314 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 12, 1895. 



ing bullheads out of the Castalian spring, jerking them 

 in wide, rainbow circles over his head from one side of 

 the mountain to the other. 



Now, on the trip which O. O. S. so charmingly de- 

 scribes— that is, when Monsieur Rip invitedhis friendsMaj. 

 Simon Kylus and Judge Philip Hidias, et al, to go fishing 

 in the Hylocee Eiver with no other implements than three 

 cayuses in mule harness and a two-wheeled buckboard 

 which was intended for sale and for use in Barnum's 

 circus— O. O. S. basely libels that noble sportsman. His 

 hospitality was not of that sort. He would not take 

 three friends on a three days' trip in a vehicle hardly large 

 enough for one, with no provisions, no tackle, no worms, 

 nothing but a thirst. But they did go on that trip and 

 had the worms along in a jug. But eheu, while the party 

 was absent from camp fishing or rather accumulating the 

 germs of some big stories, a base villain sneaked into 

 camp and stole the jug. Within two seconds after the 

 return to camp the loss was discovered and Rip raised his 

 voice aloft in grief and anger and said: "Quick, let us 

 raise the eheu and cry, that the thief may be appre- 

 hended!" O. 0. S., who was about in the 50s, and who 

 evidently knows his way about now, happened to hear 

 the one word eheu; because Rip raised eheu in a loud way, 

 he immediately and with evil result imagined that Rip 

 was saying naughty things. Not Rip's prothonotaries, 

 nor his captain of the host, nor his chief mandarin, nor 

 his master of the horse, nor any of his other numerous 

 statesmen ever used the word, and for that reason I object 

 to it entirely as not being sanctioned by usage, good 

 derivation or necessity. Eheu! 



Dick of Connecticut. 



WORDS FOR BUNCOMBE. 



BY CHAS. HALLOCK. 



One may as well write as talk for Buncombe: Hinc 

 iUce verbce. 



Situated 2,000ft; above the common level of man's 

 habitat, walled in by mountain ranges, and accessible only 

 by two underground passages, one from the weBt and the 

 other from the east, which are reached by steep and 

 tortuous ascents up the beds of streams, the territory of 

 Buncombe seems almost another Vale of Rasselas, the 

 similitude being strengthened by the profusion of fruits 

 and flowers which cover the slopes, the opalescent atmos- 

 phere, and the luxuriant pastures and fields which crown 

 the topmost summits. With an axis thirty miles in extent, 

 and a fertility which would make an Eden smile, it is not 

 only agriculturally self-sustaining, but it would be almost 

 possible to close the gateways of Paint Rock and Swannanoa 

 against the outside world, and stand a protracted siege. 

 Few knights of feudal times could boast such goodly or 

 secure domain. 



Asheville, the beautiful, much extolled and world wide 

 known, is the roof garden of Buncombe. It is its focus 

 and culminating point. Proctor Knott, down by the level 

 of his great unsalted sea, could never, hope to attain so 

 high an eminence, oratorical or topographical. It is 

 Mecca for tourists the whole year round. They come in 

 crowds from the South in summer and from the North in 

 winter, lingering until the solstices are well spent. Only 

 in May and October do breaks occur in the pilgrimage. 

 Frosts and heats do not check the tidal fluxes any more 

 than they interrupt the migration of wild fowls: any 

 meteorological excesses being accepted as preferable to 

 home conditions. Nights are invariably cool at all seasons; 

 and so are the mornings in this month of September. But 

 the afternoons at present are hot: not so much purposely 

 to distress lawn tennis players as to ripen the corn and 

 fruits for the farmers, which is a benison to them. As for 

 mid-summer, I have found from continuous experience 

 the entire season through that the day temperature in 

 these mountains and throughout the whole Appalachian 

 chain is oppressively hot in July and August, even at 

 altitudes 2,500ft. above sea level. I should say the average 

 was at least ten degrees above that of the Laurentian 

 ranges, and perhaps of the Catskills as well. The nights, 

 however, are refreshing, and that is a comfort to contem- 

 plate when one's collar is limp and the blood at fever heat. 

 On Roan Mountain, for instance, at the "Cloudland Hotel," 

 6,394ft. elevation, the man without an overcoat must 

 exercise to keep warm. 



What Lenox in Massachusetts is to the Berkshire Hills 

 ocially and transcendently, the town of Asheville is to 

 Buncombe county, N. C; only the conformation of the 

 inclosing mountains is more massive and the convention- 

 alities less exacting. Pretension is not much over- 

 strained and the glitter of wealth does not blind the unac- 

 customed eye, so that Mr. Slimpurse contemplates its 

 visible expression as he does the afterglow of sunset, 

 delighting in its radiance because the solar power is not 

 felt. Even the dominating magnificence and scope of 

 Biltmore is tempered to the shorn and impecunious, who 

 regard it less as a wonder than a cornucopia of super- 

 abundance disseminating blessings in its overflow. The 

 multitudes of workmen who are still employed in creat- 

 ing, erecting and enlarging the premises recognize its 

 beneficence. Like the craftsmen of King Solomon's Tem- 

 ple they seem bound together and to the master builder by 

 some impelling tie, and few of them, I ween, would de- 

 cline a life service. Mr. Vanderbilt's intercourse with 

 them is affable, it is said, and his wages liberal; no less 

 than $12,000 being distributed by him among the citizens 

 of Asheville every week in the way of salaries and other 

 expenses in connection with his establishment. 



And so it happens that Asheville in all its eesthetic and 

 economic aspects is made inviting to sojourners and 

 transients. Its dimpled hills and undulations are soft and 

 velvety. Shade predominates; foliage and sward are as 

 green in September as in June. Every residence has a 

 liwn, and every lawn a hammock. Drives and trolleys 

 wind everywhere. The French Broad River, 100yds. 

 wide, incloses half its environs. From its central emi- 

 nence on Battery Park, dominating the surrounding 

 streets like the Capitol at Washington or the State House 

 dome in Boston, that inimitable structure known as the 

 "Battery Park Hotel" lookB out on every side across an 

 interval of compacted bricks and mortar to circumjacent 

 hills and wooded ridges crowned with modern villas. 

 Beyond this tangible horizon, away off in the blue dis- 

 tance under the cloud line, in phalanges almost unbroken 

 stand the circumvallate mountains reaching north, 

 south, east and west — the Great Smokies, Balsams, 

 Black Mountains and Blue Ridge all in full view; not just 

 one single "Presidential Range" aligned in grim array as 



in the White Mountains, but Titanic elevations all around, 

 out of whose serrated ranks rise no less than forty domes 

 and peaks exceeding 6,000ft. in height. Gaze in what- 

 ever direction we may, there loom inimitable heights. 

 It is grand! The outlook has no counterpart on the 

 continent. 



In darkest nights, when its electric, lights are on, the 

 myriad windows of the hotel gleam like fireflies, while 

 observers who gaze out from its storied heights over the 

 shadowed plain below seem to survey a sea brilliant with 

 phosphorescence, out of which the intenser coruscations 

 from the many electric masts flash in the darkness like 

 stars of extra magnitude. From this high point of van- 

 tage one also sees such kaleidoscopic sunsets as he never 

 saw before, so varied in their cloud effects and displays 

 of color that no two ever appear alike. Perhaps it is be- 

 cause the ether is purer, and vapors gather in more fan- 

 tastic shapes among the mountains! Or that the argon in 

 the atmosphere is better suited to the exactions of argo- 

 nauts and glebe trotters! 



Until the Western North Caiolina Railroad first 6caled 

 these battlements of "cloud land" with its iron ways, 

 a dozen years ago, Asheville was practically isolated and 

 unknown. Now it is the ultima thule of tourists. Visit- 

 ors come all the way from Europe to inspect the great 

 American dukedom and the castle which has no equal on 

 the Rhine; indeed, no such watermelons on the rind. 

 And since it has been included in the comprehensive 

 Southern Railroad system, brick blocks are going up en 

 masse on the principal streets, and villas by the score: 

 Asheville rising, Phenix-like! 



In the reorganization of the old Richmond Terminal 

 system and the consolidation of no less than thirty differ- 

 ent railroad lines in one, the Southern Railroad Company 

 has achieved a stupendous and complicated undertaking 

 with remarkable celerity and efficiency at a time of great 

 financial depression, and to-day it is a most potential fac- 

 tor in the industrial economy of that vast section of 

 country which is best illustrated at the Atlanta Exposi- 

 tion. People used to taunt the schedule-makers of Dixie 

 with allowing their Northern patrons to stop off by the 

 wayside to pick cotton, but now the time made by all the 

 principal lines vies with the best. Indeed, the time is 

 coming soon when a mile a minute on the magnificent 

 flyers of the B. & 0.,the C. & O. and the Southern Rail- 

 way will cease to be regarded as anything extraordinary, 

 for only recently a delayed vestibule train under Engineer 

 Kinney made the 140 miles between Charlotte and Dan- 

 ville in 144 minutes, with stops at Salisbury and Greens- 

 boro. The twenty-three miles between Concord and Salis- 

 bury were covered in twenty- one minutes. 



West of Round Knob, on the division approaching Ashe- 

 Ville* the scenery is very grand and the tortuous ascent 

 almost equal to the zigzag up the Cascades, on the Pacific 

 division of the Great Northern Railroad. From one point 

 the track over which the train has just climbed may be 

 seen on fourteen different grades, and the course is so 

 sinuous that the sun beams into the car windows first on 

 one side and then on the other; while silvery cascades 

 leap from the mountain sides so close as to almost wet the 

 coaches with their spray. It is just after this toilsome 

 ascent that the train draws into the long tunnel at Swan- 

 nanoa, and thence out of the gloom into the upper firma- 

 ment and sunshine of Asheville. The two spurs of the 

 same railroad which run northwest to Paint Rock and 

 Bouthwest to Murphy, 120 miles, are romantically rugged 

 almost all the way, and are reckoned among the most 

 daring pieces of railroad engineering in the country. This 

 region is not only attractive to lovers of scenery, but 

 sportsmen as well. 



About the end of September, when the leaves are turn- 

 ing brown and the mast is dropping in the woods, the 

 Southern Railway combination issues its annual dog tariff 

 in the interest of the craft, providing for the carriage of 

 one dog free in baggage cars and additional ones at mod- 

 erate rates. The management also places at the disposal 

 of those who shoot a special service of hunting cars which 

 may be chartered by the day or week; and as an addi- 

 tional help it distributes "free gratis" an 80-page illustrat- 

 ed pamphlet which outlines the game laws of Virginia 

 and North Carolina, and designates no less than sixty-two 

 localities in the latter State alone, all accessible by its 

 own lines, where deer, wild turkeys, grouse and quail 

 may be found and hunted ad libitum or by permit. A 

 bag of 100 quail is claimed to be a fair day's average to 

 two guns throughout the State. As for Buncombe county, 

 where I write, the mountain system is complex and 

 much forested, and there is "right smart" of turkeys, re- 

 puted to be wild, and a few deer and bear. On Turkey 

 Creek, so named for the abundance of these gallinaceous 

 birds found there ninety years ago, I have seen with my 

 own eyes no less than fifty in a single day's reconnoissance 

 picking grasshoppers on the hill slopes. In further at- 

 testation it is recorded that not more that three years ago 

 a festive party of sixteen New Yorkers headed by G. 

 Randolph Curtis, who subsequently bought an upland 

 farm in the vicinity and cut out a mountain highway 

 abreast of the picturesque French Broad, camped down 

 at Blackwell's Springs, a cosy nook in a little valley 

 twelve miles out of Asheville, where I recently spent a 

 pleasant month, and in the course of two weeks' time 

 shipped home five brace of noble bronze backers which 

 were true to color and form. It was just after a heavy 

 snowfall in November, and the party were so fortunate 

 as to secure the most of them within easy range of the 

 Major's (Blackwell's) house, thus saving the hardship and 

 exposure of a wide range through the slushes. I may 

 add that in my candid opinion turkeys reasonably wild 

 can. be found almost anywhere within gunshot of any 

 farmhouse in Buncombe — if hunted before next Christmas. 



Sportsmen need not get easily lost in Buncombe. The 

 lay of the land is easily cast by the trend of the moun- 

 tains, and from almost any eminence one may trace the 

 courses of the French Broad, New Found Creek, Bear 

 Creek, Turkey Creek, or Sandy Mush. He may go 

 astray, to be sure, and yet not be actually lost. "Indian 

 not lost; wigwam lost." So much of the country being 

 cultivated and open makes the way plain. 



By the way, Mr. Editor, has it never occurred to you as 

 singular that the average sportsman with his bag and gun 

 will wander all over a new country in quest of game, 

 most diligently avoiding traveled highways, and always 

 find his way home; while the same individual, perhaps, 

 with umbrella and carpet-sack, will be most particular to 

 inquire the turnpike road and miss the way after all? and 

 perhaps have to lie out all night with his destination not 

 half a mile distant? Perhaps Fido can explain. 



.Just now the mast is shedding abundantly in the woods: 

 chestnuts, hazelnuts, chinquapins, walnuts, hickories and 

 acorns. It is "a mast year," and game should be abun- 

 dant. There is no end of rabbits in the brush, on the 

 ridges* and in the graveyards, too. There will never be 

 a better chance than now for sportsmen to secure a rab- 

 bit's foot. The left hind foot of one of these graveyard 

 rabbits, carried in the trousers pocket, will always bring 

 good luck. The country negroes affirm it and stand pre- 

 pared to prove it. 



It is a favorite drive out from Asheville to Blackwell's 

 Springs. Parties of a dozen will often go out to drink the 

 sulphur water. Wayfarers and tourists always stop for 

 sample draughts and tramps even are not denied: . In- 

 valids who have full faith in sulphur cure sojourn there 

 for months together, drinking and bathing until they be- 

 come well saturated, and inasmuch as sulphur water is 

 used almost wholly for cooking, laundry and household 

 purposes it has been insinuated that the body odor from 

 an old habitue is like an exhalation from a matchbox. 

 The Major himself is a picture of florid health, due to in- 

 nate good nature no less than sulphur, and being 6ft. 4in. 

 high and pursy in proportion is the correct cut for a drum- 

 major. Consequently, when he heads the advance on the 

 corn pone and butter cakes at the call of the big planta- 

 tion bell which swings in the tower, the procession which 

 files into the dining hall from the outlying summer 

 houses, tennis courts and swings is imposing. In respect 

 to provender there can be no such word as fail. The 

 Major served as home commissary for Buncombe county 

 during the trying times of the war to provide subsistence 

 for the helpless and bereft and can be depended on how. 

 His garden teems with fruit and vegetables, his coops 

 with poultry and the creek with catfish, hornyheads and 

 suckers. The clover fields drip with milk and honey. 

 Many of his guests come from New Orleans, but he has 

 representatives from all sections, down East as well as out 

 South. 



On moonlight nights, when the full-blown orb, rising 

 like a resplendent soap bubble over the mountain which 

 faces the Major's house, shines through the foliage of the 

 poplars, oaks and sycamores aligned along the border of 

 Turkey Creek, the semi-somnolent observer who is seated 

 on the front veranda may discern in bold relief the 

 silhouettes of guinea fowls at roost upon the lower limbs. 

 Guinea fowls, we know, are esthetic in their tastes and 

 fond of al fresco life. Disdaining the artificial shelter of 

 coops which barnyard fowls accept, they nevertheless 

 indulge that sense of security which the vicinage of man 

 begets, and in this way sometimes come to grief. For, 

 the great horned owls (the Major says), watching their 

 opportunities, drop down noiselessly beside them, hypno- 

 tizing them by their bodily warmth, and gradually edg- 

 ing them off toward the end of the limb, which bends 

 beneath their weight, catch them on the fly ! The victim 

 has hardly begun to dream that he is falling before he 

 finds himself being borne silently and helplessly away. 

 The owl does not snatch his prey bodily off the limb, but 

 maneuvers until, quite clear of impeding branches, he 

 can exercise an unobstructed wing movement, making 

 reprisal doubly sure. 



I love to hear the Major sophisticate! One day I asked 

 him how he managed to keep his premises clear of the 

 suckers which spring up from the roots of the silver leaf 

 poplars, of which he has many. He said: "I always cut 

 them in May, the day before or after the full of the moon. 

 Oaks and locusts the same way. In fact, whole forests 

 are systematically 'deaded' by wood-choppers at that time. 

 They dead them by ringing the bark with an axe a few 

 feet above ground. The trees are sure to die. Boards 

 made of the same will last four times as long as others. 

 Rails will last fifty years longer, and so will posts, if set 

 reversed, but ends up. I always cut my timber at such a 

 date, and cord wood, too. I get 50 per cent, more fuel.*' 

 And he added, "I suppose the sap is in its fullest flow at 

 this time, so that the trees more readily bleed to death.*' 



"That's all right 1 But what has the full of the moon td 

 do with it?" 



"Reckon it draws the sap." 



The Major enjoys to get the attentive ear of his hearers 

 when he can. Next to the minor tones of the mountain 

 wren, I love the Ma jor's. His voice is like the mocking- 

 bird's. 



THE WAYS OF NATURE. 



One of the pleasures of an outing in the mountains or 

 woods is to observe the workings of nature. The time 

 was when I took no pleasure in the woods or fields unless 

 carrying gun or rifle and in scearch for game. To be 

 sure, I like shooting as well as ever; but I can also enjoy 

 much in nature that made no impression on me years ago. 



The past spring and summer were spent by the writer 

 in the mountains of central Idaho, camping in one local- 

 ity the entire time. 



Many an idle half hour was whiled away in watching 

 the birds, the squirrels, the chipmunks, or the numerous 

 insects that made their homes about our camp. The 

 most interesting of all were the black ants; but I could 

 never decide what relation those of middle size bore to 

 the large ones, if any. They would sometimes march 

 together— at least it seemed like a parade— and then the 

 smaller ones apparently acted as scouts for the big ones; 

 one of their parade grounds waB right in front of our tent. 



One performance that puzzled me more than anything 

 else was to see many of them each carrying another ant; 

 sometimes the one being carried was grasped by the back, 

 though oftener by the "nippers;" but in either case the 

 one carried was all doubled up. Of a great many exam- 

 ined very few were found to be injured; if released they 

 would scamper away as lively as the rest. 



We were troubled very little by insects; woodticks and 

 mosquitoes were the only real annoyances; the latter were 

 not bad, but the woodtickB were a great annoyance for a 

 month. The insects that were most numerous are as fol- 

 lows: Black ants, three sizes, with us all summer; green 

 flies (blow flies), all summer; mosquitoes, May 15 to July 

 15; woodticks, May 15 to June 15; horse flies, five kinds, 

 June 15 to Aug. 15; gnats, July 15 to Aug. 15; house flies, 

 July 1 and on; small green worms on the trees, July 1-15; 

 small white butterflies, Aug. 1-30; yellow jackets, Aug. 15 

 and on; black hornets, Aug. 20 and on. Of course they 

 did not all come or go on the dates given, but the greatest 



