PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS 291 
the forest attached to the Biltmore estate. There is 
also an automobile road from Biltmore to Pisgah, 
a forecast, no doubt, of what will be true of many a 
high place in the near future. 
There is no sweeter road anywhere than that up 
Pisgah. In the coves and clearings at the foot of the 
mountain the people live in the homes of their fore- 
fathers and give you a welcome that is more than 
cordial if you choose to rest awhile on their porch, or 
drink from their spring, and they will urge you to 
stay to dinner so heartily, that only the thought of 
finding some wind-swept, sun-bathed slope, where 
you can sit in the open air and look off over the dis- 
tant mountains while you eat the luncheon provided 
at your last stopping-place, prevents you from ac- 
cepting. Lying on the ground to rest and maybe 
sleep a little in the deep stillness of nature, you think 
with sympathy of the woman living far back in a 
certain cove from which she never emerged, and 
who in reply to a question, answered, "No, I don't 
want to go away. I ain't a lonely-natured person 
noway. I like a quiet life." 
The road follows up Pisgah Creek, which, after 
the fashion of streams here, winds back and forth, 
so that for more than two dozen times you have to 
cross the swift water on those marvelous footways 
the people find sufficient for their own use, but whose 
vagaries present difficulties to the stranger. 
What you get from a mountain road depends 
upon how you go. If alone, you hear and see and feel 
things that you never hear or see or feel with even 
