THERE are two places on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge that one, being at Traumfest, should visit: Caesar's Head, that grand promontory of the Blue Ridge that at one commanding point holds back the tumultuous sea of foothills beating against its base, and Chimney Rock, one of the gentlest and most charming little valleys one could wish to know. Each lies a long day's drive from Traumfest, one to the south, the other to the north.

The way to Chimney Rock lies through valleys of corn and along sunny slopes where the cotton grows, for one of the advantages of Traumfest is that from it you can step down into the cotton country that begins at the foot of the Blue Ridge. The Northerner, whose eye has never swept a cotton-field during the changing seasons, imagines that its only moment of interest is when the picturesque negro is gathering the harvest. He does not know that the cotton, like the peach, is a flower as well as a crop, the starryleaved plant bearing large lemon-yellow and rosyred hibiscus-like flowers; and of course when the great pods burst and the fields are whitened with the snow of the harvest, it is worth one's while to take a run down into the cotton country. On the lower slopes of the Blue Ridge the cotton resembles the corn in its sparse growth. The red soil shows through even at maturity, and as summer advances the mellow reds, yellows, and bronzes of the leaves and stems cover the cotton-fields with a rich brocade of colors.

When we descend to the cotton country in quest of Caesar's Head, we cross into South Carolina and follow well-known and very red roads beneath the eastern front of Hogback and the line of low, rounded forms that lie beyond it, and that end in the abrupt and shining cliffs of Glassy Mountain. Now, the real cause for a pilgrimage to Caesar's Head is the view you get of the lowlands that lie spread, three thousand feet below you, a magical sea of light and color as far as the eye can reach. For whatever else the high mountains may offer, you must come to some favored crest of the Blue Ridge for these thrilling views of the Southern lowlands.

From Glassy Rock, on the top of Glassy Mountain, there is an outlook rivaling that from Caesar's Head, and here some day you will go, up over a road so execrable that you will finally leave the carriage and walk, or else you will perhaps ride horseback the whole distance. Upon ascending Glassy, one's first full view of the lowlands is from a sharp turn in the road, whence on a clear day you see them quivering below you, reaching away and away until they enter the sky at the far horizon. Then glimpses of them come and go, caught through a green veil of pine trees that wonderfully intensifies the blues of the nearer spaces. It is the magical light, the transforming vast sunshine of the South drenching the plain and the air, mingling as it were the sky and the earth, that transfigures the scene. To say that the lowlands are blue gives but a hint of the truth. They are like an inverted sky meeting the real sky at the horizon.

As you follow the steep way, you come again and again to some open place whence you can look off over the plains, and when the corn is ripe, and you look abroad through the golden screen it makes, the wide reach of the lowlands and the distant blue heights become so intense in color as almost to pain the senses. There are lonely cabins with flowers about them at long intervals all the way up Glassy, and if you come in the spring, you will see the blue sky above and the blue sea below through a veil of peach blossoms, which is wonderful.

We cannot see Glassy from Traumfest, as it lies behind Hogback. It belongs to that indefinite and mysterious region known as the " Dark Corners," and the people tell us of wild deeds done here in bygone days. But there is no hint of anything ugly, as one ascends its rough road on a fair day, and look: out through those openings across the azure sea. The road leads to an unpainted church on the top of the mountain where on "preaching-day" the women assemble in their best black sunbonnets and the men in their Sunday clothes. From the lonely little "churchhouse" a path guides you to the top of Glassy Rock, whose steep front shines like glass when wet - which is much of the time. The top of the rock is covered with those crisp and aromatic growths that belong to mountain-tops, and which are so pleasant to rest upon. Moreover, all sorts of dainty little wild flowers peep out from the crevices; and from it one gets an unobstructed view out over that ineffable sea of color, losing itself in ineffable sky spaces, of which one has caught glimpses while ascending the mountain. But from here there is a wider horizon and one sees the long and lovely line of mountains lying like islands in the dreamy sea, those charming ridges where the mountains come to an end.

As we sit here one day, a mountaineer approaches, and, pointing to a man crossing a field on muleback far below, laconically remarks, "That gentleman's pa was killed at Glassy Mounting church." Then he tells how the people were waiting for the preacher to come one Sunday, when suddenly shots were heard, and two men of the congregation fell dead. The cause of this ghastly deed was the usual one, a quarrel between two moonshiners; and the method of revenge was characteristic, one of the men having warned the other that if he went to church next preaching-day, he would have him arrested. Of course he went. Worse things than this have happened on Glassy Mountain, notwithstanding the enchanting light in which it is now immersed. Glassy, on its western side, has many a wild ravine for those who wish to hide.

If bound for Caesar's Head, one passes the Glassy Mountain road without turning in, traverses culti. vated valleys and a long reach of wild forest, until finally the road climbs in long curves up the side of the Blue Ridge itself to where the settlement of Caesar's Head lies, nested in the sunshine.

There is a change of climate at Caesar's Head, for it is four thousand feet high. One sees grass, and the air is cooler and more stimulating than at Traumfest, but you have no idea where you really are until you follow the path under the trees to the top of the terrible cliff, where, looking to the east, one sees radiant mountains rising rank above rank, while to the west the eye plunges into an abyss floored by the glowing sea of the lowlands.

Perhaps the most impressive view of the lowlands is from a point below the top of the cliff, where, past the sharp edge of near and substantial rock, the eye leaps, as it were, out into space. On the edge of the cliff, nature has sculptured the rude outlines of a human face, from which we are told this commanding spot got its name. The cliff itself, towering above those vast spaces, does honor to Caesar, whatever may be said of the ape-like profile.

From the cliff one also looks directly down into the " Dismal " at its foot, beyond which rises the smooth and forbidding stone front of Table Rock The Dismal is impressive enough at any time, and it may give you one of the grand spectacular mo. ments of your life if you are fortunate enough to stand over it after a storm at sunset, when down from the mountains roll rivers of mist, to enter the abyss of the Dismal and fill it with glory. Below, you will see surging, lifting and falling, soft thunderheads of gold, of bronze, of copper, and purple. The Dismal seems a wizard's gulf, swallowing the hues of the heavens, which one imagines it will in time cast forth again to sweep over the sky. And walking back towards the hotel in the twilight one may look through an open space at Hogback and Glassy Mountains against a calm and radiant background, and above them the whole Saluda Range, beautifully outlined.

Besides the views offered by the position of Caesar's Head, just below it passes one of the few roads that cross the barrier of the Blue Ridge to the upper mountains, this one leading to the renowned valley of the French Broad River.

Early spring is a good time to visit either Caesar's Head or Chimney Rock, and perhaps you will turn towards Chimney Rock before nature has begun to cover her red soil with summer verdure. The road leads down and around the end of Tryon Mountain and between the hills that lie to the north of it. The grain in places is well started; here and there you see a glowing hillside sparsely covered with pale-blue rye or bright-green wheat. The red soil is furrowed in concentric lines, curves and counter-curves; rows of beans are visible, and young corn-blades are up. Nature, never weary, is gayly beginning her perennial task of feeding the world. In some of the fields cotton is lifting up its head, and about the houses fruit trees are in bloom.

You keep the "main leading wagon-road" as directed, cross the once dreaded torrent of Green River, not now through the dangerous ford, but over a safe, new bridge. The Green River, so green as you cross it on the train up in the mountains beyond Saluda, and so charming in the "cove" below Saluda, where water and banks are so very, very green, the trees reaching over and forbidding the sun to shine too brightly in the cool solitude, the Green River down here is also green, though it has already begun to lose a little of its mountain freshness.

The "main leading wagon-road "finally leads you down the pretty valley of Cane Creek to the wide Hickorynut Gap Road, on its way to Rutherfordton, a state road, if one is not mistaken. Entering it, you turn to the left and follow it up the Broad River Valley and close to the water that comes in jumps and tumbles, darting and whirling down from its sources in the high springs of the mountains. Large trees border the valley, beeches and oaks and tuliptrees, with straight dark pines for color balance. Looking up it, you see one of those happy arrangements of mountains that make a valley something more than mere solid earth and running water. It is these overlapping, down-reaching mountains that give this region its characteristic charm. For the Broad River Valley is noted for its beauty, although it has no high mountains, nor any remarkable grandeur of scenery.

Crossing a charming, though somewhat deep and rocky ford of the Broad River, you continue on up the beautiful valley, the mountains draw in about you, and you are at "Logan's," a large, old-fashioned farmhouse which was converted to the uses of a wayside inn when the road went through to Rutherfordton, connecting the mountains above here with the low country. Logan's is " in the scenery,". so they tell you a good many times while there - and unquestionably it is. A beautiful cultivated valley lies about the house enchantingly surrounded by mountains. The mountains of this region, although so individual in form, so picturesque, or so beautiful, are, according to General Logan, worth about a cent apiece, there is so little soil on them.

Close to us is the Old Rumbling Bald, high up on whose rocky top is what appears to be a cabin, but which is such only in seeming - from some trick of the shadows against the broken rock. This is pointed out to the visitor as " Esmeralda's cabin," so named because here at Logan's the author of "Esmeralda" wrote her play in the presence of the Old Rumbling Bald. The Old Rumbling Bald is, perhaps, the most noted of any mountain in this part of the world. Up to 1878, he was just the "Old Bald," but then he began to rumble and shake the earth, and thereby attained a distinction that set him apart from all the other mountains of the Blue Ridge. Whatever else the others were or did, none of them "rumbled." From '78 to '80 the Old Bald kept the people wondering, and those near him apprehensive. What was he rumbling about? Why was he shaking the earth? And what would he do next? He rumbled his last rumble in '85, we were told, since when he has been as quiet as of old.

To look at the rocky wall of the mountain and see the clean, new granite gives one an intimation of what has happened. Great slabs and cliffs have split off and settled down, no doubt "rumbling" as they went, and the crack that suddenly appeared on top has grown to a chasm ten feet wide, one hundred feet deep, and three or four hundred yards long. Curiosity prompts you to approach the Old Rumbling Bald over a pleasant path where one passes a lonely cabin that might be a child of the old gray mountain, and out of which comes a lovely little girl with glorious blue eyes, her face framed in a wideruffled pink sunbonnet. In one hand she carries a pretty basket of green things, and in the other a great bunch of roses and snowballs. We climbed Old Bald's rocky front, stopping for a long draught of icy water from a spring that comes out of the rocks, and to admire the thrifty appearance of the peach trees in an orchard on the stony slope. We were told that these bore peaches of exceptionally fine quality, after which we were not at all surprised to learn that they were in the thermal belt!

At last we get to a great crack in the mountain not the chasm on top, but a crack lower down, that makes a series of caves, from the threshold of which one looks out between massive walls of granite far down the valley, over the tops of the near mountains, and across to the blue line of the horizon against which stands outlined the beautiful King's Mountain, "where we whipped Ferguson," our guide reminds us. It is a commanding view down over the lowlands, for the Old Rumbling Bald is the last of the mountains in this direction, its mighty form standing like a sentinel above the lower country, at the gateway that passes between it and Chimney Rock Mountain, just across the valley.

Then we go into the cool caverns reached by narrow halls and partly by ladder, and whose walls are of freshly exposed granite, where great slabs and splinters look ready to fall at the slightest rumble. There is an opening to the sky at the far end, but inaccessible. But there is a "window" that lets in light, and out of which one can look past massive casements of solid rock, and across the valley to Chimney Rock Mountain and Sugarloaf, and between other and lower mountains down into the hot, quivering blue plains of the lowlands. It is delightfully cool in the caves, and as one looks around at the fresh granite walls, one has a sense of being present at the creation of the earth.

If you follow up the Broad River Valley as far as the settlement of Bat Cave, you will find another mountain with similar cavernous openings, and some one will guide you to the largest of these, Bat Cave. But more beautiful than Bat Cave is the Broad River Valley on a smiling May day, with its gentle scenery, its fresh growths, and its lovely mountains, and in it, with a perfectly justified name, is the Mountain View Hotel, and of course Esmeralda Inn.

All through the mountains "faults" in the rock occur, usually on a small scale, and landslides in some sections are frequent; while at Hot Springs the water comes forth ready-heated from some internal caldron, as though to keep us in mind that the earth we live on is yet in the making, even these ancient mountains continually changing their shapes.

Being at Bat Cave, we can continue along the good road over the watershed that separates the Broad River from Hickorynut Creek, and down the Hickorynut, Creek Valley, on, over the plateau of the Blue Ridge, even as far as to Asheville. For the Broad River, which has its sources on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge, has no connection whatever with the more famous French Broad, which runs in the opposite direction.

But one must not leave Logan's yet, not before taking that delightful walk up the creek to the Pools, a series of large, round, fabulously deep pot-holes. There are three of them, and, according to the people, one of them has no bottom, while another is one hundred feet deep, and the third, eighty feet deep. Aside from their invisible depths, the pools are worth a visit because of the visible and charming manner in which Pool Creek comes sliding over smooth rock faces, finally to leap in a cascade into pool after pool, striking with force and whirling around the smooth stone wall of the basin. Pool Creek has many cascades; and it is shaded by tall trees, and bordered by the beautiful growths of the region, and beset with wild flowers, in their season, So, even were its pools of commonplace depths, one would look back with pleasure to a walk up the enchanting stream.

The Chimney Rock region is quite noted for its waterfalls, most of the streams that come from that part of the mountains making their escape to the levels below by long leaps down the walls. And the Broad River Valley might be called the "Valley of Many Waters," with its long cascades and its rushing streams.

Chimney Rock itself, an uphill walk of an hour or more from Logan's, and from which the place is named, is a great pillar of solid rock, separated from the main wall of the near mountain and rounded by the elements. To its right is by far a nobler stone battlement, but the distinction of Chimney Rock is in its total separation from the main mass of the mountain, which here rises in sheer, bare walls, a characteristic of the mountains of this region, many of which are wooded on top and at the base, with a broad girdle of bare cliffs between. For a long time Chimney Rock was inaccessible, but now anybody can get on the top of it, simply by climbing a stairway and crossing a timber bridge that ha: brazenly connected the lonely summit with the common world.

On the rocky top three or four dwarfed and twisted pine trees have managed to grow. At the base of the rock and of the mountain, the small pink rhododendron was everywhere in bloom, and, as we ascended, a delicious fragrance became more and more perceptible, until we discovered, growing above us on the ledges of the main mountain, great airy masses of blossoming fringe-trees that hung over the edges of the cliffs and shone white in the deep woods behind. The sparkleberry bushes were also swinging their snowy bells, and the wild gooseberries were trying to rival them in prodigality of bloom. These gooseberries, common at a certain elevation, are very wild, indeed, becoming, as they develop, closely covered with long prickles, which, however, does not prevent one from eating them when ripe.

The view from the top of Chimney Rock up the Broad River Valley might be described as that of grand scenery in miniature. It is the atmosphere that makes the mountains here so charming, for, seen near at hand, they are rather forbidding with their stern, bare rocks. They are frequently finished on one side into rounded turrets. One can imagine that there might be times when this part of the country would appear less seductive than it appears on a fair spring day.

Because of the natural phenomena, so abundant about Chimney Rock, the rumbling mountain, the caves, the isolated "chimney," it is not surprising that a number of strange legends have collected about it, in which ghostly visitants play their part, although as a rule the mountain people are not superstitious. They go fearlessly through the wilderness alone, even "lying out" with their herds, or for other reasons, with no apprehension of seeing anything more terrifying than a bear or a wildcat, an encounter with either of which would be regarded by the mountain man as a most fortunate adventure.

THE long, curving wall of the Blue Ridge, rising from the foothills like a rampart, guards the mountain region that lies beyond it so well that it is difficult to find an entrance through. But this charming wall, so abrupt on its eastern side, all but disappears when looked at from the west, for on that side it is often no higher than the plateau of which it forms the eastern boundary, although it rises here and there in notable peaks such as the Grandfather, the Pinnacle, Graybeard, and Standing Indian Mountains.

The plateau! One ascends a thousand feet above Traumfest to find, not a flat tableland, but a new world of mountains, mountains that might have seated themselves aloft for the delectation of mankind, so cool and fresh and yet so gracious do they appear to one coming up among them through some enchanted gate in the wall of the. Blue Ridge. This plateau, which is about two hundred miles long, is bordered on the east by the long, irregular, unbroken, and winding wall of the Blue Ridge, and on the west by the parallel and more regular line of high and massive mountains known as the Unaka Range. The Unaka, unlike the Blue Ridge, is divided by deep gorges into several sections, one of these being the Great Smoky Mountains familiar to all through the stories of Charles Egbert Craddock, where they are so truly and charmingly portrayed.

The plateau, narrower and higher in the north and gradually lowering as it runs southward, is crossed by a number of short high ranges. At its narrowest point just north of the Grandfather Mountain, it is only about fifteen miles across, and all this northern portion has a general elevation of about four thousand feet, that is to say, its larger valleys lie at that elevation surrounded by mountains. South of the Grandfather the plateau widens out to about sixtyfive miles across and drops until its larger valleys lie at a general elevation of from two to three thousand feet. But while the valleys here are lower, the mountains are higher, there being in this region many of the highest and grandest mountains of the whole Appalachian uplift.

Along the crest of the Unaka runs the boundary line between North Carolina and Tennessee. On this line or close to it, now on one side and now on the other, lie some of the highest mountains of the region, although the most remarkable uplift is perhaps the short Black Mountain Range, in North Carolina, well away from the Tennessee border, and where, although the range is only fifteen miles long, there are more than a dozen summits above six thousand feet in elevation, one of these, Mount Mitchell, 6,711 feet high, being the highest point east of the Rockies.

It is not very long since the geographies taught us that Mount Washington in New Hampshire, with an elevation of 6293 feet, was the highest mountain in the East. But since then the surveyors have been at work in the Southern mountains, to find in the Great Smokies, the Blacks, and the Balsams over twenty peaks higher than Mount Washington. A North Carolina government report, after giving a list of altitudes of the principal mountains, concludes thus: "In all, forty-three peaks of six thousand feet and upwards. And there are eighty-two mountains which exceed in height five thousand feet, and closely approximate six thousand, and the number which exceed four thousand, and approximate five thousand are innumerable."

The principal mountains between the two bordering chains are placed in a somewhat orderly manner in short ranges that for the most part lie nearly parallel one to another, crossing the plateau in a generally northwesterly direction. The most northerly of these, however, the beautiful dome-shaped Black Mountains lying to the north of Asheville, is not parallel with the others, but runs almost north from the point where it leaves the Blue Ridge.

Southwest from the Blacks and to the south of Asheville rises the range of the Newfound Mountains, and south of that the charming Pisgah Range that takes a northeasterly direction. Next in order, and nearly parallel to the Newfound Mountains, is the high Balsam Range containing some fifteen summits exceeding six thousand feet. Then comes the wild Cowee Range, then the bold and beautiful line of the Nantahala, beyond which the mountain country sinks to lower levels in Georgia.

A knowledge of this regularity in the position of the more important mountains is helpful to the explorer, though it is by no means apparent to the casual observer, who, coming up among them, sees mountains on all sides, some rising close at hand in ridges, summits, and walls of foliage, and between these and over their heads others that show forth delicate, spirit-like forms against the sky.

Although the mountains are so generally covered with hardwood and pine forests, the upper parts of the higher ones are clad in a dark, unbroken mantle of spruce and balsam fir, and many have "bald" summits that, covered with grass, make natural pastures, sometimes many hundred of acres in extent.

One ascending to the plateau finds, as it were, the beautiful world on the slopes of the Blue Ridge lifted skyward with its fragrance, its flooding sunlight, and its marvelous colors unimpaired. The dreamy Unaka Range, with its superb group of the Great Smokies, takes the place of the Blue Ridge in the landscape, but it is more broken in contour, rising in massive domes and lovely rounded peaks. It is like the fabric of a dream as one sees it in the distance. Through the gorges that cleave its stupendous walls and add grandeur to the scenery, rush the rivers of the plateau to enter the Mississippi by way of the Tennessee and Ohio, - only one river breaking through the wall of the Blue Ridge to find its way eastward to the Atlantic, for the plateau slants to the west throwing the waters towards the higher Unaka Mountains. Thus the Blue Ridge, in spite of its lower elevation, is the watershed of the mountain region.

This portion of the Appalachian system where the high mountains lie, although a part of the long uplift reaching from Canada to Alabama, and in which is no geological break, is nevertheless dissociated from the northern part by its higher elevation and lower latitude, these differences isolating it and bestowing upon it its rich dower of beauty. For although there are higher precipices and deeper ravines here than in the North, these mountains never convey the same impression of sternness, - the everywhere present vegetation that rounds the outlines and the soft atmosphere combining to give the landscape a gentle expression. Perhaps the difference between the Northern and the Southern mountains can be expressed by saying that those are grand and these are lovely. In the magical atmosphere of the South you see the Great Smokies like wraiths against the western sky, the Nantahalas in the distance swimming in a sea of glory, the stern Balsams, the fir-crowned Blacks, all immersed in a light that transforms them.

Between the mountains lie enchanting valleys, and everywhere bright streams are running. The brooks or "branches" racing down the slopes, the rivers rushing along, the numberless waterfalls and the ice-cold springs everywhere gushing out of the earth, give freshness and life to the mountains. But while the running waters are so abundant, one soon notices the complete absence of natural lakes. Here are none of those beautiful basins that so enhance the charm of our Northern mountain regions.

The reason for this difference lies far back in the millenniums when the great ice cap that lay over the northern part of the earth, quite covering Mount Washington and all that region where the New England and Canadian lakes now lie, stopped short of the Southern mountains. Since the glaciers that scooped out or dammed up the lake beds of the North never reached these delectable heights, it happened that while the Northern mountains were being scraped bare to the bone by relentless ice, the Southern mountains were accumulating that soil out of which has been woven the wonderful mantle of trees that clothes them from top to bottom.

Also, because the glaciers did not reach them, these mountains were able to weather slowly through the ages, which has produced their beautiful, rounded contours, although there are some very rugged cliffs among them. For the same reason the best soil is often found near the top of the mountains, which accounts for the curious appearance of cornfields hung up like wind-blown banners on the steepest slopes.

It is largely due to the ancient glaciers that the Northern mountains are yet so bare and stony towards the top. And because the Northern mountains are so cold and barren, the people live down below and look up to them. Here the people live among the mountains themselves. They love them, and are afraid to go down to the country that lies level below, because, they say, if you go out of the mountains you die. And truth to tell very likely you do.

One of the pleasures of being in the North Carolina mountains is the presence of the simple and kindly people scattered everywhere over them, this great wilderness containing some two hundred thousand inhabitants, among whom may be found men and women who even yet have never ridden on a railway train, seen an automobile, or heard of an aeroplane. Shut up within the barriers of the mountains and isolated from contact with the rest of the world, the mountain whites, like people cast upon an island in mid-ocean, have developed customs and a dialect of their own. With their quaint speech and their primitive life they form perhaps the last link left in this country between the complex present and that simple past when man satisfied his wants from the bosom of the earth, and was content to do so. All over the mountains is a network of paths and each path leads to the door of a friend. One need not fear to walk alone from village to village, from "settlement" to "settlement," to wander at will in this vast sweet forest, where every man, woman, and child is glad to see you and ready to help you get what you want.

Thoroughly to enjoy the mountains, however, you must walk, or ride horseback. There are roads everywhere, but too often to drive over them assumes the nature of an adventure. The one drawback to walking is the crossing of the waters, for the mountains are so closely veined with streams that you cannot go a mile without having to cross at least one, generally on a "footway" the sight of which fills the novice with dismay. They are often very picturesque, these foot-logs, but one is apt to lose sight of that in the imminence of having to walk over one. Some of the bridges are good, sound tree-trunks leveled on the upper side and supplied with a hand-rail, but this is luxury. His wildest currents the mountaineer prefers to span with the smallest pole that can bear his weight, and his wide rivers he crosses on a " bench."

You will be likely to remember your first bench. Imagine long-legged saw-horses driven into the bed of the river the length of a long plank apart two sawhorses placed tandem at each junction. Now imagine a plank reaching from the river-bank to the first sawhorse, and supported by it some four feet above the water. A short gap is succeeded by another plank extending between the second and third sawhorse and so on until the river is crossed. Such is the bench. A good recipe for crossing your first bench is to imagine that somebody is looking as you step up on it. This helps you to assume an easy attitude, as though you were there for the scenery. Then edge along a step, sideways, and again stop and thoughtfully regard the beauties of nature; thus, edging along and stopping every step or two for a long and reassuring look at the distant tree-tops, you will get to the first saw-horse. At this point it will be well to use your own judgment.

But one loving a walk need not refrain because of the bridges. You soon become used to them, and a long stick is so great a help as to rob any ordinary foot-log of more than half its terrors. The foot-log, indeed, soon becomes one of the pleasures in a mountain-walk, for it seems naturally to choose the most picturesque place on the stream, generally beginning and ending at the foot of a large tree. To stand mid-stream on a broad, squared log thrown across from bank to bank and guarded by a rail on one side, to stand there and watch the lights glinting through the forest foliage on the swift, rippling water, to look into the deep shadows under the clustering laurel and rhododendron bushes and the arching tree branches both up and down the stream, - to do this is to get from the mountain bridge enough to balance other moments when perchance a three-cornered fencerail thrown across the top of a waterfall offers the only avenue of approach to the other bank of the stream.