Part 25

In the most elevated portion of the center of the plateau is situated a thriving hamlet of one hundred or more people; a colony, strictly speaking, above the clouds, and appropriately called Highlands. It was founded in 1874 by Mr. Kelsey and Mr. Hutchinson, men of the same enterprising and enthusiastic mould that all founders of towns in primitive countries are cast in. Our first sojourn at Highlands was with Mr. Kelsey in 1877. Only a few dwellings and as many green clearings were to be seen; still, with an arder which to us seemed savoring of monomania, the projector had already laid out by means of stakes, streets of an incipient city, and talked as though the imaginary avenues of the forests were already lined with peaceful homes and shadowed by the walls and spires of churches. His aspirations are being slowly realized. The village, with a nucleus of men of the spirit of its founders, is rapidly assuming respectable proportions. Along the principal thoroughfare and parallel side streets are many pleasant dwellings, culminating with one of the cross streets in headquarters comprising a good hotel kept by a genial landlord, several stores, the post-office, two churches, and a school-house which is kept open for full and regular terms. A wide-awake newspaper, on a sound financial basis, made its first issue in January, 1883.

The farming lands surrounding the village are being settled principally by northern families. A railroad at no distant day will penetrate this plateau. A practicable route has been surveyed along the summit of the Blue Ridge from where the Rabun Gap Short Line crosses at the lowest gap in the range. A subscription list, in the form of enforceable contracts wherein each signer has bound himself to grade ready for the ties and rails certain sections of the route, has been completed. The prospects for the coming of the iron horse are of an encouraging character. The most convenient route to reach Highlands for the traveler who has not already entered the mountains for the summer, is from Walhalla, South Carolina, distant twenty-eight miles, on the Blue Ridge railroad.

The lofty altitude of this plateau, and the precipitous fronts of its rimming mountains, bespeak, for its neighborhood, scenes of grandeur,--waterfalls, gorges, mad streams, crags, and forests which, when looked upon from above, with their appalling hush, wave back the observer. Whiteside, a few miles from the village, is a point which no sojourner in the mountains should fail to visit. A sight down a precipice’s “headlong perpendicular” of nearly 2,000 feet has something in it positively chilling. As the observer to secure a fair view lies flat on the ground with part of his head projected over a space of dread nothingness, the horrible sensations created, which in some minds culminate in an overpowering desire to gently slip away and out in air, are fancifully attributed to the influences of a “demon of the abyss.” The pure, apparently tangible air of the void, and the soft moss-like bed of the deep-down forest bordered by a silver stream, have an irresistible fascination, especially over one troubled with ennui. Get the guide to hold your feet when you crawl to the verge.

There is a grand mountain prospect from the summit of Whiteside. The landmarks of four states are crowded within the vision. Mount Yonah, lifting its head in clouds, is the most marked point in Georgia; a white spot, known as the German settlement of Walhalla, is visible in the level plains of South Carolina; the Smoky Mountains bounding Tennessee line the northwestern horizon, and on all sides lie the valleys and peaks of the state, in which the feet of Whiteside are rooted.

The falls of Omakaluka creek, three miles west of Highlands, are a succession of cascades, 400 feet in descent. The most noteworthy cataract, of the plateau region, is located about four miles from Highlands, and known as the Dry Fall of the Cullasaja. The name was given, not for the reason of the fall being dry, but because of the practicability of a man walking dry-shod between the falling sheet of water and the cliff over which it plunges. The way to reach it is by the turnpike wending toward Franklin twenty-two miles from Highlands. This road is smooth as a floor, and runs for miles through unfenced forests, principally of oak and hemlock. After pursuing it for three miles, a sign board will direct you to turn to your left down a slope. You can ride or walk, as suits your convenience. It is a pleasant ramble along a wooded ridge, before you reach the laureled bank of the river. Meanwhile the solemn and tremendous roar of the cataract has been resounding in your ears; and it is therefore with a faint foreshadowing of what is to be revealed that you pass between the shorn hedge of laurel, to the edge of a cliff, below which, between impending cañon walls, fringed with pines, leaps the waters of the Cullasaja, in a sheer descent of ninety feet.

The descent from Highlands into the level valley of the Cullasaja is one possessing panoramic grandeur to an extent equalled by but few highways in the Alleghanies.

Six waterfalls lie in its vicinity. Down the wooded slope winds the road, at times sweeping round points, from which, by simply halting your horse in his tracks, can be secured deep valley views of romantic loveliness.

On this descent a series of picturesque rapids and cascades enlivens the way; and, in a deep gorge, where, on one precipitous side the turnpike clings, and the other rises abruptly across the void, tumbles the lower Sugar Fork falls. They are heard, but unseen, from the narrow road. The descent is arduous, but all difficulties encountered are well repaid by the sight from the bottom of the cañon.

From the foot of the mountain, on toward Franklin there is little of the sublime to hold the attention. From this village the traveler _en route_ for iron ways would better travel toward the Georgia state line, which runs along the low crest of the Blue Ridge. The road winds beside the Little Tennessee, following it through wide alluvial bottoms until this stream which, thirty miles below, is a wide and noble river, has dwindled to an insignificant creek. At Rabun gap you pass out of North Carolina.

The scenery of the southern slope of the Blue Ridge, in Northern Georgia, is justly celebrated for its sublimity and wildness. Although outside the prescribed limit of this volume, its proximity alone to the picturesque regions of the high plateau of the Alleghanies, should entitle it to some notice.

From Rabun gap it is four miles to Clayton, a dilapidated village, consisting of a few houses grouped along a street which runs over a low hill. On the north it is vision-bounded by the wooded heights of the Blue Ridge; on the south, a stretch of low land, somewhat broken by ridges, rolls away. It is the capital of Rabun county.

Twelve miles from Clayton are the cataracts of Tallulah. A comfortable hotel stands near them. The scenery in their vicinity is of wild grandeur. Through a cañon, nearly 1,000 feet deep, and several miles long, the waters of the Tallulah force their way. The character of the scenery of the chasm is thus described:

“The walls are gigantic cliffs of dark granite. The heavy masses, piled upon each other in the wildest confusion, sometimes shoot out, overhanging the yawning gulf, and threatening to break from their seemingly frail tenure, and hurl themselves headlong into its dark depths. Along the rocky and uneven bed of this deep abyss, the infuriated Terrora frets and foams with ever-varying course. Now, it flows in sullen majesty, through a deep and romantic glen, embowered in the foliage of the trees, which here and there spring from the rocky ledges of the chasm-walls. Anon, it rushes with accelerated motion, breaking fretfully over protruding rocks, and uttering harsh murmurs, as it verges a precipice--

‘Where, collected all, In one impetuous torrent, down the steep It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round: At first, an azure sheet, it rushes broad; Then whitening by degrees as prone it falls, And from the loud-resounding rocks below Dashed in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower.’”

The other points of interest are the valley of Nacoochee, Mount Yonah, the cascades of Estatoa visible from Rabun gap, and the Toccoa Falls, five or six miles from Tallulah. At Toccoa the journey can be ended by the traveler striking the Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line.

A ZIGZAG TOUR.

Were there, below, a spot of holy ground Where from distress a refuge might be found, And solitude prepare the soul for heaven; Sure, nature’s God that spot to man had given Where falls the purple morning far and wide In flakes of light upon the mountain side; Where with loud voice the power of water shakes The leafy wood, or sleeps in quiet lakes. --_Wordsworth._

Leaving Marion, heavy grades, deep cuts, and a tunnel remind the traveler that he has entered the mountains. His previous traveling has been between them, through the broad valley of the Catawba. Henry’s station, which is merely a hotel and eating-house, stands at the foot of a long and steep slope. By climbing the bank a short distance, to the top of a small hill, opposite the building, the observer will, from that point, see seven sections of railroad track cut off from each other by intervening hills. If seven sticks, of unequal length, should be tossed into the air, they could not fall upon the ground more promiscuously than these seven sections of railroad appear from the point indicated.

The elevation to be overcome in passing from Henry’s to the Swannanoa valley is 1,100 feet, the distance in an air line about two miles--the old stage road covering it in a little less than three, an average grade of 400 feet to the mile. Of course the railroad had to be constructed on a more circuitous route, which was found by following the general course of a mountain stream, rounding the head of its rivulets, and cutting or tunneling sharply projecting spurs. At two places, a stone tossed from the track above would fall about 100 feet upon the track below; one of these is Round Knob, the circuit of which is more than a mile. The whole distance to the top, by rail, is nine and three-quarters miles. The grade at no point exceeds 116 feet to the mile, and is equated to less than that on curves. There are seven tunnels, the shortest being eighty-nine feet, and the longest,--at the top,--Swannanoa, 1,800. The total length of tunneling was 3,495 feet. During the ascent the traveler catches many charming glimpses of valley, slope, and stream. The view just before plunging into the blackness of Swannanoa tunnel is enchanting. A narrow ravine is crossed at right angles, between whose cañon walls, far below, glistens the spray of a small torrent. The background of the picture is the delicately tinted eastern sky, against which appears, in pale blue, the symmetrical outline of King’s mountain, sixty miles away. It is an interesting experiment, in making this trip, to pick out some point on the top of the ridge, say the High Pinnacle, easily distinguished as the highest point in view from Henry’s; fix its direction in your mind, and then, at intervals, as you round the curves of the ascent, try to find it among the hundred peaks in view.

After the long tunnel is passed, you are in the Swannanoa valley. The next hour takes you rapidly through the fields and meadows of this highland bottom, bordered by mighty mountains, until the train enters the Asheville depot.

In the center of the widest portion of that great plateau, watered by the French Broad and its tributaries, is situated the city of the mountains--Asheville, the county-seat of Buncombe. To obtain some idea of the location of the place, picture to yourself a green, mountain basin, thirty miles in breadth, rolling with lofty rounded hills, from the crest of any of which the majestic fronts of the Black and Craggy can be seen along the eastern horizon; the Pisgah spur of the Balsams, the Junaluskas and Newfound range, looming along the western; in the northern sky, far beyond the invisible southern boundary of Madison, the misty outlines of the Smokies; and towards the south, across Henderson county, the winding Blue Ridge. Amid such sublime surroundings, at an altitude of 2,250 feet, stands the city on the summits of a cluster of swelling eminences, whose feet are washed by the waters of the French Broad and Swannanoa. Close along the eastern limit of the city arises a steep, wooded ridge, whose most prominent elevation, named Beaucatcher, affords an admirable standpoint from which to view the lower landscape.

The habitations and public buildings of 3,500 people lie below. You see a picturesque grouping of heavy, red buildings, dazzling roofs, a great domed court-house, a white church spire here and there, humble dwellings clinging to the hill-sides, and pretentious mansions amid fair orchards on the green brows of hills; yellow streets, lined with noble shade trees, climbing the natural elevations, sinking into wide, gentle hollows, and disappearing utterly;--this for the heart of the city. Around, on bare slopes of hills, low beside running rivulets, on isolated eminences, and in the distance, on the edges of green, encircling woods, stand houses forming the outskirts. Three hundred feet below the line of the city’s central elevation, through a wide fertile valley, sweeps smoothly and silently along, the dark waters of the French Broad. It is through sweet pastoral scenes that this river is now flowing; the rugged and picturesque scenery for which it is noted lies further down its winding banks. At the east end of the substantial iron bridge which spans the stream, is the depot for the Western North Carolina railroad. From your perch you may perceive, wafted above the distant brow of the hill, the smoke-rings from the locomotive which has within the past two hours “split the Blue Ridge,” and is now on its way toward the station.