This
Country Is Settled By Genuine Americans, Who Have The Aboriginal
Primitive Traits Of The Universal Yankee Nation.
The front porch in
the morning resembled a carpenter's shop; it was literally covered
with the whittlings of the row of natives who had spent the evening
there in the sedative occupation of whittling.
We took that morning a forest road to Valle Crusis, seven miles,
through noble growths of oaks, chestnuts, hemlocks, rhododendrons, - a
charming wood road, leading to a place that, as usual, did not keep
the promise of its name. Valle Crusis has a blacksmith shop and a
dirty, flyblown store. While the Professor consulted the blacksmith
about a loose shoe, the Friend carried his weariness of life without
provisions up to a white house on the hill, and negotiated for boiled
milk. This house was occupied by flies. They must have numbered
millions, settled in black swarms, covering tables, beds, walls, the
veranda; the kitchen was simply a hive of them. The only book in
sight, Whewell's - "Elements of Morality," seemed to attract flies.
Query, Why should this have such a different effect from Porter's? A
white house, - a pleasant-looking house at a distance, - amiable,
kindly people in it, - why should we have arrived there on its dirty
day? Alas! if we had been starving, Valle Crusis had nothing to
offer us.
So we rode away, in the blazing heat, no poetry exuding from the
Professor, eight miles to Banner's Elk, crossing a mountain and
passing under Hanging Rock, a conspicuous feature in the landscape,
and the only outcropping of rock we had seen: the face of a ledge,
rounded up into the sky, with a green hood on it. From the summit we
had the first extensive prospect during our journey. The road can be
described as awful, - steep, stony, the horses unable to make two
miles an hour on it. Now and then we encountered a rude log cabin
without barns or outhouses, and a little patch of feeble corn. The
women who regarded the passers from their cabin doors were frowzy and
looked tired. What with the heat and the road and this discouraged
appearance of humanity, we reached the residence of Dugger, at
Banner's Elk, to which we had been directed, nearly exhausted. It is
no use to represent this as a dash across country on impatient
steeds. It was not so. The love of truth is stronger than the
desire of display. And for this reason it is impossible to say that
Mr. Dugger, who is an excellent man, lives in a clean and attractive
house, or that he offers much that the pampered child of civilization
can eat. But we shall not forget the two eggs, fresh from the hens,
whose temperature must have been above the normal, nor the
spring-house in the glen, where we found a refuge from the flies and
the heat. The higher we go, the hotter it is. Banner's Elk boasts an
elevation of thirty-five to thirty-seven hundred feet.
We were not sorry, towards sunset, to descend along the Elk River
towards Cranberry Forge. The Elk is a lovely stream, and, though not
very clear, has a reputation for trout; but all this region was under
operation of a three-years game law, to give the trout a chance to
multiply, and we had no opportunity to test the value of its
reputation. Yet a boy whom we encountered had a good string of
quarter-pound trout, which he had taken out with a hook and a feather
rudely tied on it, to resemble a fly. The road, though not to be
commended, was much better than that of the morning, the forests grew
charming in the cool of the evening, the whippoorwill sang, and as
night fell the wanderers, in want of nearly everything that makes
life desirable, stopped at the Iron Company's hotel, under the
impression that it was the only comfortable hotel in North Carolina.
II
Cranberry Forge is the first wedge of civilization fairly driven into
the northwest mountains of North Carolina. A narrow-gauge railway,
starting from Johnson City, follows up the narrow gorge of the Doe
River, and pushes into the heart of the iron mines at Cranberry,
where there is a blast furnace; and where a big company store, rows
of tenement houses, heaps of slag and refuse ore, interlacing tracks,
raw embankments, denuded hillsides, and a blackened landscape, are
the signs of a great devastating American enterprise. The Cranberry
iron is in great esteem, as it has the peculiar quality of the
Swedish iron. There are remains of old furnaces lower down the
stream, which we passed on our way. The present "plant" is that of a
Philadelphia company, whose enterprise has infused new life into all
this region, made it accessible, and spoiled some pretty scenery.
When we alighted, weary, at the gate of the pretty hotel, which
crowns a gentle hill and commands a pleasing, evergreen prospect of
many gentle hills, a mile or so below the works, and wholly removed
from all sordid associations, we were at the point of willingness
that the whole country should be devastated by civilization. In the
local imagination this hotel of the company is a palace of unequaled
magnificence, but probably its good taste, comfort, and quiet
elegance are not appreciated after all. There is this to be said
about Philadelphia, - and it will go far in pleading for it in the
Last Day against its monotonous rectangularity and the babel-like
ambition of its Public Building, - that wherever its influence
extends, there will be found comfortable lodgings and the luxury of
an undeniably excellent cuisine. The visible seal that Philadelphia
sets on its enterprise all through the South is a good hotel.
This Cottage Beautiful has on two sides a wide veranda, set about
with easy chairs; cheerful parlors and pretty chambers, finished in
native woods, among which are conspicuous the satin stripes of the
cucumber-tree; luxurious beds, and an inviting table ordered by a
Philadelphia landlady, who knows a beefsteak from a boot-tap.
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