CESAR'S HEAD, CHIMNEY ROCK 97 
tain, "where we whipped Ferguson," our guide re- 
minds us. It is a commanding view down over the 
lowlands, for the Old Rumbling Bald is the last of 
the mountains in this direction, its mighty form 
standing like a sentinel above the lower country, 
at the gateway that passes between it and Chimney 
Rock Mountain, just across the valley. 
Then we go into the cool caverns reached by nar- 
row halls and partly by ladder, and whose walls are 
of freshly exposed granite, where great slabs and 
splinters look ready to fall at the slightest rumble. 
There is an opening to the sky at the far end, but 
inaccessible. But there is a "window" that lets in 
light, and out of which one can look past massive 
casements of solid rock, and across the valley to 
Chimney Rock Mountain and Sugarloaf, and be- 
tween other and lower mountains down into the hot, 
quivering blue plains of the lowlands. It is delight- 
fully cool in the caves, and as one looks around at 
the fresh granite walls, one has a sense of being 
present at the creation of the earth. 
If you follow up the Broad River Valley as far as 
the settlement of Bat Cave, you will find another 
mountain with similar cavernous openings, and 
some one will guide you to the largest of these, Bat 
Cave. But more beautiful than Bat Cave is the 
Broad River Valley on a smiling May day, with its 
gentle scenery, its fresh growths, and its lovely 
mountains, and in it, with a perfectly justified name, 
is the Mountain View Hotel, and — of course — 
Esmeralda Inn. 
