A Pilgrimage to the '' White " 



I'll drop me now the current of my sport 

 To loll awhile in Fashion's giddy court. 



—Anon. 



Although hunting occupies a big room in my 

 heart it isn't the only recreation tenant. There is 

 another one, and I now throw aside my rifle to speak 

 of it. For a long time past I have been in the habit 

 of making an annual pilgrimage to the White Sulphur 

 Springs — " the Saratoga of the South." If the reader 

 has ever been there he will possibly think, with me, 

 that few portions of the globe can furnish more ma- 

 terial for the pencil of the artist and the pen of the 

 novelist. Where else can the eye feast more sumptu- 

 ously than on the scenery of the White ? Where else 

 can be found more romantic beauty than lies cradled 

 in its valleys ? Behold them teeming with their fruit- 

 ful crops and draped in luxuriant foliage through 

 whose bosom peeps the humble cabin of some former 

 slave, while here and there a more pretentious home 

 lifts its trim roof above the green as if to greet the 

 sun and sniff the bracing air. All this, and in a 

 frame of rugged mountains enchanting in their wild- 

 ness, and the picture is complete. 



Thus much for the artist. As for the novelist, he 



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