A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE. 169 



I had gone to Signal Point not as an 

 ornithologist, but as a patriot and a lover 

 of beauty ; but, being there, I added one to 

 my list of Tennessee birds, — a red-tailed 

 hawk, one of the very few hawks seen in all 

 my trip. Sailing below us, it displayed its 

 rusty, diagnostic tail, and put its identity at 

 once beyond question. 



Our next start — far too speedy, for the 

 day was short — was for Williams Point ; 

 but on our way thither we descended into 

 the valley of Shoal Creek, down which, with 

 the creek to keep it company, runs the old 

 mountain road, now disused and practically 

 impassable. Here we hitched the horse, 

 and strolled downwards for perhaps half a 

 mile. I was never in a lovelier spot. The 

 mountain brook, laughing over the stones, 

 is overhung with laurel and rhododendron, 

 which in turn are overhung by precipitous 

 rocks broken into all wild and romantic 

 shapes, with here and there a cavern — 

 " rock-house " — to shelter a score of travel- 

 ers. The place was rich in ferns and other 

 plants, which, unhappily, I had no time to 

 examine, and all the particulars of which 

 have faded out of my memory. We walked 



