This Stout Column, Stiff As A Flagstaff, With Its Feathery
Head Of Mist Gleaming Like Silver In The Failing Light, Had The Most
Charming Effect.
We passed out of sight of hotel and fountain, but
were conscious of being - whirled on a circular descending grade, and
very soon they were in sight again.
Again and again they disappeared
and came to view, now on one side and now on the other, until our
train seemed to be bewitched, making frantic efforts by dodgings and
turnings, now through tunnels and now over high pieces of trestle, to
escape the inevitable attraction that was gravitating it down to the
hospitable lights at the bottom of the well. When we climbed back up
the road in the morning, we had an opportunity to see the marvelous
engineering, but there is little else to see, the view being nearly
always very limited.
The hotel at the bottom of the ravine, on the side of Round Nob,
offers little in the way of prospect, but it is a picturesque place,
and we could understand why it was full of visitors when we came to
the table. It was probably the best-kept house of entertainment in
the State, and being in the midst of the Black Hills, it offers good
chances for fishing and mountain climbing.
In the morning the fountain, which is, of course, artificial, refused
to play, the rain in the night having washed in debris which clogged
the conduit. But it soon freed itself and sent up for a long time,
like a sulky geyser, mud and foul water. When it got freedom and
tolerable clearness, we noted that the water went up in pulsations,
which were marked at short distances by the water falling off, giving
the column the appearance of a spine. The summit, always beating the
air in efforts to rise higher, fell over in a veil of mist.
There are certain excursions that the sojourner at Asheville must
make. He must ride forty-five miles south through Henderson and
Transylvania to Caesar's Head, on the South Carolina border, where
the mountain system abruptly breaks down into the vast southern
plain; where the observer, standing on the edge of the precipice, has
behind him and before him the greatest contrast that nature can
offer. He must also take the rail to Waynesville, and visit the
much-frequented White Sulphur Springs, among the Balsam Mountains,
and penetrate the Great Smoky range by way of Quallatown, and make
the acquaintance of the remnant of Cherokee Indians living on the
north slope of Cheoah Mountain. The Professor could have made it a
matter of personal merit that he escaped all these encounters with
wild and picturesque nature, if his horse had not been too disabled
for such long jaunts. It is only necessary, however, to explain to
the public that the travelers are not gormandizers of scenery, and
were willing to leave some portions of the State to the curiosity of
future excursionists.
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