The railway, after crossing a mile or two of meadows, hugs the river all the way. The scenery is the reverse of bold. The hills are low, monotonous in form, and the stream winds through them, with many a pretty turn and “reach,” with scarcely a ribbon of room to spare on either side. The river is shallow, rapid, stony, muddy, full of rocks, with an occasional little island covered with low bushes. The rock seems to be a clay formation, rotten and colored. As we approach Warm Springs the scenery becomes a little bolder, and we emerge into the open space about the Springs through a narrower defile, guarded by rocks that are really picturesque in color and splintered decay, one of them being known, of course, as the “Lover's Leap,” a name common in every part of the modern or ancient world where there is a settlement near a precipice, with always the same legend attached to it.
There is a little village at Warm Springs, but the hotel—since burned and rebuilt—(which may be briefly described as a palatial shanty) stands by itself close to the river, which is here a deep, rapid, turbid stream. A bridge once connected it with the road on the opposite bank, but it was carried away three or four years ago, and its ragged butments stand as a monument of procrastination, while the stream is crossed by means of a flatboat and a cable. In front of the hotel, on the slight slope to the river, is a meager grove of locusts. The famous spring, close to-the stream, is marked only by a rough box of wood and an iron pipe, and the water, which has a temperature of about one hundred degrees, runs to a shabby bath-house below, in which is a pool for bathing. The bath is very agreeable, the tepid water being singularly soft and pleasant. It has a slightly sulphurous taste. Its good effects are much certified. The grounds, which might be very pretty with care, are ill-kept and slatternly, strewn with debris, as if everything was left to the easy-going nature of the servants. The main house is of brick, with verandas and galleries all round, and a colonnade of thirteen huge brick and stucco columns, in honor of the thirteen States,—a relic of post-Revolutionary times, when the house was the resort of Southern fashion and romance. These columns have stood through one fire, and perhaps the recent one, which swept away the rest of the structure. The house is extended in a long wooden edifice, with galleries and outside stairs, the whole front being nearly seven hundred feet long. In a rear building is a vast, barrack-like dining-room, with a noble ball-room above, for dancing is the important occupation of visitors.
The situation is very pretty, and the establishment has a picturesqueness of its own. Even the ugly little brick structure near the bath-house imposes upon one as Wade Hampton's cottage. No doubt we liked the place better than if it had been smart, and enjoyed the neglige condition, and the easy terms on which life is taken there. There was a sense of abundance in the sight of fowls tiptoeing about the verandas, and to meet a chicken in the parlor was a sort of guarantee that we should meet him later on in the dining-room. There was nothing incongruous in the presence of pigs, turkeys, and chickens on the grounds; they went along with the good-natured negro-service and the general hospitality; and we had a mental rest in the thought that all the gates would have been off the hinges, if there had been any gates. The guests were very well treated indeed, and were put under no sort of restraint by discipline. The long colonnade made an admirable promenade and lounging-place and point of observation. It was interesting to watch the groups under the locusts, to see the management of the ferry, the mounting and dismounting of the riding-parties, and to study the colors on the steep hill opposite, halfway up which was a neat cottage and flower-garden. The type of people was very pleasantly Southern. Colonels and politicians stand in groups and tell stories, which are followed by explosions of laughter; retire occasionally into the saloon, and come forth reminded of more stories, and all lift their hats elaborately and suspend the narratives when a lady goes past. A company of soldiers from Richmond had pitched its tents near the hotel, and in the evening the ball-room was enlivened with uniforms. Among the graceful dancers—and every one danced well, and with spirit was pointed out the young widow of a son of Andrew Johnson, whose pretty cottage overlooks the village. But the Professor, to whom this information was communicated, doubted whether here it was not a greater distinction to be the daughter of the owner of this region than to be connected with a President of the United States.
A certain air of romance and tradition hangs about the French Broad and the Warm Springs, which the visitor must possess himself of in order to appreciate either. This was the great highway of trade and travel. At certain seasons there was an almost continuous procession of herds of cattle and sheep passing to the Eastern markets, and of trains of big wagons wending their way to the inviting lands watered by the Tennessee. Here came in the summer-time the Southern planters in coach and four, with a great retinue of household servants, and kept up for months that unique social life, a mixture of courtly ceremony and entire freedom, the civilization which had the drawing-room at one end and the negro-quarters at the other,—which has passed away. It was a continuation into our own restless era of the manners and the literature of George the Third, with the accompanying humor and happy-go-lucky decadence of the negro slaves. On our way down we saw on the river-bank, under the trees, the old hostelry, Alexander's, still in decay,—an attractive tavern, that was formerly one of the notable stopping-places on the river. Master, and fine lady, and obsequious, larking darky, and lumbering coach, and throng of pompous and gay life, have all disappeared. There was no room in this valley for the old institutions and for the iron track.
“When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
We, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.”
This perverted use of noble verse was all the response the Friend got in his attempt to drop into the sentimental vein over the past of the French Broad.
The reader must not think there is no enterprise in this sedative and idle resort. The conceited Yankee has to learn that it is not he alone who can be accused of the thrift of craft. There is at the Warm Springs a thriving mill for crushing and pulverizing barites, known vulgarly as heavy-spar. It is the weight of this heaviest of minerals, and not its lovely crystals, that gives it value. The rock is crushed, washed, sorted out by hand, to remove the foreign substances, then ground and subjected to acids, and at the end of the process it is as white and fine as the best bolted flour. This heavy adulterant is shipped to the North in large quantities,—the manager said he had recently an order for a hundred thousand dollars' worth of it. What is the use of this powder? Well, it is of use to the dealer who sells white lead for paint, to increase the weight of the lead, and it is the belief hereabouts that it is mixed with powdered sugar. The industry is profitable to those engaged in it.
It was impossible to get much information about our route into Tennessee, except that we should go by Paint Rock, and cross Paint Mountain. Late one morning,—a late start is inevitable here,—accompanied by a cavalcade, we crossed the river by the rope ferry, and trotted down the pretty road, elevated above the stream and tree-shaded, offering always charming glimpses of swift water and overhanging foliage (the railway obligingly taking the other side of the river), to Paint Rock,—six miles. This Paint Rock is a naked precipice by the roadside, perhaps sixty feet high, which has a large local reputation. It is said that its face shows painting done by the Indians, and hieroglyphics which nobody can read. On this bold, crumbling cliff, innumerable visitors have written their names. We stared at it a good while to discover the paint and hieroglyphics, but could see nothing except iron stains. Round the corner is a farmhouse and place of call for visitors, a neat cottage, with a display of shells and minerals and flower-pots; and here we turned north crossed the little stream called Paint River, the only clear water we had seen in a month, passed into the State of Tennessee, and by a gentle ascent climbed Paint Mountain. The open forest road, with the murmur of the stream below, was delightfully exhilarating, and as we rose the prospect opened,—the lovely valley below, Bald Mountains behind us, and the Butt Mountains rising as we came over the ridge.
Nobody on the way, none of the frowzy women or unintelligent men, knew anything of the route, or could give us any information of the country beyond. But as we descended in Tennessee the country and the farms decidedly improved,—apple-trees and a grapevine now and then.
A ride of eight miles brought us to Waddle's, hungry and disposed to receive hospitality. We passed by an old farm building to a new two-storied, gayly painted house on a hill. We were deceived by appearances. The new house, with a new couple in it, had nothing to offer us except some buttermilk. Why should anybody be obliged to feed roving strangers? As to our horses, the young woman with a baby in her arms declared,