90 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
of the nearer spaces. It is the magical light, the 
transforming vast sunshine of the South drenching 
the plain and the air, mingling as it were the sky and 
the earth, that transfigures the scene. To say that 
the lowlands are blue gives but a hint of the truth. 
They are like an inverted sky meeting the real sky 
at the horizon. 
As you follow the steep way, you come again and 
again to some open place whence you can look off 
over the plains, and when the corn is ripe, and you 
look abroad through the golden screen it makes, the 
wide reach of the lowlands and the distant blue 
heights become so intense in color as almost to pain 
the senses. There are lonely cabins with flowers 
about them at long intervals all the way up Glassy, 
and if you come in the spring, you will see the blue 
sky above and the blue sea below through a veil of 
peach blossoms, which is wonderful. 
We cannot see Glassy from Traumfest, as it lies 
behind Hogback. It belongs to that indefinite and 
mysterious region known as the "Dark Corners," 
and the people tell us of wild deeds done here in by- 
gone days. ^ But there is no hint of anything ugly, as 
one ascends its rough road on a fair day, and looks 
out through those openings across the azure sea. 
The road leads to an unpainted church on the top 
of the mountain where on "preaching-day" the 
women assemble in their best black sunbonnets and 
the men in their Sunday clothes. From the lonely 
little "church-house" a path guides you to the top 
of Glassy Rock, whose steep front shines like glass 
