130 NORTH CAROLINA 



and beautiful prospects to be obtained in 

 North Carolina ; but I had fallen upon one 

 of those '' spells of weather," common in 

 mountainous places, which make a visitor 

 feel as if nothing were so rare as a trans- 

 parent atmosphere. For ordinary lowland 

 purposes the days were no doubt favorable 

 enough: a pleasing, wholesome alternation 

 of rain and shine, wind and calm, with no 

 lack of thunder and lightning, and once, at 

 least, a lively hailstorm. '* Weather like 

 this I have never seen elsewhere. Such 

 air ! " So I wrote in my enthusiasm, think- 

 ing of physical comfort, — a man who 

 wished to walk and sit still by turns, and 

 be neither sunstruck nor chilled ; but withal, 

 there was never an hour of clear distance 

 till the morning I came away, when moun- 

 tain ascents were no long^er to be thoutjht of. 

 The world was all in a cover of mist, and 

 the outlying hills, one beyond another, with 

 the haze settling into the valleys between 

 them, were, as I say, like the billows of the 

 sea. Nothing could have been more beauti- 

 ful, perhaps ; but a curtain is a curtain, and 

 I longed to see it rise. A change of wind, a 

 puff from the northwest, and creation would 



