Sponsored by
Eight miles north east of Elk Park is
Pair Banner Elk, the Highland flower,
With warbling birds in many a bower,
And valleys sweet with new mown hay,
And pastured bills where cattle lay.
Its laughing cascades foaming white,
Its speckled trout in waters bright;
O'er dallying pools and dancing nooks
The sportsman plies the feathered hooks.
These hay-scented meadows are sequestered in a triangular frame of mountains, the sides of which are about four miles long, and the corners represented by three lofty peaks, viz,: Beech, Sugar and Hanging Rock, each rising more than 5,000 feet above sea level and commanding a panorama of all the adjacent country. Beech was named from its beech groves, Sugar from the sugar maples that forest its slopes, and Hanging Rock from its hanging pinnacles. Hanging Rock stands at the east angle of the figure and Beech at the northwest.
Between any two of these mountain peaks the land swags like a great hammock whose hooks were in their summits. These hammocks are interwoven of ever-green and deciduous trees, and in their flowery meshes the hills are cradled.
Looking southeast from the valley, through and just beyond the hammock that swings between Sugar and Hanging Rock the great evergreen Grandfather uplifts his bold camel-backed outline in dark contrast to all his lighter surroundings. The slope of these flowery meads and leafy dells is toward the sunset, and the frolicsome creek that drains them is called Elk, from the antlered monarch that once had his verdant kingdom upon itsbanks. Just under the hammock that extends north and south from Beech to Sugar the Elk leaps from the valley into a gorge. Down this defile of the mountains beautiful escarpments of ferns and galax slope down the declivities to the water's edge. Tall birch and hemlock spruce, growing on opposite sides of the stream, reach out and interlock their boughs, as if to shake hands across its musical current. Foaming falls spit their white mist contemptuously into the dimpled cups of the kalmia and rhododendron that bloom in the galleries of the rocks; and the leafy arches that canopy the stream are ribbed with the trunks of trees. Such are the lovely vistas that greet the tourist and the sportsman upon the banks of the Elk.
But it is doubtful how long our description will hold good, for the destroying agent are fast at work. The citizens who could save, and ought to save, a part of their forest in its natural beauty are right into it with fire and smoke, and it does seem to me that if they could use brimstone without stifling their own selves to death they would certainly order a few train loads in exchange for tan and lumber.
Looking southwest across and beyond line drawn from Beech to Sugar, Blood-Camp Mountain presents its long broad side to the vision-flat on top, clear cut against the sky but of less elevation than its neighbors.
Way back in days forgotten, when some hunters were camping at a spring on southern slope, and one of them was bitten by a rattlesnake, a comrade bled him, as a treament, with a pocket-knife, but he died. This originated the names "Blood-Camp Spring" and "Blood-Camp Mountain."
The overtopping Beech is crowned with an imposing pinnacle, which, being cleft in the center presents a double front, of which the west side was named the Roc's Egg, because it is supposed to resemble the egg of the roc, the monstrous bird of Arabian mythology.
Looking half a mile west from this hard-shelled production of the mythical species, tall Rider's Rock rises before the observer, a presents him with the exquisite picture of a horse and rider embroidered of ferns and lichens upon its face.
The entire mountain, with its cliffs and pinnacles, faces the south, and ever casts its adamantine smile upon the emerald valley of Banner Elk and its tributary, shy Shonnyhaw.
From the very summit of the Beech, the land sloping northward was rendered bald in 1890 by the use of two axes, of which one was wielded by the writer of this little volume, while the other was manned by Mr. A. M. Huger, Chuckey Joe, of Charleston, S. C., who named the Roc's Egg and the Rider's Rock.
The spot thus divested of trees is grown over with an indigenous grass of such a profuse and lustrous green that the sight-seer can scarcely refrain from lying down and rolling on the cosey carpet beneath him.
So majestic are the rocks of the Beech, an so glorious the panorama which they corn mand, that Chuckey Joe saw fit to poetize follows:
DEDICATED TO THE LITTLE "BALD" OF THE BIG "BEECH"
By HUGGER AND DUGGER, Sponsors
(The little "Bald" was born August 23, 1890.")
That I'm as "old as the hit's," everyone must confess;
Being a "mountain," you see, I could hardly be less;
But, somehow, yonder "Grandfather," say what I will,
In spite of my "ages," "gets the age on me," still.
Yet we grew up together; when the Record begins,
Some score thousand years back, we were brothers and twins;
He stuck to the "Blue Ridge," and I to the "Stone,"
And if he claims the "Linville," why the "Elk" is my own.
True legions of "Low-landers" pray at his shrine,
Whilst only rare Ramblers offer incense at mine;
Yet these "Summer-ers" claim to be civilized folk
With a passion for "peaks," but that's surely a joke;
Pot if "culture" they long for in' fact, not in fun,
Let them note,-I've ten farms to the Grandfather's one;
And if corn, clover, and cabbages, buckwheat and beans,
Ain't "culture," just explain what the butt' of it means?
But as I said sooner, "Inconsistency's cheap!"
If you've ever been wool'd yourself-don't laugh at sheep.
You-uns claim culture, and polish, and taste, and sich "stuff,"
Yet you worship the "Grandad" for being a "rough,"
I can't for the life of me (and my life is long),
See why the "Grandfather" should have the whole throng
Lauding "Him" to the skies, whilst the "Beech," though begotten
In Brotherhood with him, seems almost forgotten.
I've been puzzling my pate ('tis no soft one, you bet!)
Why the "G. F.," you see, should become such a pet;
No doubt "Kelsey's curves" up his slopes air big help,
But if he is a "lion" the "Big Beech" is no whelp.
If he has his "Balsams," I have samples as good
As on Yonahlossee's top ever have stood;
And his "knuckles" could never knock down my "Roc's Egg,"
Nor his "Raven Rock" lower my "Rider" one peg.
That a Mountain his own "faults" should oft overlook
Is quite logical (vid. any Geo-logicat book);
Nor could you expect any "Bump" of my size
To "lie low" when even "The Hump" bumps hisself for the prize.
I can play a "bluff game" as my "pinnacles" tell,
And lift y-live bundred feet is (I swear it) a "swell,"
But what sot me back when the "Boss Humps" were called,
Was, they thought nie a mere "Boy" because I warn't "bald."
There are acres of much bigger balds, say the Finical,
But I'm sure you'd discover "fine points" on my "Pinnacle";
Gray crags, with a few laurel clumps, or an ash;
And belted round these, like an emerald sash,
A greensward, where my choicest "Rhododendron Vaseyi"
Can flaunt their fair flowers to the sun and the sky;
And "Rain-roosts" I have too ;-you could hardly find better ones
To keep dry your "dry goods if you won't all be wetter uns.
Now I hope you-uns 'ill visit my lately born "Bald";
It 'taint like the "Blood Camp's," a mere "fire scall'd,"
Nor like "the Humps" "deadening."
Though thickening, you saw
Leagues of leafage from "Poga" to shy "Shonnyhaw"
In woodlands extending just--drop up; let your eyes
See my bonny bare "Bald" spread itself to the skies,
Like a garden from Eden just recently snatched,
Aand with all of the "latest improvements attached."
See!, from "cloud-land's" white walls on the dark "Rainy Roan"
To where the "BLACK'S "Mitchell" as monarch enthrone;
Nay, further,--to where "CRAGGY'S" far tilted crest,
And dim "Yeates" and domed "Ogle" shine pale in the west.
From "Chimney-top" over fair Tennessee's lines
To where "WHITE TOP'S long "bald" like a scimitar shines;
Prom "IRON," less distant, rising softly by inches
Beyond Abingdon look where the gate of the "CLINCH" is!
Prom the "SNAKE" and the "ELK" and the "BLUFF'S" dimmer blue,
To "BLOWING ROCK'S" crags, and Boone almost in view!
Mark the "DEVIL'S CLAW" under the bold "HANGING ROCK,"
And the "CLOVEN CLIFF'S" crags, that seem almost to mock
The "GRANDFATHBR," jutting up under his "Nose."
(Ah! when he "catches cold," you can look out for blows.")
Then see "FLAT TOP," "SUGAR'S bluff, and the "NEEDLES" not far,
And the "TABLE'S" dark cliff and the "HAWKBILL'S" dim scar.
Yonder's "Jonas' Bald Ground," and the "North Cove" slopes there
With his marble cliffs under the wild, "Winding Stair."
Par distant, lifting southward his faded blue cap,
See "Old Bald," once the "Shaky" of "HICKORY-NUT GAP";
Nay, even beyond these, blue as some distant Zion,
Mark "SALUDA'S" soft slopes 'neath the blue tent of "TRYON."
From the "Clinch" to where "Chuckey" and Tennessee" meet,
There lies a broad, beautiful world at your feet;
Extending from where eastward rises "PILOT'S" dim crest
To the "CUMBERLANDS" fading afar in the west
No fairer land surely than this, where the hills
Are feathered with forests and braided with sills,
See! under us "Shonnyhaw" dances and dallies,
And "Elk" in white arms holds a score of my valleys,
Oh, come! from my laurel-crown'd throne, feast your eyes
On the greenest of lands, 'neath the bluest of skies!
Where "Enohia's" white cascades flash out like a mist,*
There are blooms to be cull'd-there are maids to be kissed;
And "BANNER'S ELK" bravely and broadly extends
A summery Welcome to hosts of warm friends.
Chuckey Joe.
*Enohla in Cherokee is black fox. Martin L. Banner's son's killed a black fox near the
cascades of Elk, below Lees-McRae College. The author told Mr. Huger of this, and he named the
cascades Enohla.
Seenoyabs, or the Mountains of Night, are "The Blacks."
Kullahsayja (Sugar) is Sugar Mountain of Banner's Elk, North Carolina.
Chuckey Joe.
At Banner Elk are too good cafes, and plenty of family boarding houses. Banner Elk Hotel is open
all the year, and the stone buildings of the Lees-McRae College are converted into the Pinnacle Inn
throughout the summer.
Banner Elk has every thing to eat that is found at Grove Park Inn in Asheville except one. We have
never had the distinction to dine there, but we are reliably informed that one invariably finds at the
foot of the Bill of Fare "Fried Rattlesnake $2.90 extra."
The people of Banner Elk have been so destructive to the rattlesnakes that it is impossible for the
hotel and boarding-house people to keep on hand a reliable supply. But they have fried chicken,
mountain trout, ham and eggs, beef, mutton, pork, jars of sweet milk, firkins of butter, caidrons of
butter-milk, great squares of comb-honey gathered from mountain flowers; and among other dishes,
turnip salad, of which the Irishman said "that he had come all the way from 'Auld Ireland' just to eat
broad grass like a cow."
Six miles on the way, as the train glides from Cranberry up Toe River, you come to "Old Fields of
Toe" (now Newland), a muster-ground before the Civil War, when the men in all the states were
required to meet, at given intervals, on certain nice plots of ground, to muster as a standing readiness
in case of war against a foreign foe.
The name "Toe," as applied to the fields and the stream, is said to have originated as follows:
Estatoe, a chief's daughter, was engaged to a young man of the tribe, and, when her father objected
to the marriage, she drowned herself in the clear stream, which the Indians afterwards called by her
name; but the whites, being too indolent to hinge their tongues upon the silvery accents, changed the
euphonious word to "Toe," which can mean no more than one of those miserable corn-bearing
extremities which had all the rhetoric frozen out of them before the discovery by Columbus.
At the Jessie Hotel, the Calloway Inn, or Mrs. Dr. B. B. McGuire's Shady Lawn, you can get a
square dinner, an oblong supper, a good bed and a breakfast fashioned after any geometrical figure
in the higher mathematics. If you go to the table with a flat stomach, be careful when you get up to
not sneeze, lest an eye be put out by a button from the waistband of your dress or trousers. Two and
a half miles from Newland is Montezuma, named for the Aztec Emperor of Mexico when
Cortez invaded the country in 1519. Here Uncle John Carpenter, deceased, and his good wife, Mary,
kept a hotel where nothing touched the hungry feelings of man more gladly
"Than that all softening, overpow'ring knell,
It is five miles from Newland to Linville, through Montezuma and seven through Pineola. Howard
Camp, a fine young man of Chicago, named Pineola by combining pine (tree) with Ola (Penland), a
favorite little girl whom he loved as a child.
In 1919 Mr. Howard C. Marmon, a wealthy gentleman of Indianapolis, bought a handsome estate at
Pineola. Subsequently he moved his home there, and established the beautiful Anthony Lake in the
Linville River. The cut looks across the lake and fish hatchery to Grandfather Mountain in the
distance.
Near to and equidistant from Pineola and Montezuma is Linville, where champion games of golf are
played, and the floors in Eseeola Inn being as hard as lignumvitae and as slick as a peeled onion
furnish the finest facilities for tripping the fantastic toe.
Three thousand years ago Solomon said: "There is nothing new under the sun"; but if he could
come back and engage board at Bseeola Inn, he would find that something new has been invented;
for he could halba "hello" in a telephone and receive an answer from a social-minded fellow in the
telephone office over at Cranberry, and he could chalk his cue and try his luck on a billiard-ball, like
which no rotary object ever revolutionized across a rectangular game-table in the city of
Jerusalem.
Such is the variety and flavor of the food that, when you place your foot on the threshold of the
masticating department, your nasal probiscis is greeted with the aroma of roasted mutton or beef,
and the alimentary pupils of your orbicular instruments are fixed upon large slabs of comb honey,
consisting of the gathered sweets from mountain flowers, and rivalling in delicacy the nectar of the
gods.
An object of attraction two miles from Linville is the gardens of the Blue Ridge, or Mr. E. C
Robbins' expansive nursery of native ornamental shrubs, plants and trees which not only furnishes a
large percentage of the shrubbery set in America, but gardens and boulevards in England, Germany,
Holland, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and other foreign countries are now variegated with flora from
this new and highly commendable enterprise on the banks of the jubilant Linville.
Linville and Blowing Rock are connected by the Yonahlossee Road, which is a twenty-mile section
of the "Park to Park" highway. It is the most scenic drive in the South, traversing the entire south
slope of Grandfather Mountain, a region as rugged as if Vulcan's mighty anvils had been thrown
from the throttles of a volcano and lodged on the mountain-side. High up the imposing crags
the eye is diverted into great dark holes and hollows that Sol's rays have never penetrated; but in the
opposite direction, the expansive view is extended far into the blue haze of the sunny South.
Five miles from Linville, and just above the elegant highway where it is crossed by a brook, is the
Leaning Rock, about one hundred feet high, consisting of three truncated blocks of stone set one
upon another, the first tapering gradually upward from its broad, square base to fit the bottom of the
second, and the top of the second being patterned in like manner to the bottom of the third. Up and
down through the center of the crowning section is a rent, and at the point where its lower extremity
touches the top of the middle division is a little soil formed by the mixture of lodged leaves and
disintegrated rock, and supporting a flourishing bunch of rhododendron, which, in June, hangs out
its scarlet flora like a beautiful bouquet upon the bosom of a Colossus.
The great Appian Way, leading from Rome by way of Naples to Brundusium, was probably not
more interesting than the Yonahlossee Road, Statius called that ancient thoroughfare the Regina
Vairum, which, being of the Latin tongue, means Queen of Roads. It was projected and partly built,
B.C. 312, by Appius Claudius, the author of the famous dictum, "Every one is the architect of his
own fortune." Its width was from fourteen to eighteen feet, and the large, well-fitted stones with
which it was laid looked up through the flying wheels of Titus's chariot and saw Vesuvius shoot his
fires at the stars and pour down the cinders under which Pompeii slept for two thousand years before
the tops of its houses were discovered piercing the volcanic debris with which it had been covered.
High over the Regina Viarum were the inverted images of ships reflected from the fluorescent waters
of the Mediterranean, and sailing on the fleecy waves of the sky. Even the beautiful islands of that
sea were apparently inverted above the horizon, presenting the observer with the tinted images of
trees with their tops downward, mountains projecting from the sky, fat cattle grazing upon the ver-
dure of the heavens, and the con tending armies of different nations and creeds intrenching
themselves in the clouds.
Such were the wonders of earth, sea, and sky as seen from the "Queen of Roads"; such the exquisite
glimpses from which Cicero caught the glorious inspiration that filled Rome with eloquence, and the
world with classic recollections. But with the fall of the Western Empire, the Regina Viarum went to
decay, and, during the many centuries that have since elapsed, the Yonahlossee Road, around the
south side of the great evergreen Grandfather, is one of the few public highways that have again
associated the ease and elegance of travel with the most ecstatic delights of the mind.
From this splendid drive which has been built at greater cost than any other of the same length in the
South, aged persons, and those otherwise unable to endure the fatigue of climbing can sit in the
carriage, at elevations of over five thousand feet above level of the sea, and enjoy as fine views as
region in the eastern half of America affords.
Chuckey Joe, in "The Ballad of the Beech," calls a shelving rock a "rain-roost," because under these,
persons often perch themselves in times of rain. On our North Carolina mountains is a number of
delightful "rain-roosts" and those who have been ducked by the aid of a cloud instead of a minister,
can readily realize the great comfort that these rock-sheds must add to a summer resort, for it has
been no uncommon thing, in Western North Carolina, to see a party come in from a mountain
clamber as wet as drowned rats with their garments flapped about them, and their persons so stooped
over, to conceal their faces from view until they could get to their rooms, that it was impossible for
an observer to tell which end of an individual was up.
At Linville, where the august drive along the side of the Grandfather is met by the beautiful road
from Cranberry, the Western Carolina Stage-Coach Company have, among their many handsome
conveyances, an elegant Concord Stage called the Awahili, which, being of the Indian vernacular,
means Eagle; and when this is drawn back and forth, along the Yonahlossee Road, by four splendid
horses prancing; between ornamental mazes of laurel and pine, passing mirthful falls and crossing
streams like "liquid silver," the passengers are met by new and beautiful objects of entertainment at
every revolution of the flying wheels that bear them onward to the sumptuous entertainments of
Blowing Rock, or to the cheerful accommodations of Eseeola Inn.
All around Linville are flowers for the botanist, rocks for the geologist, trout for the angler,
landscapes for the artist, sublimity for the poet, recreation for the tired business man, invigoration for
the weak, retreats for young lovers, and rest for the old.
Camps Nowenoca, for girls, and Yonahnoka, for boys, each by crystal waters in a pleasant retreat, is
near to but concealed from a highway.
Linville and the fine mountain stream that flows through it were named from this circumstance: "In
the later part of the summer of 1766 William Linville, his son, and another young man, had gone
from the lower Yadkin to this river to hunt, where they were surprised by a party of Indians, the two
Linvilles were killed, the other person, though badly wounded, effecting his escape. The Linvilles
were related to the famous Daniel Boone." (This is a foot note in Draper's Kings Mountain and its
Heroes, pages 183 and 184.)
From Linville to Blowing Rock there is a choice of ways. If you want to take it leisurely and catch
trout as you go, you will loiter up the stream, for the distance of four miles, by the feather-bed road,
to Linville Gap, where a beautifully pinnacled mountain on the left is Dunvegan, which Chuckey
Joe, in "The Ballad of the Beech," calls "Cloven Cliffs." A Merry Andrew named this road
feather-bed because it was so unlike a feather-bed that after one drove over it he needed a
bottle of liniment.
It is now less than a mile down the gurgling brooks of the Watauga to Grandfather Hotel and
post-office, a white house nestling so near the evergreens that the sweet odor of the balsams is wafted
in at the doors, and, sweeping through the commodious hall-ways, cures hay-fever and bronchitis,
and prolongs the lives of consumptives. It was destroyed by fire and there is no improved road to the
place.
About fifty yards in front of the building, at the foot of a declivity, flows the prattling infant
Watauga, teeming with speckled beauties, and although most of them, at this point, are too small for
the osier basket, yet plenty of nice ones are found, only a mile below, where crystal tributaries have
swollen the stream.
Along the opposite bank, from the hotel, is a narrow strip of bottom, about twenty yards wide, from
whose farther side, rises a precipitous hill, so profusely grown over with rhododendron, that in the
blooming season, from about June 20 to August 1, it presents the veranda-sitting tourist with a
perfect wilderness of the gayest flowers.
This is the blooming base of Grandfather Mountain, whose highest point, only three miles away, and
just a few degrees south of the zenith, is reached by a winding path that passes by the coldest
perennial spring, isolated from perpetual snow, in the United States; its highest temperature being
only forty-two degrees.
The neighborhood of Banner Elk, which is five miles northwest, is reached by a rough road that is
being made better, while one mile in the rear of the hotel Dunvegan rears its head so high as to
obscure the North star, and can be surmounted only by an almost pathless clamber through its rocky
defiles.
All mountain ramblers concede that Grandfather Hotel is a well-kept house, in a mos delightful spot,
and watered by one of the best springs in the region.
It is said that a drummer once dined in a hotel where the dinner was brought in individual dishes and
after he had it all up, he said to the waiter, "Well, I have enjoyed your samples very much, so you
will please bring in the dinner." But Mr. J.Ervin Calloway, the proprietor of Grandfather, and his
good wife, Josephine, do not bring the meals in mussel-shell dishes; they put a good meal in
capacious vessels on the table and then tell you that "fingers were made before forks, and that if you
would rather use them than the tripronged instrument, to just crack your whip."
All classes of persons, except those in search of gayety, can spend a week or a month as pleasantly at
Grandfather as at any house in the mountains.
From Grandfather, your objective point is Shulls Mills, six miles down the Watauga, and as you
travel along a good road between blooming buckwheat on one side, and waving corn on the other,
you pass the village of Foscoe, and arrive at your destination, where J. C. Shull and G. W. Robbins
each keeps a first-class country hotel, surrounded by a large lawn.
Around this place on the Watauga and its tributaries, is good trout fishing; and it was here that a
man, who thought himself wise, once said to a lad, who was casting his line upon the waters,
"Adolescens, art thou trying to decoy the piscatorial tribe with a bicurved barb on which thou hast
affixed a dainty allurement?"
"'No, sir," replied the lad; "I'm fishing."
Among Watauga's fertile hills,
(The last ten lines of this poem were added by the author of this book.)
Zionsville is fifteen miles from Boone and Rich Mountain rises at one and ends at the other.
On top of this mountain is a knoll, called "Taber Hill," which is like a wart on top of a bald
head.
Some years ago the owner of this mountain, Congressman R. Z. Linney, employed our bard, Mr. A.
M. Dougherty to write up, verse, the panorama from "Tater Hill" at recite it at a barbecue which he
gave on of this mountain.
The mountain, the Congressman, the barbecue and the bard have furnished the author with material
for the following poem:
Between old Boone and Zionsville
This house of stone the clouds imbibe:
He asked a bard in words that chime
The bard he rhymed of rippling rills,
Said he: "Look yonder at the Beech,
Now I'll relate, since I've begun,
An owl that perched upon a hill,
This girl had heard the Lord of All
As I sat by a brook that sung,
The old ones screamed to rend the skies,
I thought of God, the thought absurd,
If He from off His throne in Heaven
One miracle I rehearse,
Seven miles west of Boone, eight miles east of Banner Blk, and twelve miles northwest of Blowing
Rock is Valle Crucis (Vale of the Cross), a summer resort, where there is bass-fishing in the
Watauga, and the Mary Etta Falls of Dutch Creek have a leap of eighty feet into a foaming pool,
that is bordered with an evergreen selvage of laurel and pine.
At this place, the hospitable H. Taylor and his descendants have built handsome estates on the ruins
of Valle Crucis Abbey, which flourished under Bishop Ives in about 1845, and fell with his apostasy
to Rome in 1852. His assistant, Rev. William West Skiles, stayed with the people he had learned
to love and died at the home of Colonel Palmer on the Linville, December 8, 1862. The Abbey has
been rebuilt in modern style by the church, under management of the good Bishop Homer,
deceased.
The name, Valle Crucis, is said to have been suggested by the fact that two mountain tributaries,
flowing towards each other and emptying into Dutch Creek form a cross with that crystal stream, in
the center of the beautiful valley where the Abbey was located.
A large rustic arm-chair, made and occupied by Mr. Skiles during his missionary work at Valle
Crucis, now sits in the Episcopal church at that place and shoots up its fabric of rhododendron and
kalmia boughs in the most beautiful style of the Gothic architecture.
Many summer resorters board at Valle Crucis with farmers, including Mr. F. P. Mast, whose
industrious wife runs weaving looms and enjoys a good trade on their fabrics. Persons interested in
"Old Time" weaving should not fail to call on Mrs. Mast.
Three miles from Linville on the Yonahlossee Road live the descendants of Alexander MacRae, the
Scotchman of the Grandfather, who was born at Glenelg, Inverness County in beautiful Caledonia.
In 1885 he gathered his little family to his side and said:
"Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North!
Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow!
Mr. MacRae was a loyal American citizen; he visited Scotland twice before he died in America, at
87, July 22, 1929; and yet he never saw the day when he could not sing:
(My heart's in the Higlands, my heart is not here;
Charles Lamb tells us that the Scotch are so ardent, in truth, that they do not know what figurative
expression means. He says that he showed a fine print of a graceful female to a Scotchman, and then
said to him: "How do you like my beauty?" (meaning the picture). The reply was: "I have
considerable respect for your character and talents, but have given much thought to your personal
pretensions." He says also that when he was in formed, at a party of North Britons, that son of Burns
was expected, he remarked: wish it were the father instead of the son. To this four Scotchmen
answered at once "That is impossible, sir, because he is dead.' Such was their esteem for rational
conversation (so this author suggests) that they could not conceive the meaning of an impractical
wish. Mr. Lamb informs us that he did like the Scotch; and he might have added that they did not
like him. It is quite probable that these were witty gentlemen, who, feeling piqued by their
subjugation to the British crown, intentionally perverted the Englishman's language into
ridicule.
At any rate, Mr. Alexander MacRae and his good Scotch wife like a joke, and they possess such a
soul-winning simplicity as to be favorites wherever known. He enjoys his bag-pipe, which he plays
at entertainments, and on the cliffs of the Grandfather; the people enjoy it, both for its entertainment
and for the reflection that such is the music of a land that has enriched the world with poetry and
heroic deeds.
If you would have the best substitute for a visit to Scotland, stop at the MacRae House, where you
can see pictures made in Glasgow,
"And harmless shepherds tune their pipes to love,
A lone Chimney stood in the valley,
A cabin surrounded its hearth-stone,
Billy my boy, the mother said,
They'll place you down in the deep dug grave,
But Billy slipped out and played in the snow,
No doctor then, they were pioneers,
Another brother went the same way,
But the chimney is gone, the place is forlorn,
Our mother is gone, no more can she mourn,
And there lies old dad, we though he was hard,
And soon I shall go to the dear ones marooned,
Our chemical elements fully set free,
Expanded we'll fly in the new bye and bye,
We'll meet one another in lightning and rain
These elements building in human food,
In brooks you hear my mother's voice,
Although we die, we live again,
SHEPHERD M. DUGGER.
BY THE "PATHFINDER"
The Great Estetoe Mountain is in the Vulgate, "Bright's Yaller."
Kaunayrock (Panther Skin, Tusc.) is White Top Virga.
Yonahlossee (the Passing Bear) is the Grandfather Mountain.
Yanasse (Buffalo) is the Iron Mountain Range, long and unlovely.
The Wahaw are the South Mountains, south of Morganton, North Carolina.
Chotab is the Peak (Dunveagan) or Cloven Cliff
Wanteska (Level Land) is Flat Top of Linville.
Zebleeka is the French Broad River.
Yonawayah (Bear Paw) is the Hanging Rock of Banner's Elk.
Kionteska (Pheasant is Big Beecb of Banners' Elk.
The Sakonegas (Blue) is the Blue Ridge Range.
Skolanetta is the Hump, near Cranberry, North Carolina.
Ottaray is the Cherokee (now obsolete) name of old
for their Highlands in North Carolina.
The Eseeola Mountains, follow the left bank of the
Linville Rivet, south of Linville City, ending
with Short Off, below the Table.
The tocsin of the soul-the dinner bell."
Where music flows from crystal rills,
Aand health is victor o'er disease
And vigor lurks in ev'ry breeze,
And all the forests and the fields
A growth of richest verdure yields.
And fruits and flowers profusely grow;
A land where mlik and honey flow.
Mountains promiscuous, heaped and piled,
And landscapes wrapt in grandeur wild,
And beauty lingers all around
And reigns in majesty profound.
Within this mountain solitude
There stands a village, small and rude,
Hard by the base of Howard's Knob,
A mountain prince, a proud nabob,
Whose rocky bluffs forever frown.
With dread severeness on the town,
As independent, bold, and free
As promontory on the sea.
This mountain wears a look austere,
But should excite no hate or fear;
He has a mission, noble, grand,
Born more to serve than to command;
And owns a mission more to shield
Than arbitrary power to wield;
He courts our rapture and delight,
And not suspicion or our fright.
So many blessings from him flow,
We crown him friend and not a foe;
He guards the town as kind and mild
As the fond mother guards her child:
And when the town is wrapt in sleep,
His nightly vigils faithful keep,
And holds communion with the stars,
And talks with Venus and with Mars,
And fain would shield from ev'ry harm,
He checks the fury of the storm,
And tempts the thunderbolt to lurch
And spare the steeple of the church,
And waste all its electric fires
On his defiant rocky spires;
And all may quench their raging thirst
Where fountains from his bosom burst,
And roll through various gorges down
And waters furnish for the town.
This mountain sage is old in age
And has a fame for hist'ry's page;
He is as old as Eden's lawn,
And he beheld Creation's dawn.
Man's life is like the flowers or grass.
But he lives on while ages pass;
A thousand years ago he saw
The planets roll with perfect law,
And on his head the stars did shed
Their light. and. from her Eastern bed,
The moon rose up and made her bow,
And smiled the same as she does now.
He notes the actions of mankind,
Whether for good or bad inclined;
He saw depart a savage race,
And saw another take its place.
A hundred years or more ago
The Indian bent his deadly bow,
The well-aimed arrow quickly sped.
A deer did bdund and then was dead.
No village then, no glittering spires.
The stars looked down on Indian fires;
No golden fields, no Sabbath bells,
The hills echoed with savage yells,
The red man owned the vast domain
From mountain crag to fertile plain;
He thought his title was in fee,
And oh, how happy, wild, and free!
But stop, 0 savage stop and think;
You're standing on destruction's brink;
Let all your hopes be turned to feats
And deep despair instead of cheers.
"The die is cast," your fate is sealed;
What dreadful foe is that concealed
In yonder copse? with flashing eyes
And heart that knows no compromise;
With such a bold, determined look
That death he could undaunted brook;
An iron purpose that fairly mocks
A thousand savage tomahawks.
Oh, savage, now thy woe bewail,
For Daniel Boone is on thy trail,
A hero, grand, immortal, brave,
Whose fame grows brighter from the grave.
A hardy yeoman, warrior bold,
Enduring heat, defying cold.
Before whose awe-inspiring tread
The savage further westward fled
Towards the sunset's russet glow,
To bend again his deadly bow;
A woodsman, artful, cunning, keen,
A foe could see, himself unseen,
And win a battle in retreat,
And bring out victory from defeat.
Nor Roman arm was e'er so strong,
Nor Spartan valor set in song,
That could eclipse our hero grand
Who gave us this, our Switzerland.
This John the Baptist sought a place
For the great Anglo-Saxon race;
And soon the land was occupied
By civilization's rushing tide.
What meed of praise could be too great
Our hero's name to celebrate?
What honors could our race confer
Too great for such a pioneer?
What village would not, boasting, claim
To wear the mighty hero's name?
And such is ours, 'mid babbling rills,
Among Watauga's fertile hills,
Where crags and stars communicate
The highest court-house in the State.
What sacred memories hover 'round
This solitary spot of ground,
Where stood the flue of Daniel's tent;
A pile of stones, now heaped and blent,
Some of them taken rough, unhewn,
That laid the corner-stone of Boone,
And others, from the ashes swept,
Are now by relic-seekers kept;
And still a mound of stones remain
Upon a richly-studded plain.
There is a knoll, Potato Hill,
Located on a mountain high,
That all may see who passes by.
A house of stone beneath its feet
A lawyer built that he might beat
From lower climes a cool retreat.
Its owner I will thus describe:
In public speech so much he rushes
They aptly call him Bull o' the Brushies.
His figure stout, not tall and slim,
With strength of speech, protruding chin,
He wears a tall, black, silken hat,
In politics be "stands pat";
His nasal horn in blowing strenth
By far exceeds the common length.
To set the Tater-Hill in rhyme,
If bard would rhyme his mountain bobbies,
Then he would print ten thousand copies,
That all the maids might lisp their name,
And they would have eternal fame.
Of tints that blue the distant hills,
Of clouds that fleck the azure sky,
Of flitting meteors passing by,
Of corn that grows in vernal showers,
Of rainbows arching lovely bowers,
Of gaudy butterflies that play
In odorous pinks and roses gay,
Of pied-frogs piping from their bogs,
Of pheasants drumming on their logs,
Of warbling birds and roaring falls,
Then paid his compliments to owls.
A mountain where the owl doth screech,
And in a voice hoarse and bleak
Pours floods of music from his beak,
And claims to have exclusive right
To contemplate the orbs of night."
This lovely romance of my own
About this bird of monstrous eyes.
This litle story may suffice
To entertain you in a corner
When your scowl you need to humor.
Seeing a maiden by a rill,
As if to know whom she would woo,
Ask the question, "Whoo, whoo, whoo?"
Unto the pulpit preachers call;
So now she thought he called her, too,
To know whom she would wed and woo,
And, as she could not hope for riches,
Replied; "Anybody, Lord, who wears breeches."
Watching robins feed their young,
An owl that did the woods infest
Now perched himself beside the nest.
And, fluttering, sputtering, 'round him
He gazed upon their plumage gay,
Then snatched a young and flew away.
The parent birds in silent flight
Followed their darling out of sight.
As backwards thence their memory
Their hearts so hurt, their voice hushed
That He had said through Christ the Lord
"No sparrow falls without His word."
Hath birds to earth in mercy given,
If He His wisdom did extend,
From the beginning saw the end,
Why made He this accipitrine
For rending living birds in twain?
The miracle of the Universe,
The owl a bird that giveth pain.
But him for this I'll not disdain,
In Nature's ways he fills his place.
In woodland's choir he plays the bass.
The birthplace of valor, the country of worth:
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands forever I love.
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below!
Farewell to the forest and wild-hanging woods!
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods!"
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;)
Chasing the wild 4eer and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go."
And Amaryllis sounds in ev'ry grove.
It had a sad story to tell;
Of the children that warmed by its fires,
And the house wherein they dwelled.
Lighted by the fire's glow;
The children came in warmed their feet,
From their play in the drifted snow.
You'll take the croup and die;
If you don't stay in out of the snow,
Then your mother will more than cry.
And cover you over secure;
Your mother will never see you again,
Till we meet on that beautiful shore.
In spite of his mother's alarms;
He took the croup, he struggled for breath,
And died in his mother's arms.
In a winter of snows so large;
They buried him down by a falling creek,
That roared his funeral dirge.
And is buried by his side;
But a third one between is still to be seen,
In the mountains to abide.
To him who the mountains still plods;
For brotherless he has fronted the lee,
Against an army of odds.
For their deaths and my lonely sea;
Forever at rest in eternity blest,
From all earthly cares set free.
With switches he made us obey;
We squirmed in our britches, we ripped mama's stitches,
And danced to the lashe's relay.
In sepulchers under the clay;
And silent the songs by fires I sang,
To loved ones beside me that lay.
That rise from our dust to the air;
Absorbed by the flowers, may color the rose,
That's worn in the ladies' hair.
We'll call it the City of Gold;
We'll tincture in bloom enriching perfume,
In the land where we'll never grow old.
In thunder and clouds we'll embrace;
If ladies we'll wink at the man in the moon,
If men we'll envy his grace.
In a maiden's blood may blend;
And a young man kissing his sweetheart's cheek,
May kiss a departed friend.
Their laughing waters have beguiled;
And in the roses by the door,
You see her friendly, loving smile.
In songs of birds and baby smiles;
In all the pretty flowers of spring,
And waterfalls in fragrant wilds.
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