BIRDS, FLOWERS, AND PEOPLE 135 



as far as the eye could go ; nameless to me, 

 all of them, with the exception of the two 

 most conspicuous, — Whiteside on the one 

 hand, and Rabun Bald on the other. For 

 my comfort a delicious light breeze was stir- 

 ring, and the sky, as it should be when one 

 climbs for distant prospects, was sprinkled 

 with small cumulus clouds, which in turn 

 dappled the hills with moving shadows. 

 One thing brought home to me a truth 

 which in our dullness we ordinarily forget : 

 that the earth itself is but a shadow, a some- 

 thing that appeareth, change th, and passeth 

 away. The rocks at my feet were full of 

 pot-holes, such as I had seen a day or two 

 before, the water still swirling in them, at 

 CuUasajah Falls. As universal time is reck- 

 oned, — if it is reckoned, — old Satulah and 

 all that forest-covered world which I saw, or 

 thought I saw, from it, were but of yesterday, 

 a '' divine improvisation," and would be gone 

 to-morrow. 



More beautiful than the round prospect 

 from Satulah, though perhaps less stimulat- 

 ing to the imagination, was the view from 

 the edge of the mountain wall at the head of 

 Horse Cove. Here, under a chestnut tree, 



