Is There Any Region Or Circumstance Of Life
That The Poet Did Not Forecast And Provide For?
But what would have
been his feelings if he could have known that almost three centuries
after these lines were penned, they would be used to express the
emotion of an unsentimental traveler in the primeval forests of the
New World?
At any rate, he peopled the New World with the children
of his imagination. And, thought the Friend, whose attention to his
horse did not permit him to drop into poetry, Shakespeare might have
had a vision of this vast continent, though he did not refer to it,
when he exclaimed:
"What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?"
Bakersville, the capital of Mitchell County, is eight miles from the
top of Roan, and the last three miles of the way the horsemen found
tolerable going, over which the horses could show their paces. The
valley looked fairly thrifty and bright, and was a pleasing
introduction to Bakersville, a pretty place in the hills, of some six
hundred inhabitants, with two churches, three indifferent hotels, and
a court-house. This mountain town, 2550 feet above the sea, is said
to have a decent winter climate, with little snow, favorable to
fruit-growing, and, by contrast with New England, encouraging to
people with weak lungs.
This is the center of the mica mining, and of considerable excitement
about minerals. All around, the hills are spotted with "diggings."
Most of the mines which yield well show signs of having been worked
before, a very long time ago, no doubt by the occupants before the
Indians. The mica is of excellent quality and easily mined. It is
got out in large irregular-shaped blocks and transported to the
factories, where it is carefully split by hand, and the laminae, of
as large size as can be obtained, are trimmed with shears and tied up
in packages for market. The quantity of refuse, broken, and rotten
mica piled up about the factories is immense, and all the roads round
about glisten with its scales. Garnets are often found imbedded in
the laminae, flattened by the extreme pressure to which the mass was
subjected. It is fascinating material, this mica, to handle, and we
amused ourselves by experimenting on the thinness to which its scales
could be reduced by splitting. It was at Bakersville that we saw
specimens of mica that resembled the delicate tracery in the
moss-agate and had the iridescent sheen of the rainbow colors - the most
delicate greens, reds, blues, purples, and gold, changing from one to
the other in the reflected light. In the texture were the tracings
of fossil forms of ferns and the most exquisite and delicate
vegetable beauty of the coal age. But the magnet shows this tracery
to be iron. We were shown also emeralds and "diamonds," picked up in
this region, and there is a mild expectation in all the inhabitants
of great mineral treasure. A singular product of the region is the
flexible sandstone. It is a most uncanny stone. A slip of it a
couple of feet long and an inch in diameter each way bends in the
hand like a half-frozen snake. This conduct of a substance that we
have been taught to regard as inflexible impairs one's confidence in
the stability of nature and affects him as an earthquake does.
This excitement over mica and other minerals has the usual effect of
starting up business and creating bad blood. Fortunes have been
made, and lost in riotous living; scores of visionary men have been
disappointed; lawsuits about titles and claims have multiplied, and
quarrels ending in murder have been frequent in the past few years.
The mica and the illicit whisky have worked together to make this
region one of lawlessness and violence. The travelers were told
stories of the lack of common morality and decency in the region, but
they made no note of them. And, perhaps fortunately, they were not
there during court week to witness the scenes of license that were
described. This court week, which draws hither the whole population,
is a sort of Saturnalia. Perhaps the worst of this is already a
thing of the past; for the outrages a year before had reached such a
pass that by a common movement the sale of whisky was stopped (not
interdicted, but stopped), and not a drop of liquor could be bought
in Bakersville nor within three miles of it.
The jail at Bakersville is a very simple residence. The main
building is brick, two stories high and about twelve feet square.
The walls are so loosely laid up that it seems as if a colored
prisoner might butt his head through. Attached to this is a room for
the jailer. In the lower room is a wooden cage, made of logs bolted
together and filled with spikes, nine feet by ten feet square and
perhaps seven or eight feet high. Between this cage and the wall is
a space of eighteen inches in width. It has a narrow door, and an
opening through which the food is passed to the prisoners, and a
conduit leading out of it. Of course it soon becomes foul, and in
warm weather somewhat warm. A recent prisoner, who wanted more
ventilation than the State allowed him, found some means, by a loose
plank, I think, to batter a hole in the outer wall opposite the
window in the cage, and this ragged opening, seeming to the jailer a
good sanitary arrangement, remains. Two murderers occupied this
apartment at the time of our visit. During the recent session of
court, ten men had been confined in this narrow space, without room
enough for them to lie down together. The cage in the room above, a
little larger, had for tenant a person who was jailed for some
misunderstanding about an account, and who was probably innocent
- from the jailer's statement.
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