The Southern States, March, 1894 / An illustrated monthly magazine devoted to the South

Transcriber’s Note: obvious printer’s errors have been repaired.

THE FRENCH BROAD RIVER.
By James R. Randall.
The late Judge William D. Kelley was an intensely practical man, and so not given to rhapsody, but he has left on record that Western North Carolina was the most beautiful country upon which his feet or eyes ever rested. He had visited many lands and gazed upon many transcendent panoramas unrolled by the Master of the Universe. He was a loyal and devoted son of Pennsylvania, and enthusiastically loved and admired her noble scenery, but when he beheld the unrivalled majesty and picturesqueness of Western North Carolina, his honest soul expanded with the prospect, and, in a burst of genuine candor, he declared that never before had he looked upon a region at once so sublime and entrancing. What Judge Kelley uttered has been, by many other enthusiasts, repeated in varying phrase and similar tenor. It is not called the Land of the Sky because of its altitude. There are numerous localities that surpass it in this particular, but rather, I think, because of a peculiar phenomenon of the region, where the azure atmosphere that we call the skies descends, or seems to do so, actually and magically upon the tree tops and mountain sides, so that the dazzled spectator almost instinctively puts forth his hand to grasp the mysterious panoply. When a child of earth is thus moved, as it were, by heaven, with the blue ether glorified by sunlight, and the alpine groups transformed in shape by fugitive clouds, no wonder his mind becomes blissfully inebriated, his soul uplifted, and his senses plumed to take wing from the solid globe that imprisons his feet. The dullest fancy cannot resist the spell.
The ardent, poetic temperament has a conditional foretaste of what it is to escape the flesh envelope and assume spiritual alertness. But it is not always thus that this gorgeous land presents itself. It has moods of tremendous energy, and to make returning mildness more alluring, as the cunning master of music intersperses rude chords in his glorious melody, it veils the comely perfection of its face in a storm of frowns, but only such as triumphant beauty can assume betimes. Then the alpine cliffs are garmented with mist, while the Hyder Ali of Cloud Land poises on the declivities, concentrated with black wrath, before rushing down in fragmentary battalions upon the plains below. But there is no ravage. The little hut of the inhabitant remains unscathed, still emitting from its rough chimney a curling smoke, and the lordly mansion, perched on some aspiring peak, stands steadfast, while the fairy maiden shrined there playfully dabbles her white fingers in the foam of the upper deep. From the dark canopy of the great giant of the Smoky range leaps the live lightning, and a thunder roll bellows or crackles or mutters in a myriad strange defiles, but we know that behind this lowering front, hinting of God’s smile behind the tempest, our winsome Lady of the Sky is laughing still, with the spring in her brilliant eyes, and the wild flowers, smitten by sunshine in her golden hair. Anon, as the seasons are made mutable, another phase is disclosed. The air grows cold as if in the clutch of some Siberian intruder, and feathery flakes pour down their “snow storm of stars,” and the mighty monsters of the mountain world yield placidly to their chill, pallid cerements, but we feel that this is one of our enchanter’s displays of infinite variety, and that our spirits are held in thrall for another transformation. And what a valiant exaltation the chill breath of the ozone-ladened breeze fixes in our blood, and what roses in our cheeks! How we dominate with resistless stride the pedestrian paths, or how we credit the fable of the Centaur, when, in the fervor of environment, we partake of the joy and very existence of the nimble steed we have bestrode adventurously! In other climes and with other surroundings we have felt languor, or dullness, or restive incapacity, but here, with the potent inspiration of the panorama and the atmosphere, our whole being bounds with daring briskness and mastering activity. In the overwhelming sense of powerful forces put in play, we do not ask if life be worth living, but thank God that we are alive and filled with the alchemy of Sky Land. When these agencies react and demand the unbent bow, we lounge, it may be on the porches of the grand hotel, with eyes restful upon Pisgah and the enormous petrifaction of the rat that never budges from its lair. Perchance, with appetite made robust and undeniable, we attack the toothsome repast provided, but ever and anon we glance through the big windows at the splendid pictures beyond, as if we were afraid that some stray expression of the amphitheatre would escape us unaware. We stroll, happy and satisfied, to the piazza, and loll in an easy chair, puffing at pipe or cigar, but never ceasing to confront admiringly the scenes that intoxicated us from the first. The sun has driven its fiery, glowing chariot beyond the vast barrier of loam and basalt, but left a sparkling, glowing, radiant wake behind. The clouds are blushing like traditional brides, and the sorcerer of the sky has grouped them among shining lakes and islands and the watching perspective that this inimitable artist alone can fashion and dissolve. You presently understand how the poet merely revealed what he had seen when Night dropped her crimson mantle and pinned it with a star. And it was no exaggeration when the grim Carlyle bade us witness how Bootes drags his reluctant dogs in a leash of sidereal fire, or how mailed Orion flames his plumes ’mid bright-battalioned planets. As the mystic dusk robes the familiar scenery with a pall, we hear the insect world, if it be the proper season, conversing in a thousand tongues, startled anon by the shrill cry of a night bird, and possibly we wonder if the momentary shadow on the orb of the moon was the vagrant pinion of Minerva’s bird, or the flashing stroke of the eagle, put to flight from his eyry slumber. Then the vision fades, and some drowsy sprite, circling in the atmosphere, infects us with somnolency. We cannot resist it, unless perchance strong coffee or some such insidious decoction has violated, for a time, the blessed ministering of sleep that men, who have betrayed or lost it, would give millions to enjoy. We move to our apartment in amiable indolence, and hardly has our head touched the inviting pillow when we reach that condition wherein, as Lew Wallace says, even the wicked cease to sin. And if we have scientifically and rationally allowed the wholesome air to enter a little at the top and a little at the bottom of our window, what slumber we enjoy, unless we have deliberately assailed and violated every law conducive to repose! We know that while we rest no noxious thing can enter our lungs, but the pure, sweet, invigorating wind from the heights is visiting our whole system and repairing what other atmospheres may have put in peril. What a blessing, after such refreshment, to rise in the earlier morning and prayerfully go to the window for another glance at the wonderland that has made us a willing prisoner to its enticements! We salute the mountains as loyal friends, and they, after a vogue of their own, appear to reciprocate our salute. They, too, appear renovated with the dews of night, and their variegated vestments glitter with adornment. The fascinating curves of the French Broad river cleave the landscape, and the swift, clear tide laves the feet of the giant peaks, whose fertile valleys, smiling it may be with agricultural abundance, betoken that this is a fertile as well as a grand and attractive region. How that fine farm called Tahkeostee projects itself like an immense backbone upon the undulating piedmont, and how you scheme about the happiness of a proprietor who holds the title to such a domain! But you need a nearer view, and, as all manner of vehicles or horses are at disposal, you take an excursion there, crossing the railway track and handsome bridge to emerge upon a firm country road. You look back, and the prospect is brave with splendid hotels, villas of all manner of architecture, and the city of Asheville, which, because chiefly of the tourist travel, is rapidly taking rank with the first cities of the State, by manufacturing, by drainage and by the discovery that all of the pure air on earth cannot make amends for water contamination. And so, with generous, innocent fountain sources everywhere at the bidding of man, Asheville and all Western Carolina have nothing to crave for in the way of physical health and happiness.