The Elk Is A Lovely Stream, And, Though Not
Very Clear, Has A Reputation For Trout; But All This Region Was Under
Operation Of A Three-Years Game Law, To Give The Trout A Chance To
Multiply, And We Had No Opportunity To Test The Value Of Its
Reputation.
Yet a boy whom we encountered had a good string of
quarter-pound trout, which he had taken out with a hook and a feather
rudely tied on it, to resemble a fly.
The road, though not to be
commended, was much better than that of the morning, the forests grew
charming in the cool of the evening, the whippoorwill sang, and as
night fell the wanderers, in want of nearly everything that makes
life desirable, stopped at the Iron Company's hotel, under the
impression that it was the only comfortable hotel in North Carolina.
II
Cranberry Forge is the first wedge of civilization fairly driven into
the northwest mountains of North Carolina. A narrow-gauge railway,
starting from Johnson City, follows up the narrow gorge of the Doe
River, and pushes into the heart of the iron mines at Cranberry,
where there is a blast furnace; and where a big company store, rows
of tenement houses, heaps of slag and refuse ore, interlacing tracks,
raw embankments, denuded hillsides, and a blackened landscape, are
the signs of a great devastating American enterprise. The Cranberry
iron is in great esteem, as it has the peculiar quality of the
Swedish iron. There are remains of old furnaces lower down the
stream, which we passed on our way.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 33 of 124
Words from 8661 to 8924
of 33318
