4th. Drove fourteen miles, partly on Blue Ridge, to Gap Creek, at noon. Nice house. Very nice wife and children.
5th. Mrs. Gray rested. Cowles and I went up Blue Ridge, saw a fine waterfall on the eastern side.
6th. Took in Mrs. Cowles, baby, and bright little girl. Drove fourteen miles to Jefferson, picnic dinner on the way; stopped with an uncle and aunt of Mrs. C. I and some Jeffersonians went up Negro Mountain; collected Saxifraga Careyana at the original locality; took a view of where Aconitum reclinatum must be, went for it, found it, some specimens barely in bud, more in flower,[111] made specimens for you and for Redfield, took roots.
7th. Cowles and family to wait and visit, while we took their wagon to Marion, forty-five miles, too much for a day. (Good souls the Cowles!) But when we had got on six miles, met a wagon from Marion, the men in which proposed an exchange, which we (for the Cowles’s sake) gladly consented to. Were to cross the Iron Mountain that day, if time held out (which it did), and stop at a McCarthy’s at the foot, twelve miles from Marion. Reaching the place just at dusk, the driver insisted that this nice house was not the place, but a mile or two farther on. So we tired people drove on by moonlight, three miles further, to find he was mistaken, and no lodgings to be had, except possibly a mile further. Came to a house, routed a man and wife out of bed, found a great fire still on the hearth, no decent chance to sleep. Concluded the only way then was to push on the eight miles more, so as to get the train the next morning at 6.35. Got with difficulty a little corn for the horses, brought out Mrs. Gray’s tea-kettle, made tea, ate the remains of our dinner, and thus refreshed, jogged on; reached Marion at one A.M., slept till half past five, rose, took train at 6.50. And Mrs. Gray still lives! Were waiting hungrily for our breakfast at Wyethville, when, three miles from it, a slight double thud, a down-brake signal, the last breath of the engine, a stop. To our vast surprise, on looking out, engine, and three cars, and first section of high bridge were missing, and were débris in the abyss. No such accident could have been managed with less shock to the nerves. And as to the result, had it been after breakfast and passengers smoking in the second-class car, there would have been a greater fatality (glad to say, I don’t smoke)....
There were weak ladies and hungry and sick children on board. I clambered down the embankment with that blessed tea-kettle, to a poor house, got a fire made, and hot water. Another traveler going farther got a pot of coffee, nice bread and butter and cold boiled ham. And so we fared till omnibuses came for us. At Wyethville a good hotel; got word at length to Shriver;[112] and after a late dinner, an extra train came down, took us to Lynchburg; reached Washington before 8 A.M.
I will send you good specimen of original Saxifraga Careyana, from Negro Mountain. Send me a good large one from Roan. I will compare them soon.
TO GEORGE BENTHAM.
Cambridge, July 4, 1879.
Your last letter has gone to Engelmann, as I notified you; those of May 29 and June 4 overtook me in the mountains of North Carolina, where Mrs. Gray and I were recuperating, but I was kept on the move from morn to night. I could not thence write you on the matters treated of, nor is there anything left to say....
Nature sometimes does what you hit me for suggesting, that is, “take away the essential character,” and we have to put up with it, and allow that we may have overrated the character.