LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 29 



street car, on the way back to Chattanooga, 

 I had for my fellow-passengers a group of 

 Confederate veterans from different parts of 

 the South, one of whom, a man with an 

 empty sleeve, was showing his comrades an 

 interesting war-time relic, — a bit of stone 

 bearing his own initials. He had cut them 

 in the rock while on duty at the Point thirty 

 years before, I heard him say, and now, re- 

 membering the spot, and finding them still 

 there, he had chipped them off to carry home. 

 These are all the memories I retain of my 

 first visit to a famous and romantic place 

 that I had long desired to see. 



My second visit was little more remunera- 

 tive, and came to an untimely and inglorious 

 conclusion. Not far from the inn I noticed 

 what seemed to be the beginning of an old 

 mountain road. It would bring me to St. 

 Elmo, a passing cottager told me ; and I 

 somehow had it fast in my mind that St. 

 Elmo was a particularly wild and attractive 

 woodland retreat somewhere in the valley, — 

 a place where a pleasure-seeking naturalist 

 would find himself happy for at least an 

 hour or two, if the mountain side should 

 insufficiently detain him. The road itself 



