"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, 255O 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.The mica is of excellent quality and easily mined.It is got out in large irregular-shaped blocks and transported to the factories, where it is carefully split by hand, and the laminae, of as large size as can be obtained, are trimmed with shears and tied up in packages for market.The quantity of refuse, broken, and rotten mica piled up about the factories is immense, and all the roads round about glisten with its scales.Garnets are often found imbedded in the laminae, flattened by the extreme pressure to which the mass was subjected.It is fascinating material, this mica, to handle, and we amused ourselves by experimenting on the thinness to which its scales could be reduced by splitting.It was at Bakersville that we saw specimens of mica that resembled the delicate tracery in the moss-agate and had the iridescent sheen of the rainbow colors--the most delicate greens, reds, blues, purples, and gold, changing from one to the other in the reflected light.In the texture were the tracings of fossil forms of ferns and the most exquisite and delicate vegetable beauty of the coal age.But the magnet shows this tracery to be iron.We were shown also emeralds and "diamonds," picked up in this region, and there is a mild expectation in all the inhabitants of great mineral treasure.A singular product of the region is the flexible sandstone.It is a most uncanny stone.A slip of it a couple of feet long and an inch in diameter each way bends in the hand like a half-frozen snake.This conduct of a substance that we have been taught to regard as inflexible impairs one's confidence in the stability of nature and affects him as an earthquake does.
This excitement over mica and other minerals has the usual effect of starting up business and creating bad blood.Fortunes have been made, and lost in riotous living; scores of visionary men have been disappointed; lawsuits about titles and claims have multiplied, and quarrels ending in murder have been frequent in the past few years.
The mica and the illicit whisky have worked together to make this region one of lawlessness and violence.The travelers were told stories of the lack of common morality and decency in the region, but they made no note of them.And, perhaps fortunately, they were not there during court week to witness the scenes of license that were described.This court week, which draws hither the whole population, is a sort of Saturnalia.Perhaps the worst of this is already a thing of the past; for the outrages a year before had reached such a pass that by a common movement the sale of whisky was stopped (not interdicted, but stopped), and not a drop of liquor could be bought in Bakersville nor within three miles of it.
The jail at Bakersville is a very simple residence.The main building is brick, two stories high and about twelve feet square.
The walls are so loosely laid up that it seems as if a colored prisoner might butt his head through.Attached to this is a room for the jailer.In the lower room is a wooden cage, made of logs bolted together and filled with spikes, nine feet by ten feet square and perhaps seven or eight feet high.Between this cage and the wall is a space of eighteen inches in width.It has a narrow door, and an opening through which the food is passed to the prisoners, and a conduit leading out of it.Of course it soon becomes foul, and in warm weather somewhat warm.A recent prisoner, who wanted more ventilation than the State allowed him, found some means, by a loose plank, I think, to batter a hole in the outer wall opposite the window in the cage, and this ragged opening, seeming to the jailer a good sanitary arrangement, remains.Two murderers occupied this apartment at the time of our visit.During the recent session of court, ten men had been confined in this narrow space, without room enough for them to lie down together.The cage in the room above, a little larger, had for tenant a person who was jailed for some misunderstanding about an account, and who was probably innocent--from the jailer's statement.This box is a wretched residence, month after month, while awaiting trial.