Round about Asheville. 291 



ROUND ABOUT ASHEVILLE. 



By Bailey Willis. 



A BEOAD amphitheatre lies in the heart of the North Carolina 

 mountains which form its encircling walls; its length is forty 

 miles from north to south and its width ten to twenty miles. 

 At its southern gate the French Broad river enters ; through 

 the northern gate the same river flows out, augmented by the 

 many streams of its extensive watershed. 



From these water-courses the even arena once arose with 

 gentle slope to the surrounding heights and that surface, did it 

 now exist, would make this region a very garden, marked by its 

 genial climate and adequate rainfall. But that level floor 

 exists no longer; in it the rivers first sunk their channels, their 

 tributaries followed, the gullies by which the waters gathered 

 deepened, and the old plain was thus dissected. It is now only 

 visible from those points of view from which remnants of its 

 surface fall into a common plane of vision. This is the case 

 whenever the observer stands upon the level of the old arena; 

 he may then sweep with a glance the profile of a geographic 

 condition which has long since passed away. 



Asheville is built upon a bit of this plain between the ravines 

 of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, now flowing 380 

 feet below the level, and at the foot of the Beau-catcher hills; 

 toward which the ground rises gently. The position is a com- 

 manding one, not only for the far reaching view, but also as the 

 meeting place 6f lines of travel from north, south, east, and west. 

 Thus Asheville became a town of local importance long before 

 railroads were projected along the lines of the old turnpikes. 

 The village was the center of western North Carolina, as well of 

 the county of Buncombe, and was therefore appropriately the 

 home of the district Federal court. A May session of the court 

 was in progress nine years ago when I rode up the muddy street 

 from the Swannanoa valley. Several well-known moonshiners 

 were on trial, and the town street was crowded with their sym- 

 pathizers, lean mountaineers in blue and butternut homespun. 

 Horses were hitched at every available rack and fence, and horse 



