BIRDS, FLOWERS, AND PEOPLE 131 



indeed have " widened in man's view." 

 That was not to be, and all those lofty North 

 Carolina peaks of which, to a New Eng- 

 lander, there seem to be so many 1 were 

 seen by me only from railway trains and 

 from the hotel veranda at Asheville, on my 

 journey homeward. On Satulah and White- 

 side I was forced to please myself with the 

 glory of the foreground. What lay beyond 

 the mist was matter for dreams. 



But even as things were, I was not so 

 badly used. There was more beauty in sight 

 than I could begin to see, and, notwithstand- 

 ing the comparative narrowness of the out- 

 look, partly because of it, one of my 

 most enjoyable forenoons was spent on the 

 broad, open, slightly rounded summit of 

 Satulah. Here and there (" more here than 

 there," my pencil says) a solitary cabin was 

 visible, or a bit of road, a ribbon of brown 

 amidst the green of the forest, but no village, 

 nor so much as a hamlet. The only other 

 signs of human existence were a light smoke, 



1 According to a publication of the State Board of 

 Agriculture, North Carolina contains forty-three peaks 

 more than 6000 feet high, eighty-two others more than 

 5000 feet high, and an " innumerable " multitude the alti- 

 tude of which is between 4000 and 5000 feet. 



