Is There Any Region Or Circumstance Of Life
That The Poet Did Not Forecast And Provide For?
But what would have
been his feelings if he could have known that almost three centuries
after these lines were penned, they would be used to express the
emotion of an unsentimental traveler in the primeval forests of the
New World?
At any rate, he peopled the New World with the children
of his imagination. And, thought the Friend, whose attention to his
horse did not permit him to drop into poetry, Shakespeare might have
had a vision of this vast continent, though he did not refer to it,
when he exclaimed:
"What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?"
Bakersville, the capital of Mitchell County, is eight miles from the
top of Roan, and the last three miles of the way the horsemen found
tolerable going, over which the horses could show their paces. The
valley looked fairly thrifty and bright, and was a pleasing
introduction to Bakersville, a pretty place in the hills, of some six
hundred inhabitants, with two churches, three indifferent hotels, and
a court-house. This mountain town, 2550 feet above the sea, is said
to have a decent winter climate, with little snow, favorable to
fruit-growing, and, by contrast with New England, encouraging to
people with weak lungs.
This is the center of the mica mining, and of considerable excitement
about minerals. All around, the hills are spotted with "diggings."
Most of the mines which yield well show signs of having been worked
before, a very long time ago, no doubt by the occupants before the
Indians.
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