June 13. 18K9.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



419 



advance, while the hinder-most in their terror spring over 

 those in front, until there is a writhing mass of seals 

 eight or ten feet deep piled up at the foot of the rocks. 

 Those beneath are soon smothered by the weight of those 

 above them, and such as do not die in this way are 

 knocked on the heads with chibs in the ordinary method 

 tVpH und sealing. The animals are then spread 

 L*»'<j,Ili 'iilnd the skins quickly removed, carried on 

 board; salteiPand stowed. 



This is the method of procedure when all goes well 

 with the illicit sealer, but it is not always so. Sometimes, 

 when all seems favorable for a catch, and they are just 

 about to land, the boats find themselves saluted by a 

 shower of balls from concealed Russian soldiery. In one 

 such ca=e, which occurred not long ago, one of the crew 

 was killed, another severely wounded, and there were 

 thirty two bullet holes in the boat. A young man of my 

 acquaintance, mate of a sealing schooner, has been taken 

 four times by the Russians while engaged in this busi- 

 ness. Robben Island is now guarded by a man-of-war, 

 which cruises in the vicinity, usually leaving a small 

 force of men on the island, which it visits at short inter- 

 vals. G. B. &, 



he ^fiortsnjnn j^ottrist. 



A MOUNTAIN MUSE. 



LAST June, while camping with a party of six on the 

 Green brier River, in the wilds of West Virginia, 

 my friend the Doctor proposed a trip to the "Sinks," the 

 headwaters of the Greenbrier, a distance of some ten or 

 twelve miles. 



• Leaving Camp Cook about 2 o'clock Saturday afternoon, 

 the Doctor upon his roan steed and I mounted upon one 

 of our wagon horses, with a pack-saddle well padded 

 with straw and my overcoat thrown across for a seat, we 

 started for the house of our friend Arroentrout. a worthy 

 mountaineer living in a cabin on the summit of Rich 

 Mountain. After a long pull up the mountain we reached 

 the top. slopping a short while at a beautiful spring to 

 refresh both man and 1 east. Then we journeyed onward 

 for several inile-^, en joying the grand and magnificent 

 scenery peculiar to this country, arriving at" Armen- 

 trout's just before dusk. 



Supper was served in a few minutes, and I assure you 

 we were not loth to respond, for the ride had sharpened 

 our appetites. Coffee sweetened with maple sugar, cold 

 bread, milk and ground-h g constituted the meal. Dear 

 reader, did you ever eat ground-hog? If not, I beg you 

 to beware. This was my first experience, and I trust it will 

 be my last. I was helped bountifully, twice, to this in- 

 sinuating dish, and after supper was prepared to exclaim: 

 "Long live the ground-hog!" Alas for human foresight ! 

 I knew not the end. It will come later. 



Gathered in the family bedroom by a cheerful wood 

 fire— for even in June the nights on Rich Mountain are 

 very chilly — our host, his wife and three daughters enter- 

 tained us. I was not long in rinding out that Miss Jessie, 

 a bright and comely lass of sixteen summers, was the 

 pride of the family. Living in the wild unsettled moun- 

 tain country, with no opportunities for mental culture, 

 Miss Jessie had developed a marked talent for expressing 

 her thoughts in verse. A remark from her father, "Jessie, 

 can't you show the gentlemen your piece?" led me to ask 

 her for the paper she was busily engaged in copying. 

 Shyly and with a blush she handed me the paper; and 

 now, kind reader, if you wisli to see how the spirit moves 

 some of these far off mountain girls, I will give you the 

 benefit of a copy I took of Miss Jessie's "piece": 



SINKS AND SINKS MOUNTAINEERS. 

 As a general thing, outside of the Sinks, 

 A person talks and also thinks 

 That the folks out here in this wooded land 

 Are not civilized, hut a savage kind of baud, 



Who care for nothing that's civil and good, 



And get their living from the waters and the woods. 



Out in Crab Bottom and down at Repose, 



Where people are clever, as everybody knows, 



You hear strange tales of deer and coons, 

 Of vamps, ground-hegs, and also muskrunes, 

 Upon which, they believe, we all subsist. 

 And seem surprised that we still exist. 



Well, 'tis true, we are singularly Messed, 

 And have more wild meat than some of the rest 

 Of the folks who live in the wide fertile valleys, 

 Or some city people who shelter in the alleys. 



But however wild our food may thus appear, 



It imparts none of its nature to the common mountaineer, 



Whose home is lifted high in the fresh, pure air. 



Where the eagle builds its nest and the lion makes his lair. 



The people of the valleys, the cities and the towns 



Find it pleasant to he with us in our rich mountain grounds 



We treat them kindly to the best in our store. 



And use them so well that they always come more. 



But as for hook learning and general education, 

 In styles, fashions, laws, and also legislation, 

 We're somewhat behind, or backward, they say. 

 And not quite up with the freaks of the day, 



As any one very quickly may see, 



By taking a synopsis of the other girls and me. 



We work hard and labor and tussle. 



And have no time to fix on a fashionable bustle. 



You may see, too, hy the shape of our waist, 

 That we don't use cords and splits and go tight-laced, 

 And thus destroy the beauty of form that nature has given 

 Like she has to the forest 'mong which we are living. 



Our dresses are cheap hut tolerable strong, 

 And not liahle to tear as they're not very long. 

 Among us, 'tis true, are some a little mischievous, 

 They do some tricks, you know, that naturally grieve us, 

 And cast a reflection not upon one, but upon all, 

 Like in other communities when reflections fall. 

 But then as for that, I think it's a mistake 

 To hlame all for a step that a few people take. 

 Some may think that we don't desire a peaceable school. 

 And care nothing for the teacher's harsh, rigid rule, 

 But for good schools we have a fond admiration, 

 And carefully obey orders without hesitation. 



There you are, just as I read it; now who can do better? 

 Miss Jessie has the ideas, even though she does not clothe 

 them in the language of Tennyson or Whittier. 



At 10 o'clock, bidding good night to our worthy host 

 and his family, the Doctor and I clambered up the ladder 

 to our bedroom in the loft, he "to sleep the sleep of the 

 just" and I to dream of ground-hog. There is a song that 

 comes to my mind at this time: 



"That night I shall never forget, 

 That night with its pleasure aud pain." 



And so it was with me: I tossed and turned, vainly trying 

 to seek rest and finding none; nor was it until the "wee 

 sma' hours" that I managed to drop into a semi-comatose 

 state. With the rising of the sun the voice of mine host 

 called us down, and we came out in the fresh, pure air to 

 see and en joy one of the grandest of June mornings. At 

 the well our morning ablutions were performed, and 

 there my troubles began. The water tasted and had the 

 odor of ground-hog. At breakfast the coffee was ground- 

 hog: bread, butter and milk were ground-hog; every- 

 thing was ground-hog; and I left the table a sadder but 

 wiser man. The Doctor wanted me to stay and go in a 

 party to the famous "Sinks," a stream that enters the 

 ba a e of a mountain, going entirely through and coming 

 out on the other side, but my spirit w as broken, and call- 

 ing for my steed I slowly wended my way back to camp, 

 solitary and alone, musing upon the evils of a misspent 

 life and the folly of attempting to make a meal upon 

 ground-hog. DBAS. L. Cooke. 



Staunton, Virginia. 



IN BLUE GRASS LAND.— I. 



OUR notions of things, metaphysical and physical, are 

 often dependent upon premises singularly vague 

 and indefinite. For instance, one never sees a new coun- 

 try without having fitst formed some sort of an opinion 

 about it; and although it is impossible that such an 

 opinion should be just or intelligent, one can nearly 

 always prowl around in his mental c ivitiesand find some 

 sort of reason for it. I always thought that the Indian 

 Territory should be a dark purple colored country: and 

 this notion I can trace to early reading in a Wild West 

 book about the purple haze of Indian summer; for nat- 

 urally there should be more Indian summer in the Indian 

 Territory than anywhere else. In somewhat the same 

 way the State of Maine will always appear to me, unless, 

 perhaps, I some day visit it, a cold, slate-colored country, 

 with edges fringed with pinking-iron ornamentation; 

 because so it appeared in the old geography over which 

 I eagerly hung when I was a boy. Kentucky, on the 

 map I studied, was a yellow, clay-colored country, with 

 the Ohio River making a great coasting slide from right 

 to left across the strong hill of its northern edge. This, 

 then, was my Kentucky; and for reasons no stronger, my 

 Blue Grass Region was always a country where the grass 

 was of a heavenly cerulean or azure hue, and where— so 

 I dreamed as the sleeper rolled southward last week— the 

 welcome extended to any stranger took the form of a 

 stately and beauteous dame who, mounted upon a fiery 

 thoroughbred with flowing mane and tail, rode out to 

 extend to the visitor the freedom of the country, offering 

 to him at the same time with one graceful hand a brim- 

 ming measure of the finest whisky ever seduced from 

 the golden corn. I beg to be allowed to show, in a hur- 

 ried article or so, how different the real Kentucky and 

 the actual Blue Grass country are from such inefficient 

 ideals, and how infinitely superior, passing mere descrip- 

 tion, are both from the common notions of the North. It 

 Forest and Stream can do anything toward promoting 

 a general and just conception of this singularly happy 

 land, she will have done what no other journal, certainly, 

 ever yet did in a way handsome enough to fit the merits 

 of the subject. 



So much has been said about the Blue Grass country as 

 being the home of the thoroughbred horse, that a notion 

 has gotten out that it is the home of nothing else, and 

 that only those used and fitted to the methods of the turf 

 should care to write about it or read about it. Nothing 

 could be more inaccurate than this. I have nothing to 

 say against the horseman of the North, except that he too 

 often is given over to wide checks, to diamonds with a 

 yellow luster, and to a general aroma of tips, odds and 

 strong tobacco; but I have to say, and am going to say it, 

 that the typical turfman is as different from the thorough- 

 bred Blue Grass breeder of fine horse3 as a beer glass 

 crystal is from a genuine diamond. The former does 

 not love a horse for itself; the latter does. The former 

 talks stable; the latter talks horse. The former is not 

 necessarily a gentleman; the latter is necessarily and ab- 

 solutely so. The word "turf" in Kentucky brings to 

 mind no idea of hot and dusty rings, of eager, vulgar 

 interest, of crowds, noise and confusion; but calls up the 

 thought of wide and cool fields, of calm and gentle 

 breezes, of broad perfumes, and of goodly creatures in- 

 stinct with the grace and beauty of vigorous life, and fit 

 for the scenes wherein they live. To guard and house 

 these creatures, to watch them play and grow, to lean 

 over the fence and note their natural grace and speed, to 

 stroke each silky nose with almost the unapproachable 

 pride of the inventor for his model, and to finally send 

 them off into the world, the proudest, gentlest, gamest, 

 most gentlemanly creatures that tread the crust of earth, 

 and infinitely superior to many of the creatures who sub- 

 sequently use or abuse them— that is the occupation of 

 the Blue Grass horseman. 



Four millions of dollars come into this little Blue Grass 

 strip every year for Kentucky horses, nearly ail of which 

 are bought as untried yearlings. My friend with the 

 broad hat and plain clothes, who leans against the gate 

 and watches a groom polish up a horse, for which he has 

 refused, perhaps. $25,000, has small care in life. He 

 yearly sells fifty blue-blood yearlings at an average of 

 $1,000 each. He is a man of leisure, a horseman and not 

 a turfman. His traditions are not of the ring, but of his 

 class, his family, his State. He thinks first of you, then 

 of his horses, then of his traditions. He belongs to a class 

 indisputably the aristocracy of this country, if this coun- 

 try could be ever said to have an aristocracy. I do not 

 like the word, but I mean by it' only the aristocracy of 

 courage, of gentleness and generosity. I dare not say 

 that this is found nowhere else; but I know if I could 

 build a net about this little Blue Grass region I would 

 catch so few men whom all the world would not call gen- 

 tlemen! If I run my net about the same space in a city, 

 and catch the so-called aristocracy, beside my "400" of 

 New York, or Chicago, or any other town, what elae 



must I expect? Why, money-makers, hucksters, and all 

 the unpardonable dross of human life. These I must sift 

 out, to find my men of the angle and the gun, and to find 

 my gentlemen. Hike Kentucky, because you do not have 

 to sift. You have your class already, even and consist- 

 ent, and as uniform as the race of 'their own thorough- 

 breds. I was impressed by this truth in the chance 

 remark of one of my new r Kentucky friends, as we rode 

 home from a pleasant fisliing trip at a club preserve, 

 which I shall presently write about: "There are about 

 200 members in our little club," said he, contemplatively, 

 "and out of the number I don't believe there is one you 

 would be afraid to ask home to dinner with you." 



In a class like this, men of wealth and leisure and with 

 sportsmanlike tendencies str engthened by long heredity 

 and constant opportunity, it might be expected that one 

 would find ardent lovers for every branch of manly out- 

 door sport. I do not know where the notion arose that a 

 Blue Grass man cared for nothjjig but a horse race. A 

 good horse he dearly loves, anu therefore loves a horse 

 race, wisely and with all his heart. But he who loves a 

 horse as a horse always should be loved, must also love a 

 dog; and when he has gone so far, his love for a gun is 

 certain, and since he must love a guu, so also is his love 

 for a rod assured. There is some silken bond of sympa- 

 thy between all these, different as they are. I need not 

 discuss it, but only say briefly that Lexington, a city of 

 perhaps 30,000, the capital of the Blue Grass land and the 

 citadel of the equine heaven, is the strongest sporting 

 community I ever saw. . It has the strongest and most 

 admirable hunt club I ever met, and one which uses both 

 foxhounds and greyhounds. It has the largest fishing 

 club I ever happened to fall in with. It has devotees and 

 experts at the trap. It has duck shooters and upland 

 shooters in plenty. It has the finest people under heaven, 

 and each of" these, bar none, has the biggest and most 

 kindly heart on earth. There is but one question in re- 

 gard to the relations of Forest and Stream and this 

 country, and that is the question of room to hold what 

 one ought to write about it. I am puzzled to write at all. 

 In the North, if one calls you "dear friend," he usually 

 wants your watch. It takes me quite a while to realize 

 that these people didn't want my watch. 



******* 



The Blue Grass region proper, or at least its inner pene- 

 tralia, may be said to embrace only six counties, Fayette, 

 Bourbon, Scott, Woodford, Clark and Harrison. To 

 these the railway guides commonly add Boyle, Jessamine, 

 Mercer and Madison, with portions of Nicholas, Bath, 

 Pendleton, Franklin, Montgomery*. Garrard and Lin- 

 coln. At its largest estimate there is not very 

 much of it. Lexington is fairly to be called its cen- 

 ter, and a radius of 30 or 40 miles swept about that 

 point would cover all there is of the real Blue Glass 

 country. The line thus circumscribed is a charmed circle, 

 and outside of its circumference there is not in the whole 

 world to be found anything the counterpart or equal of 

 the country lying within it. No king on earth can boast 

 a realm like this, and yet this realm can boast hundreds 

 of kings, unsuspicious and innocent of their royalty. I 

 presume the flower of the South blooms in the Blue Grass 

 country. The war impoverished the planter magnates 

 of the lower South, and Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, 

 Louisiana have seen decadence in the old Southern life 

 since then, while Virginia, parent of Kentucky and home 

 of a population essentially the same, has known such 

 changes that she is hardly the "ole Virginny" she once 

 was. The war destroyed a principal source of revenue in 

 many of the Southern States, and it has taken years to 

 set on a new order of things, and to inaugurate another 

 era of prosperity. Yet this little Blue Grass kingdom has 

 hardly flagged a moment. It has been prosperous all the 

 time, and satisfied and contented. It does not ask for 

 manufactories, and does not wish railroads. It lacks all 

 of what we in the North call energy, yet has what we fain 

 must call absolute prosperity. It toils not, neither does 

 it spin; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 

 it. It is a lily country, and a land for lotus eaters. 



The reason for this prosperity is almost whimsical in 

 its simplicity, and yet it will be as sufficient a hundred 

 years from now as it has been for the past century. It 

 lies in the natural grasslands of the region, whose like is 

 not to be found and cannot be produced elsewhere. 

 There are nourishing and strength-giving qualities in 

 this grass, and in the limestone water of the district, 

 which even the most skeptical will now admit are not 

 found elsewhere. Broken-down horses are sent to the 

 Blue Grass pasture lands to recover, and they do recover, 

 and grow strong. Kentucky stock bred and raised, say 

 in California, is not the stock of Kentucky. Owners of 

 large racing stables send their horses to the Blue Grass 

 lands during the idle season, knowing that they will 

 acquire vigor there they will not get elsewhere. The 

 buyer of a blue-blood colt leaves him in the Blue Grass 

 paddock as long as possible, knowing it is there he will 

 best gain the bone of ivory and the muscle of steel which 

 mark the winning thoroughbred. Horsemen do not now 

 stop to explain this, but merely accept it as a fact con- 

 firmed by experience. It is common to call the Blue 

 Grass country the "Heaven of horses," and this title was 

 applied by no mistake. It rests upon the foundation of 

 the country's natural peculiarities. It has qualities much 

 sought for and not found elsewhere; this demand brings 

 in money, and therefore comfort, ease, luxury are shed 

 upon this region in every ray of the golden sun; happi- 

 ness bubbles up out of every limestone spring, and dollars 

 grow, not upon the trees, but down among the grass. 

 The growth of the peculiar and admirable social life of 

 the country are therefore natural. All this seems to me 

 a very delightful lesson for the columns of Forest and 

 Stream, for it shows how dependent we all really are 

 upon nature, and how cross, crabbed, inefficient, un- 

 restful and uubeautiful is any man's life removed out of 

 direct touch with nature. If, therefore, we sound peean 

 for a class which deserves all of that, let the body-har- 

 mony of it be praise for the spirit of the sky, the stream, 

 the green fields and the growing trees. This is the spirit 

 of the calm restfulness which lies upon this land of the 

 lotus; and I suppose it mu- 1 be some vague idea connected 

 therewith which makes me feel that, when I have grown 

 old and can no longer sit a horse or sight a gun, and 

 when my fingers are too stiff for a pencil or a rod, I want 

 to go down to that old town of Lexington and crawl 

 around its narrow, shaded, silent streets and finish up 

 this business in a place where I can comfortably think 

 back a hundred years and know the grass was all right 

 then, and probably will be for the thousand next to come, 



