Part 24

The most picturesque location for a house in this valley, is owned and dwelt upon by W. F. Gleason, at present United States commissioner for a portion of the western district. It is an old homestead site on the round top of a little hill, which forms a step, as it were, to the wooded mountain ridge towering above it. Before the front of the dwelling, 100 yards away, down the hill and across a level strip of land, runs the Richland around the edge of a chestnut grove which springs on its opposite bank. Through the shady grove, beyond the rivulet bridges, is the Richland road, up which the traveler will come, and (unless he notices the branch path and turns under the trees) which he will follow through woodland scenery like that described. From the door-yard of the commissioner’s unpretentious dwelling, a mountain-walled picture is presented. Old Bald, the Balsams, Lickstone, Wild Cat, Wolf’s Pen, and the ridge in the rear of the house, whose highest point is the Pinnacle, bend around the valley like the ragged-brimmed sides of a bowl with one rather deeply-broken nick in the rim through which are visible the purple fronts of the Haywood mountains. The valley view is too confined to be interesting, and only one cabin, the indistinct outlines of an old farm-house, and a few acres of cleared land amid the forests, are to be seen. It was at this sequestered country home where, for several seasons while sojourning in the Alleghanies, we made our head-quarters. Of the gorgeous sun-rises over Lickstone, witnessed by us from the low porch of the cottage; of the full-moon ascents above the night-darkened rim of the same mountain,--we might write with enthusiasm, but with perhaps too tedious detail for the reader.

During one of these sojourns, we roomed in an old frame house in the valley, distant about three hundred yards from the hill-side place just described. In the early October mornings, our way when going to breakfast, was along a beaten path through the chestnut grove, where the ground would be covered with nuts larger than any which ever find their way to the market. Those short walks in the bright, clear mornings are indelibly stamped in memory. Again the creaking, wood-latched gate of the unpainted mansion closes with a rattle; the great piles of waste mica around the shops gleam in the sunshine; the birds twitter in the green vines so heavily clustered in the buckeyes that the limbs of contiguous trees meeting, form overhead rich arbors for the passers beneath; the rough planks of the bridge across one smooth branch of the stream shake under our footsteps; the chestnut woods, turning yellow, drop their dry burrs in our path; the two long, hewn-top logs, with their crooked hand-rail, bridging one of the maddest and most musical of mountain streams, tremble as we run across them; the bordering alders sparkle with dew-drops; the frame farm-yard gate stands shut before us. Over this we leap and go chasing up the hill. If the family is still slumbering, a gun is taken from its stand beside the chimney; a whistle given for a dog, whose quick appearance, bright eyes, and wagging tail show his pleasure; and at the foot of the hill the black-berry thickets are beaten, until before the yelping dog a shivering rabbit bounds out in sight, whose race is perhaps ended rather abruptly.

For mountain parties both Lickstone and Old Bald offer exceptional attractions. The ascent of the latter peak and the character of the views from its summit are described in the sketch on bear hunting. Lickstone can be easily ascended on foot or on horse-back, and is admirably situated for the observer to bring within his ken the most prominent peaks of eight surrounding counties, and see unrolled below him a mountain-bounded landscape of beauty and grandeur beyond the power of delineation by poet or painter. Lickstone takes its curious name from a huge flat rock near the summit of the mountain, whereon the cattle-herders used formerly to place the salt brought by them to the stock which range the summit meadows. On the east slope are located valuable mica mines.

An interesting day’s journey, from Waynesville, is to and from Soco Falls. The road can be traveled over by carriage, and leads up Jonathan’s creek to its source. The falls are on the distant slope of the mountain, sixteen miles from the village. The headwaters of the Soco rise in a dark wilderness. At the principal fall, two prongs of the stream, coming from different directions, unite their foaming waters by first leaping over a series of rocky ledges, arranged like a stairway. Into a boiling basin, fifty feet below, the stream whirls and eddies around, and then, with renewed impetuosity, rushes down the gradual descent to the valley. By following down the road, the traveler will soon find himself in the Indian reservation.

One mile from Waynesville, on the state road toward Webster, is a level and well-cultivated farm of about one hundred acres, forming a portion of the wide, cleared valley between the base of the hills, on one side, and the wood-fringed Richland on the other. It is the property of Sanborn and Mears, two young men who have lately moved into the mountains. With enlarged ideas on farming, they are bringing the naturally rich soil into a state of perfection for grain and grazing. A cheery, comfortable farm-house stands under the door-yard trees beside the driveway. Behind the house the ground rises gradually to the oak woods along the summit of the hill. In the front, visible from the doorway, is a wide-sweeping mountain prospect. The valley, broad, open, level, diversified with farms and forests, crossed by winding fences and roads hidden by green hedges, extends away for two miles or more, to the steep fronts of lofty mountains. It is these mountains which so enhance the picture, giving it, morning and evening, soft shadows, sunlight intensified by shooting through the gap between the Junaluskas and Mount Serbal, and a peaceful, pleasing slumber, like that of a noble grayhound at the feet of his trusted master. A portion of this prospect is given in the accompanying illustration.

From Waynesville to Webster, twenty miles distant, there was no regular hack or stage line running in 1882, but either saddle-horses or carriages can be obtained at reasonable rates in Waynesville. There are no scenes along the route that the traveler would be likely to retain in memory. Hills, mountains, woods, and farms fill up the way, with no particularly striking features. Dr. Robert Welch’s farm, about two miles from the village, is one which will not be passed unnoticed. The large, white residence, white flouring mill opposite, high solid fences formed from rocks picked from the roads and fields, and level lands of several hundred acres, make up a pleasant homestead.

Webster is an antiquated village, on the summit of a red hill, silently overlooking the Tuckasege river. It has a population of about 200, and is the county-seat of a large and fertile section of the mountains. About forty-five miles south of the village, by the way of the river road, is Highlands, an objective point for the tourist. East La Porte is one of the points passed on the river. It is a country post, with two stores, a school-house or academy, and a few houses. The academy, resembling a Tell chapel, is situated on a hill-top in a bend of the Tuckasege. As this structure rises from the forest-crowned hill, around whose base sweeps the sparkling river, with a line of distant mountains for its back ground, it is extremely picturesque.

The road up Shoal Creek mountain, on the way to Cashier’s Valley and Highlands, is noted for its wild scenery. Frail wooden bridges span deep ravines echoing with the roar of waters; the road winds at times around the steep side of the wooded mountain; then again it dips down to the margin of the stream. The falls of Grassy creek are close in full view at one point. The water of this stream in order to empty into the larger stream, flings itself over a perpendicular cliff, falling through space with loud roar and white veil-like form.

The stupendous falls of the Tuckasege are near this Shoal creek road, but it is not advisable for the tourist to attempt the tramp to them by this wild approach. In our last pilgrimage up the mountain we attempted it. A few incidents which occurred on this trip may prove interesting to the reader. The artist was with me. Stopping at McCall’s lonely cabin, we hired a twelve-year-old boy for a quarter to act as our guide. The day was uncomfortably warm. We led our horses up a mile ascent, so steep, that in scaling it not a dry spot remained on our underclothes. Then we tied the panting animals and walked and slid down a mountain side whose steepness caused us to grow pale when we contemplated the return. When we reached the dizzy edge of the precipice above the thundering cataract, the artist, unused to so arduous a journey, was in such a state of prostration, that he could not hold a pencil between his thumb and fingers. To sketch was impossible; to breathe was little less difficult for him. We rested a few minutes, viewing from above the mad plunge of white waters, and then, with the small boy’s help, I carried, pushed, and pulled my exhausted companion up the ascent to the horses. How many times he fell prostrate on that desolate mountain slope, stretching wide his arms and panting like a man in his last agony, we failed to keep account of.

The last spoonfull of medicine in a flask taken from the saddle-bags enabled him to mount his horse, and we rode off around a flinty mountain with warm air circling through the trees and the hollow voice of the upper falls of the Tuckasege, seen below us in the distance, sounding in our ears. We dragged our horses after us down a steep declivity; passed a muddy-looking cabin; wended through a deserted farm under an untrimmed orchard, with rotten peaches hanging to the limbs; startled several coveys of quails from the rank grass; entered a green, delicious forest alive with barking gray squirrels; and then, through several rail fences and troublesome gates, reached the sandy road leading into Hamburg,--a store with a post office. It is the ancient site of a fort of that name erected for use in case of Indian depredations.

Here we tried to get something to more fully resuscitate the still trembling artist, but everything had gone dry; and all the encouragement we received was a cordial invitation, from a man who was hauling a log to a neighboring saw-mill, to come and spend a week at his house, and he would have a keg of blockade on hand for us. This manner of the mountaineers of inviting strangers to visit them is illustrative of their warm-hearted natures. W. N. Heddin was the logger who extended this invitation. I had met him once before while on a tramp through Rabun county, Georgia, where he was then living. A minute’s stop at his house, on that occasion to procure a drink of water, was the extent of our acquaintance. His farm was situated at the base of a frowning, rocky wall called Buzzard cliffs, and although just outside the North Carolina line deserves some mention, because of certain interest connected with it. This interest is gold.

The sand in the beds of some of the smooth-flowing rivulets down the sultry southern slope of the Blue Ridge have, as regards the precious mineral, panned out well in the past. Over thirty years ago the stream through Heddin’s property was discovered to contain gold; and for a time, as he related, was worked at the rate of ten pennyweights a day per man. After living with the gold fever for many years, he lately sold his property, and removed across the Blue Ridge.

Declining Heddin’s proffered hospitality we pushed on, gradually but imperceptibly ascending the Blue Ridge. I was riding on ahead. Suddenly my companion called to me.

“Say, I’ve lost my overcoat.”

“Too bad! Shall we return and search for it?”

“No; but it’s strange how I’m losing everything.”

“Yes. You lost your pipe yesterday; your breath this morning, and now it’s your coat.”

“Just so; and do you know, I’m getting demoralized. Something worse is going to happen. Say!”

“What?”

“If you hear anything weighing about one hundred and ten pounds fall off my horse, turn and come back, will you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You’ll know _I’m_ lost. Hang me, but I feel cut up!”

The overcoat was not recovered by its owner; and fortunately the fall, of which forewarning had been given, did not occur.

We easily ascended the Ridge. Luxuriant forests--perfect tropical tangles--spread over the last portion of the way. A stream with water the color of a pure topaz flows under the rich green rhododendron hedges. Down the slope toward Cashier’s Valley the road is of white sand, beaten as level as a floor. A drive in easy carriage over it with the broad-sweeping limbs of the cool trees overhead, would be delightful. These woods were filled with insects termed “chatteracks” by the natives. Their shrill chirping toward evening is much louder than the noise of the locust, and fairly deafens the traveler. Locusts also joined in the chorus, giving a concert as melodious as it was singular and primeval.

Cashier’s Valley is a mountain plateau of the Blue Ridge, 3,400 feet in altitude, from four to five miles long and a mile and a half wide. Attracted by its climate, freedom from dampness, its utter isolation from the populated haunts of man, the rugged character of its scenery, and deer and bear infested wildwoods, years since, wealthy planters of South Carolina drifted in here with each recurring summer. Now, a few homes of these people are scattered along the highland roads. One residence, the pleasant summer home of Colonel Hampton, the earliest settler from South Carolina, is situated, as it appears from the road, in the gap between Chimney Top and Brown mountain, through which, twenty miles away, can be seen a range of purple mountains. A grove of pines surrounds the house. Governor Hampton formerly spent the summers here, engaged, among other pastimes, in fishing for trout along the head streams of the Chatooga, which have been stocked with this fish by the Hampton family.

The sun had hidden himself behind the western ranges, but daylight still pervaded the landscape, when through a break of the forest of the hill-side around which the road winds, we came out before the massive front of a peculiar mountain. Whiteside, or in literal translation of the Cherokee title, Unakakanoos, White-mountain, is the largest exposure of perpendicular, bare rock east of the Rockies. It is connected, without deeply-marked intervening gaps, with its neighboring peaks of the Blue Ridge; but from some points of observation it appears isolated--a majestic, solitary, dome-shaped monument, differing from all other mountains of the Alleghanies in its aspect and form. The top line of its precipitous front is 1,600 feet above its point of conjunction with the crest of the green hill, which slopes to the Chatooga, 800 feet lower. The face of the mountain is gray, not white; but is seared by long rifts, running horizontal across it, of white rock. With the exception of a single patch of green pines, half-way up its face, no visible verdure covers its nakedness.

Below the eastern foot of the mountain spreads away rolling valley-land, with hills forest-crowned, fertile depths drained by the Chatooga’s headwaters, and portions of it laid out in cultivated fields, and dotted with farm-houses. At the base of Whiteside, on one of a series of green rounded hills, lives an independent, elderly Englishman, named Grimshawe; and near by, in a commodious, sumptuously-furnished dwelling, partially concealed by a hill and its natural grove, resides his son, a pleasant man, with a healthy, English cast of countenance. In the dark we passed unseen the latter place; and, pushing along on our dejected and dispirited steeds, fording the cold, splashing streams, disappearing from each other under the funereal shadows of the melancholy forests, climbing the cricket-sounding hills, we at length drew rein before the almost imperceptible outlines of a low building arising under some gaunt trees.

I dismounted, tossed my bridle to my companion, felt my way through a trembling gate, stumbled upon a black porch and approached a door through whose latch-string hole and gaping slits rays of light were sifting. My rattling knock was responded to by a savage growl from an animal whose sharpness of teeth I could easily imagine, and whose presence I felt relieved in knowing was within. Then the door opened, and a queer looking man stood before me. He was very short in stature. His face was thin and colorless. A neglected brown moustache adorned his upper lip. His hair was long and uncombed; and his person, attired in an unbleached, unstarched shirt and dirty pantaloons, was odorous with tallow. This was Picklesimer.

“Can my friend and I stay here all night?” I asked.

“I reckon. Our fare’s poor, but you’re welcome.”

The door swung wider. Several children, fac similes of their sire, and a woman were eating at a table lighted by a tallow dip,--a twisted woolen rag laid in a saucer of tallow and one end of it ablaze. There was nothing inviting in this picture; but a shelter, however miserable, was better than the night; and rest, in any shape, preferable to several miles more of dark riding. In a few minutes our supper was ready. Picklesimer sat opposite to us and to keep us company, poured out for himself a cup of black coffee.

“Coffee is good fer stimilation,” said he.

“That’s so,” said the artist.

“When I drinks coffee fer stimilation,” he continued, running his fingers back through his hair, “I drinks it without sugar or milk.”

We had evidently struck a coffee toper.

“Do you drink much of it?” inquired my companion, as Picklesimer began pouring out another cup full.

“I drinks three and four cups to a meal. Hits powerful stimilation;” and then he rolled his dark, deep-sunken eyes at us over the rim of his saucer as he tipped the contents into the cavity under his moustache. Evidently he drank coffee as a substitute for unattainable blockade. Our host had no valuable information to impart; so, soon after supper we retired to a room set apart for us, and sank away for a sound night’s sleep in a high bed of suffocating feathers.

After our breakfast the next morning we went out on the porch. We supposed Picklesimer, too, had finished his repast, but were deceived. A minute after, he followed us with a full cup of steaming coffee which he placed on the window-sill, as it was too hot to hold steadily in his fingers, and interlarded his remarks with swallows of the liquid. His charges were one dollar apiece for our lodging, fare, and the stabling and feed for our horses. We then shook hands and departed. For days his short figure, with a steam-wreathing coffee-cup in hand, was before my eyes, and in my ears the words:

“I drinks hit fer stimilation.”

Horse cove lies in the extreme southern part of Jackson county, and within only three or four miles of the Georgia line. Its name is about as euphonious as Little Dutch creek, and is applied to this charming valley landscape for no other reason than that a man’s horse was once lost in it. Black Rock, with bold, stony, treeless front, looms up on one border, and on another, Satoola, with precipitous slope, wood-covered, forms a sheltering wall for the 600 acres of fertile, level land below. A hotel keeps open-doors in summer within the cove. The picturesqueness is heightened by the sight of an elegant and substantial residence, strangely but romantically situated, on the very brow of Black Rock. It is the property of Mr. Ravenel, a wealthy Charlestonian.

Through Horse cove there is a road leading to Walhalla, South Carolina, the nearest railroad depot, twenty-five miles away. It is a decidedly interesting route to be pursued by a tourist. You will follow the Chatooga river, into Rabun county, Georgia, along a picturesque course of falls and rapids, by primitive saw-mills, unworked and decaying, through a wild and cheerless tract of uncultivated mountain country, where miserable farm-houses, and none others, but seldom show themselves, and where the unbroken solitude breeds blockade whisky stills, in its many dark ravines and pine forests. It would bother any officer, in penetrating this section, to definitely ascertain when his feet were on North Carolina, Georgia, or South Carolina soil.

The road, however, which we wish to take the traveler over, leads up the Blue Ridge, in zigzag course, through the forested aisles of Black Rock. Three miles and a half is the distance from its base to the hamlet of Highlands. The engineering of the road is so perfect that, in spite of the precipitousness of the mountain, the ascent is gradual. Let the man on horse-back pay particular attention to his saddle-blankets while ascending or descending a mountain. If he wishes to keep under him a horse with a sound back, he will have to dismount every few minutes, unbuckle the girth, and slip the blankets in place. Among the worst of uncomfortable situations for the horseman, is that of being a hundred miles from his destination with a sore-backed saddle animal, which will kick or kneel at every attempt to mount. Imagine yourself, at every stopping-place, morning and noon, leading that horse to a fence upon which you, in the manner of a decrepit old fossil, are obliged to climb, to throw yourself with one leap into the saddle. The rosy-cheeked mountaineer’s daughter will most assuredly laugh at you, and ascribe to inactivity the fact of your inability to mount from the ground. A sorry figure! In every mountain stream forded, your steed will kneel to let the water lave his back. No chance for dreaming on your part. But worst of all, how disagreeable must a man’s sensations be, over the knowledge of the sufferings of the animal under him. Get down and walk would be my advice.

A word more on the subject of saddles and the beasts they cover. If it is a mule, see that you have a crupper on him. In descending a mountain it is impossible to keep a saddle, without the restraint of a crupper, from running against a mule’s ears. At such times, if you have objections to straddling a narrow neck which need not necessarily be kept stiff, you must walk. A breast-strap is often a valuable piece of harness to have with you for either horse or mule.

On gaining the gap of the mountain the traveler will find himself on a lofty table-land of the Blue Ridge, about 4,000 feet above ocean level. Whiteside, Satoola, Fodderstack, Black Rock, and Short-off support it on their shoulders, while their massive heads rise but little above the level. From the center of the plateau, such of these mountains as are visible appear insignificant hills when compared with their stupendous fronts and azure-lancing summits as seen from the contiguous valleys at the base of the Blue Ridge. This table-land contains 7,000 acres of rich land, shaded by forests of hard-wood trees and the sharp pyramidal-foliaged pines. The streams that drain it are of the color of topaz, except where sleepless mills have dammed the waters, and, giving them depth without apparent motion, have left dark, reflecting expanses, unrippled except when, at your approach, the plunging bull-frog leaves his widening rings, or a startled muskrat betrays by a silvery wake his flight to a sequestered home among the roots of the stream-ward-leaning hemlock.