The second morning opened, after a night of high wind, with a thunder-shower.After it passed, the visitors tried to reach Eagle Cliff, two miles off, whence an extensive western prospect is had, but were driven back by a tempest, and rain practically occupied the day.Now and then through the parted clouds we got a glimpse of a mountain-side, or the gleam of a valley.On the lower mountains, at wide intervals apart, were isolated settlements, commonly a wretched cabin and a spot of girdled trees.A clergyman here, not long ago, undertook to visit some of these cabins and carry his message to them.In one wretched hut of logs he found a poor woman, with whom, after conversation on serious subjects, he desired to pray.She offered no objection, and he kneeled down and prayed.The woman heard him, and watched him for some moments with curiosity, in an effort to ascertain what he was doing, and then said :
"Why, a man did that when he put my girl in a hole."Towards night the wind hauled round from the south to the northwest, and we went to High Bluff, a point on the north edge, where some rocks are piled up above the evergreens, to get a view of the sunset.
In every direction the mountains were clear, and a view was obtained of the vast horizon and the hills and lowlands of several States--a continental prospect, scarcely anywhere else equaled for variety or distance.The grandeur of mountains depends mostly on the state of the atmosphere.Grandfather loomed up much more loftily than the day before, the giant range of the Blacks asserted itself in grim inaccessibility, and we could see, a small pyramid on the southwest horizon, King's Mountain in South Carolina, estimated to be distant one hundred and fifty miles.To the north Roan falls from this point abruptly, and we had, like a map below us, the low country all the way into Virginia.The clouds lay like lakes in the valleys of the lower hills, and in every direction were ranges of mountains wooded to the summits.Off to the west by south lay the Great Smoky Mountains, disputing eminence with the Blacks.
Magnificent and impressive as the spectacle was, we were obliged to contrast it unfavorably with that of the White Hills.The rock here is a sort of sand or pudding stone; there is no limestone or granite.
And all the hills are tree-covered.To many this clothing of verdure is most restful and pleasing.I missed the sharp outlines, the delicate artistic sky lines, sharply defined in uplifted bare granite peaks and ridges, with the purple and violet color of the northern mountains, and which it seems to me that limestone and granite formations give.There are none of the great gorges and awful abysses of the White Mountains, both valleys and mountains here being more uniform in outline.There are few precipices and jutting crags, and less is visible of the giant ribs and bones of the planet.
Yet Roan is a noble mountain.A lady from Tennessee asked me if Ihad ever seen anything to compare with it--she thought there could be nothing in the world.One has to dodge this sort of question in the South occasionally, not to offend a just local pride.It is certainly one of the most habitable of big mountains.It is roomy on top, there is space to move about without too great fatigue, and one might pleasantly spend a season there, if he had agreeable company and natural tastes.
Getting down from Roan on the south side is not as easy as ascending on the north; the road for five miles to the foot of the mountain is merely a river of pebbles, gullied by the heavy rains, down which the horses picked their way painfully.The travelers endeavored to present a dashing and cavalier appearance to the group of ladies who waved good-by from the hotel, as they took their way over the waste and wind-blown declivities, but it was only a show, for the horses would neither caracole nor champ the bit (at a dollar a day) down-hill over the slippery stones, and, truth to tell, the wanderers turned with regret from the society of leisure and persiflage to face the wilderness of Mitchell County.
"How heavy," exclaimed the Professor, pricking Laura Matilda to call her attention sharply to her footing"How heavy do I journey on the way, When what I seek--my weary travel's end Doth teach that ease and that repose to say, Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend!
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me, As if by some instinct the wretch did know His rider loved not speed, being made from thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide, Which heavily he answers with a groan, More sharp to me than spurring to his side;For that same groan doth put this in my mind;My grief lies onward and my joy behind."
This was not spoken to the group who fluttered their farewells, but poured out to the uncomplaining forest, which rose up in ever statelier--and grander ranks to greet the travelers as they descended--the silent, vast forest, without note of bird or chip of squirrel, only the wind tossing the great branches high overhead in response to the sonnet.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: