worth a large sum if it could be got to
market. After the great trees were left behind, we entered a garden of
white birches, and then a plateau of swamp, thick with raspberry bushes,
and finally the ridges, densely crowded with the funereal black balsam.
Halfway up, Big Tom showed us his favorite, the biggest tree he knew. It
was a poplar, or tulip. It stands more like a column than a tree, rising
high into the air, with scarcely a perceptible taper, perhaps sixty,
more likely a hundred, feet before it puts out a limb.
Its girth six feet from the ground is thirty-two feet! I think it might
be called Big Tom. It stood here, of course, a giant, when Columbus
sailed from Spain, and perhaps some sentimental traveler will attach the
name of Columbus to it.
In the woods there was not much sign of animal life, scarcely the note
of a bird, but we noticed as we rode along in the otherwise primeval
silence a loud and continuous humming overhead, almost like the sound
of the wind in pine tops. It was the humming of bees! The upper branches
were alive with these industrious toilers, and Big Tom was always on the
alert to discover and mark a bee-gum, which he could visit afterwards.
Honey hunting is one of his occupations. Collecting spruce gum is
another, and he was continually hacking off with his hatchet knobs of
the translucent secretion. How rich and fragrant are these forests! The
rhododendron was still in occasional bloom' and flowers of brilliant hue
gleamed here and there.
The struggle was more severe as we neared the summit, and the footing
worse for the horses. Occasionally it was safest to dismount and lead
them up slippery ascents; but this was also dangerous, for it was
difficult to keep them from treading on our heels, in their frantic
flounderings, in the steep, wet, narrow, brier-grown path. At one
uncommonly pokerish place, where the wet rock sloped into a bog, the
rider of Jack thought it prudent to dismount, but Big Tom insisted that
Jack would “make it” all right, only give him his head. The rider gave
him his head, and the next minute Jack's four heels were in the air, and
he came down on his side in a flash. The rider fortunately extricated
his leg without losing it, Jack scrambled out with a broken shoe, and
the two limped along. It was a wonder that the horses' legs were not
broken a dozen times.
As we approached the top, Big Tom pointed out the direction, a half mile
away, of a small pond, a little mountain tarn, overlooked by a ledge of
rock, where Professor Mitchell lost his life. Big Tom was the guide
that found his body. That day, as we sat on the summit, he gave in great
detail the story, the general outline of which is well known.
The first effort to measure the height of the Black Mountains was made
in 1835, by Professor Elisha Mitchell, professor of mathematics and
chemistry in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mr.
Mitchell was a native of Connecticut, born in Washington, Litchfield
County, in 1793; graduated at Yale, ordained a Presbyterian minister,
and was for a time state surveyor; and became a professor at Chapel
Hill in 1818. He first ascertained and published the fact that the Black
Mountains are the highest land east of the Rocky Mountains. In 1844
he visited the locality again. Measurements were subsequently made by
Professor Guyot and by Senator Clingman. One of the peaks was named for
the senator (the one next in height to Mitchell is described as Clingman
on the state map), and a dispute arose as to whether Mitchell had really
visited and measured the highest peak. Senator Clingman still maintains
that he did not, and that the peak now known as Mitchell is the one that
Clingman first described. The estimates of altitudes made by the three
explorers named differed considerably. The height now fixed for Mount
Mitchell is 6711; that of Mount Washington is 6285. There are twelve
peaks in this range higher than Mount Washington, and if we add those
in the Great Smoky Mountains which overtop it, there are some twenty in
this State higher than the granite giant of New Hampshire.
In order to verify his statement, Professor Mitchell (then in his
sixty-fourth year) made a third ascent in June, 1857. He was alone, and
went up from the Swannanoa side. He did not return. No anxiety was felt
for two or three days, as he was a good mountaineer, and it was supposed
he had crossed the mountain and made his way out by the Caney River.
But when several days passed without tidings of him, a search party was
formed. Big Tom Wilson was with it. They explored the mountain in all
directions unsuccessfully. At length Big Tom separated himself from his
companions and took a course in accordance with his notion of that which
would be pursued by a man lost in the clouds or the darkness. He
soon struck the trail of the wanderer, and, following it, discovered
Mitchell's body lying in a pool at the foot of a rocky precipice some
thirty feet high. It was evident that Mitchell, making his way along
the ridge in darkness or fog, had fallen off. It was the ninth (or the
eleventh) day of his disappearance, but in the pure mountain air the
body had suffered no change. Big Tom brought his companions to the
place, and on consultation it was decided to leave the body undisturbed
till Mitchell's friends could be present.
There was some talk of burying him on the mountain, but the friends
decided otherwise, and the remains, with much difficulty, were got down
to Asheville and there interred.
Some years afterwards, I believe at the instance of a society of
scientists, it was resolved to transport the body to the summit of Mount
Mitchell; for the tragic death of the explorer had forever settled in
the popular mind the name of the mountain. The task was not easy. A
road had to be cut, over which a sledge could be hauled, and the hardy
mountaineers who undertook the removal were three days in reaching the
summit with their burden. The remains were accompanied by a considerable
concourse, and the last rites on the top were participated in by a
hundred or more scientists and prominent men from different parts of
the State. Such a strange cortege had never before broken the silence
of this lonely wilderness, nor was ever burial more impressive than this
wild interment above the clouds.
We had been preceded in our climb all the way by a huge bear. That he
was huge, a lunker, a monstrous old varmint, Big Tom knew by the size of
his tracks; that he was making the ascent that morning ahead of us, Big
Tom knew by the freshness of the trail. We might come upon him at any
moment; he might be in the garden; was quite likely to be found in the
raspberry patch. That we did not encounter him I am convinced was not
the fault of Big Tom, but of the bear.
After a struggle of five hours we emerged from the balsams and briers
into a lovely open meadow, of lush clover, timothy, and blue grass. We
unsaddled the horses and turned them loose to feed in it. The meadow
sloped up to a belt of balsams and firs, a steep rocky knob, and
climbing that on foot we stood upon the summit of Mitchell at one
o'clock. We were none too soon, for already the clouds were preparing
for what appears to be a daily storm at this season.
The summit is a nearly level spot of some thirty or forty feet in extent
either way, with a floor of rock and loose stones. The stunted balsams
have been cut away so as to give a view. The sweep of prospect is vast,
and we could see the whole horizon except in the direction of Roan,
whose long bulk was enveloped in cloud. Portions of six States were in
sight, we were told, but that is merely a geographical expression. What
we saw, wherever we looked, was an inextricable tumble of mountains,
without order or leading line of direction,--domes, peaks, ridges,
endless and countless, everywhere, some in shadow, some tipped with
shafts of sunlight, all wooded and green or black, and all in more
softened contours than our Northern hills, but still wild, lonesome,
terrible. Away in the southwest, lifting themselves up in a gleam of
the western sky, the Great Smoky Mountains loomed like a frowning
continental fortress, sullen and remote. With Clingman and Gibbs and
Holdback peaks near at hand and apparently of equal height, Mitchell
seemed only a part and not separate from the mighty congregation of
giants.
In the center of the stony plot on the summit lie the remains of
Mitchell. To dig a grave in the rock was impracticable, but the loose
stones were scooped away to the depth of a foot or so, the body was
deposited, and the stones were replaced over it. It was the original
intention to erect a monument, but the enterprise of the projectors of
this royal entombment failed at that point. The grave is surrounded by
a low wall of loose stones, to which each visitor adds one, and in the
course of ages the cairn may grow to a good size. The explorer lies
there without name or headstone to mark his awful resting-place. The
mountain is his monument. He is alone with its majesty. He is there in
the clouds, in the tempests, where the lightnings play, and thunders
leap, amid the elemental tumult, in the occasional great calm and
silence and the pale sunlight. It is the most majestic, the most
lonesome grave on earth.
As we sat there, awed a little by this presence, the clouds were
gathering from various quarters and drifting towards us. We could watch
the process of thunder-storms and the manufacture of tempests. I have
often noticed on other high mountains how the clouds, forming like genii
released from the earth, mount into the upper air, and in masses of torn
fragments of mist hurry across the sky as to a rendezvous of witches.
This was a different display. These clouds came slowly sailing from the
distant horizon, like ships on an aerial voyage. Some were below us,
some on our level; they were all in well-defined, distinct masses,
molten silver on deck, below trailing rain, and attended on earth
by gigantic shadows that moved with them. This strange fleet of
battle-ships, drifted by the shifting currents, was maneuvering for an
engagement. One after another, as they came into range about our peak
of observation, they opened fire. Sharp flashes of lightning darted from
one to the other; a jet of flame from one leaped across the interval
and was buried in the bosom of its adversary; and at every discharge the
boom of great guns echoed through the mountains. It was something more
than a royal salute to the tomb of the mortal at our feet, for the
masses of cloud were rent in the fray, at every discharge the rain
was precipitated in increasing torrents, and soon the vast hulks were
trailing torn fragments and wreaths of mist, like the shot-away shrouds
and sails of ships in battle. Gradually, from this long-range practice
with single guns and exchange of broadsides, they drifted into
closer conflict, rushed together, and we lost sight of the individual
combatants in the general tumult of this aerial war.
We had barely twenty minutes for our observations, when it was time
to go; and had scarcely left the peak when the clouds enveloped it. We
hastened down under the threatening sky to the saddles and the luncheon.
Just off from the summit, amid the rocks, is a complete arbor, or
tunnel, of rhododendrons. This cavernous place a Western writer has made
the scene of a desperate encounter between Big Tom and a catamount, or
American panther, which had been caught in a trap and dragged it there,
pursued by Wilson. It is an exceedingly graphic narrative, and is
enlivened by the statement that Big Tom had the night before drunk up
all the whisky of the party which had spent the night on the summit. Now
Big Tom assured us that the whisky part of the story was an invention;
he was not (which is true) in the habit of using it; if he ever did take
any, it might be a drop on Mitchell; in fact, when he inquired if we
had a flask, he remarked that a taste of it would do him good then and
there. We regretted the lack of it in our baggage. But what inclined Big
Tom to discredit the Western writer's story altogether was the fact that
he never in his life had had a difficulty with a catamount, and never
had seen one in these mountains.
Our lunch was eaten in haste. Big Tom refused the chicken he had
provided for us, and strengthened himself with slices of raw salt pork,
which he cut from a hunk with his clasp-knife. We caught and saddled our
horses, who were reluctant to leave the rich feed, enveloped ourselves
in waterproofs, and got into the stony path for the descent just as the
torrent came down. It did rain. It lightened, the thunder crashed, the
wind howled and twisted the treetops. It was as if we were pursued by
the avenging spirits of the mountains for our intrusion. Such a tempest
on this height had its terrors even for our hardy guide. He preferred to
be lower down while it was going on. The crash and reverberation of the
thunder did not trouble us so much as the swish of the wet branches in
our faces and the horrible road, with its mud, tripping roots, loose
stones, and slippery rocks. Progress was slow. The horses were in
momentary danger of breaking their legs. In the first hour there was not
much descent. In the clouds we were passing over Clingman, Gibbs, and
Holdback. The rain had ceased, but the mist still shut off all view, if
any had been attainable, and bushes and paths were deluged. The descent
was more uncomfortable than the ascent, and we were compelled a good
deal of the way to lead the jaded horses down the slippery rocks.
From the peak to the Widow Patten's, where we proposed to pass the
night, is twelve miles, a distance we rode or scrambled down, every step
of the road bad, in five and a half hours. Halfway down we came out upon
a cleared place, a farm, with fruit-trees and a house in ruins. Here had
been a summer hotel much resorted to before the war, but now abandoned.
Above it we turned aside for the view from Elizabeth rock, named from
the daughter of the proprietor of the hotel, who often sat here, said
Big Tom, before she went out of this world. It is a bold rocky ledge,
and the view from it, looking south, is unquestionably the finest, the
most pleasing and picture-like, we found in these mountains. In the
foreground is the deep gorge of a branch of the Swannanoa, and opposite
is the great wall of the Blue Ridge (the Blue Ridge is the most
capricious and inexplicable system) making off to the Blacks. The depth
of the gorge, the sweep of the sky line, and the reposeful aspect of the
scene to the sunny south made this view both grand and charming.
Nature does not always put the needed dash of poetry into her extensive
prospects.
Leaving this clearing and the now neglected spring, where fashion used
to slake its thirst, we zigzagged down the mountain-side through a
forest of trees growing at every step larger and nobler, and at length
struck a small stream, the North Fork of the Swannanoa, which led us to
the first settlement. Just at night,--it was nearly seven o'clock,--we
entered one of the most stately forests I have ever seen, and rode for
some distance in an alley of rhododendrons that arched overhead and made
a bower. It was like an aisle in a temple; high overhead was the somber,
leafy roof, supported by gigantic columns. Few widows have such an
avenue of approach to their domain as the Widow Patten has.
Cheering as this outcome was from the day's struggle and storm, the
Professor seemed sunk in a profound sadness. The auguries which the
Friend drew from these signs of civilization of a charming inn and a
royal supper did not lighten the melancholy of his mind. “Alas,” he
said,
“Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
'T is not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief:
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss.”
“Loss of what?” cried the Friend, as he whipped up his halting steed.
“Loss of self-respect. I feel humiliated that I consented to climb this
mountain.”
“Nonsense! You'll live to thank me for it, as the best thing you ever
did. It's over and done now, and you've got it to tell your friends.”
“That's just the trouble. They'll ask me if I went up Mitchell, and I
shall have to say I did. My character for consistency is gone. Not that
I care much what they think, but my own self-respect is gone. I never
believed I would do it. A man ca'nt afford to lower himself in his own
esteem, at my time of life.”
The Widow Patten's was only an advanced settlement in this narrow valley
on the mountain-side, but a little group of buildings, a fence, and a
gate gave it the air of a place, and it had once been better cared
for than it is now. Few travelers pass that way, and the art of
entertaining, if it ever existed, is fallen into desuetude. We
unsaddled at the veranda, and sat down to review our adventure, make the
acquaintance of the family, and hear the last story from Big Tom. The
mountaineer, though wet, was as fresh as a daisy, and fatigue in no wise
checked the easy, cheerful flow of his talk. He was evidently a favorite
with his neighbors, and not unpleasantly conscious of the extent of
his reputation. But he encountered here another social grade. The Widow
Patten was highly connected. We were not long in discovering that she
was an Alexander. She had been a schoolmate of Senator Vance,--“Zeb
Vance” he still was to her,--and the senator and his wife had stayed at
her house. I wish I could say that the supper, for which we waited
till nine o'clock, was as “highly connected” as the landlady. It was,
however, a supper that left its memory. We were lodged in a detached
house, which we had to ourselves, where a roaring wood fire made amends
for other things lacking. It was necessary to close the doors to
keep out the wandering cows and pigs, and I am bound to say that,
notwithstanding the voices of the night, we slept there the sleep of
peace.
In the morning a genuine surprise awaited us; it seemed impossible, but
the breakfast was many degrees worse than the supper; and when we paid
our bill, large for the region, we were consoled by the thought that we
paid for the high connection as well as for the accommodations. This
is a regular place of entertainment, and one is at liberty to praise it
without violation of delicacy.
The broken shoe of Jack required attention, and we were all the morning
hunting a blacksmith, as we rode down the valley. Three blacksmith's
shanties were found, and after long waiting to send for the operator it
turned out in each case that he had no shoes, no nails, no iron to make
either of. We made a detour of three miles to what was represented as a
regular shop. The owner had secured the service of a colored blacksmith
for a special job, and was, not inclined to accommodate us; he had no
shoes, no nails. But the colored blacksmith, who appreciated the plight
we were in, offered to make a shoe, and to crib four nails from those he
had laid aside for a couple of mules; and after a good deal of delay,
we were enabled to go on. The incident shows, as well as anything, the
barrenness and shiftlessness of the region. A horseman with whom we rode
in the morning gave us a very low estimate of the trustworthiness of
the inhabitants. The valley is wild and very pretty all the way down to
Colonel Long's,--twelve miles,--but the wretched-looking people along
the way live in a wretched manner.
Just before reaching Colonel Long's we forded the stream (here of
good size), the bridge having tumbled down, and encountered a party of
picnickers under the trees--signs of civilization; a railway station is
not far off. Colonel Long's is a typical Southern establishment: a white
house, or rather three houses, all of one story, built on to each other
as beehives are set in a row, all porches and galleries. No one at home
but the cook, a rotund, broad-faced woman, with a merry eye, whose very
appearance suggested good cooking and hospitality; the Missis and the
children had gone up to the river fishing; the Colonel was somewhere
about the place; always was away when he was wanted. Guess he'd take us
in, mighty fine man the Colonel; and she dispatched a child from a cabin
in the rear to hunt him up. The Colonel was a great friend of her folks
down to Greenville; they visited here. Law, no, she didn't live here.
Was just up here spending the summer, for her health. God-forsaken lot
of people up here, poor trash. She wouldn't stay here a day, but the
Colonel was a friend of her folks, the firstest folks in Greenville.
Nobody round here she could 'sociate with. She was a Presbyterian, the
folks round here mostly Baptists and Methodists. More style about the
Presbyterians. Married? No, she hoped not. She did n't want to support
no husband. Got 'nuff to do to take care of herself. That her little
girl? No; she'd only got one child, down to Greenville, just the
prettiest boy ever was, as white as anybody. How did she what? reconcile
this state of things with not being married and being a Presbyterian?
Sho! she liked to carry some religion along; it was mighty handy
occasionally, mebbe not all the time. Yes, indeed, she enjoyed her
religion.
The Colonel appeared and gave us a most cordial welcome. The fat and
merry cook blustered around and prepared a good dinner, memorable for
its “light” bread, the first we had seen since Cranberry Forge. The
Colonel is in some sense a public man, having been a mail agent, and
a Republican. He showed us photographs and engravings of Northern
politicians, and had the air of a man who had been in Washington. This
was a fine country for any kind of fruit,--apples, grapes, pears; it
needed a little Northern enterprise to set things going. The travelers
were indebted to the Colonel for a delightful noonday rest, and with
regret declined his pressing invitation to pass the night with him.
The ride down the Swannanoa to Asheville was pleasant, through a
cultivated region, over a good road. The Swannanoa is, however, a turbid
stream. In order to obtain the most impressive view of Asheville we
approached it by the way of Beaucatcher Hill, a sharp elevation a mile
west of the town. I suppose the name is a corruption of some descriptive
French word, but it has long been a favorite resort of the frequenters
of Asheville, and it may be traditional that it is a good place to catch
beaux. The summit is occupied by a handsome private residence, and from
this ridge the view, which has the merit of “bursting” upon the traveler
as he comes over the hill, is captivating in its extent and variety. The
pretty town of Asheville is seen to cover a number of elevations gently
rising out of the valley, and the valley, a rich agricultural region,
well watered and fruitful, is completely inclosed by picturesque hills,
some of them rising to the dignity of mountains. The most conspicuous
of these is Mount Pisgah, eighteen miles distant to the southwest, a
pyramid of the Balsam range, 5757 feet high. Mount Pisgah, from its
shape, is the most attractive mountain in this region.
The sunset light was falling upon the splendid panorama and softening
it. The windows of the town gleamed as if on fire. From the steep slope
below came the mingled sounds of children shouting, cattle driven home,
and all that hum of life that marks a thickly peopled region preparing
for the night. It was the leisure hour of an August afternoon, and
Asheville was in all its watering-place gayety, as we reined up at
the Swannanoa hotel. A band was playing on the balcony. We had reached
ice-water, barbers, waiters, civilization.