PISGAH AND THE BALSAMS 295 
Thinking of the many pleasant encounters you 
have had in bygone days with the woodland folk, 
and keeping eyes and ears alert for more, you follow 
up the winding way until you reach the bench of the 
mountain where Buck Spring, one of the famous 
springs of the mountains, gushes forth large, free- 
flowing, and icy cold. Near it now stands Mr. Van- 
derbilt's Buckspring Lodge on the edge of the bluff 
that looks off across the French Broad Valley to the 
Blue Ridge at the east and towards Asheville and 
its background of mountains at the north. The 
waters from Pisgah flow into the Pigeon River on 
one side, but into the French Broad on the other, 
and directly under the steep cliffs upon the top of 
which the lodge stands is that charming, far-famed 
level of the Blue Ridge plateau known as the "Pink 
Beds," because of the gorgeous garden of flowers it 
becomes in the springtime. 
There is every variety of surface on Pisgah, from 
dense forest growths to open treeless slopes, bushy 
benches, and rocky cliffs — and everywhere a be- 
wildering variety of flowers. On each mountain you 
find characteristic flowers, as though each kept its 
own garden somewhat distinct from its neighbors. 
Not that you will not find these flowers elsewhere, 
but perhaps nowhere else the same species In equal 
abundance. And each mountain you remember 
because of some great floral outburst In process at 
the time of your visit, so that when you think of 
Pisgah, for instance, it Is covered with the later sum- 
mer flowers, — gardens of pink and white turtle-head. 
