250 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
of the road you climb, and continuing on your way, 
the cHffs that distinguish the country about High- 
lands soon begin to appear above the trees. Up you 
mount, now through a forest fragrant with hemlock 
and white azalea, now over cool, hurrying streams, 
now close to damp cliffs with little plants in the 
crevices, the way darkened by the hemlock trees 
that grow so freely here, on and up, finally to attain 
the very summit of the Blue Ridge — and find your- 
self at Highlands. 
Highlands, nearly four thousand feet high, lies on 
one of those tablelands of the Blue Ridge that seem 
to have been designed for the occupation of man. 
But it differs from all other parts of the Blue Ridge 
plateau, and indeed of the whole Appalachian uplift, 
in the tremendous precipices that all but surround 
it, seeming to lift it up and hold it aloft. For about 
Highlands are the grandest cliffs this side the Rocky 
Mountains. 
When at Highlands, one is always conscious of 
being in a high place, of inhabiting, as it were, the 
"Land of the Sky." From the village itself, which 
lies in about the centre of the tableland, there is no 
extensive view, only that ever-present sense of being 
up high and out in the sky. But just out of the village 
one discovers the truth ; there is no grander scenery 
in this part of the world than that immediately 
surrounding Highlands. And here, as in so many 
places in these mountains, one has that inner vision 
of beauty that man alone can add to a landscape. 
One sees in imagination the charms of nature en- 
