106 NORTH CAROLINA 



passed. I meant my little speech as a kind 

 of local compliment, but he took me up at 

 once. It was " pretty hot," he thought, 

 about as hot a night as he ever knew. He 

 did n't see how folks lived down in Charles- 

 ton ; and I partly agreed with him. He 

 had been "borned right here," and had 

 never been farther away than to Seneca; 

 and from his manner of expressing himself 

 I inferred that he hoped never to find him- 

 self so far from home again. This was in 

 the midst of a " heated term," when the 

 mercury, at four o'clock in the afternoon, 

 registered 74 on the hotel piazza. 



However, it was many degrees warmer 

 than that in Horse Cove (at a considerably 

 lower level) on the day of which I am writ- 

 ing, and a sick man with a bag of corn on 

 his back had good reason to rest halfway up 

 the climb. He had killed " a pretty rattle- 

 snake " a little way back, he told me. 

 " Very dangerous they are," he added, with 

 an evident kindly desire to put a stranger 

 on his guard. As we separated, a man on 

 horseback turned a corner in the road above 

 us, and on looking round, a few minutes 

 later, I was relieved to see that he had lent 



