N Macon county, North Carolina, is a section of country so seldom visited by strangers, that few persons living beyond its limits are aware of its existence, except as they find it located on the map. In pomp of forest, purity of water, beauty of sky, wildness of mountains, combining in a wonderful wealth of sublime scenery, the valley of the Nantihala river is not surpassed by any region of the Alleghanies. While a great portion of Macon and of other counties have had attention occasionally called to them by magazine articles, and by a few novels with plots laid in the familiar picturesque sections, the Nantihala and the mountains mirrored on its surface, have to this day remained an unrolled scroll. This is not strange, from the fact of the wild and rugged nature of the mountains, its few inhabitants, its remoteness from railroads, and the roughness of the highways and trails by which it is traversed. Even the ambitious tourist who enters Western North Carolina with the purpose of seeing all the points of picturesque interest, finds his summer vacation at a close before he has completed a tour of those scenic sections lying within a radius of fifty miles from Asheville.
The musical name of Nantihala, as applied to the river, is a slight change from the Cherokee pronunciation of it—Nanteyaleh. Judging from the fact of different interpreters giving different meanings for the name, its signification is involved in obscurity. By some it is said to mean Noon-day Sun, from the fact of the mountains hugging it so closely that the sunlight strikes it only during the middle of the day. The other meaning is Maiden’s Bosom.
The river is wholly in Macon county. Rising near the Georgia boundary, amid the wilds of the Standing Indian and Chunky Gal mountains—peaks of its bordering eastern and western ranges—it flows in a northerly and then north-easterly direction, and after a swift course of fifty miles, empties its waters into the Little Tennessee. The ragged, straggling range, sloping abruptly up from its eastern bank, takes the name of the river. This range breaks from the Blue Ridge, in Georgia, and trends north, with the Little Tennessee receiving its waters on one side, and the Nantihala, those on the other. The Valley River mountains, forming the Macon county western boundary, run parallel with the Nantihala range. It is in the narrow cradle between these two chains that the river is forever rocked.
Through most of the distance from its sources to where it crosses the State road, the river flows at the feet of piny crags, under vast forests, and down apparently inaccessible slopes. Its upper waters teem with trout, and its lower, with the gamiest fish of the pure streams of level lands. The red deer brouses along its banks, and amid the laurel and brier thickets which shade its fountain-heads, the black bear challenges the pursuit of hounds and hunters. Near the State road are gems of woodland scenery, where all the natural character of the stream—its wildness—is absent; and under the soft sunlight and cool shadows of quiet woods, beside a swift, noiseless stretch of water, on which every leaf of the red-maple and birch is mirrored, and along which the gnarled roots of the whitened sycamore offer inviting seats, the stroller is vividly reminded of some lowland river, familiar, perhaps, to his boyhood. At these places, the basin is just such a one as you would like to plunge headlong into. The grass is green and lush along the banks, and the interlacing hedges, and brilliant vines drooping from the over-arching trees, would render concealment perfect. If you are not afraid of ice-cold water, a swim here would be most enjoyable, but even at noon in July or August, the temperature of the stream is near the freezing point.
From the leaning beech, one can look down into the trout’s glassy pool, and see him lying motionless in the depths, or catch a glimpse of his dark shape as he shoots over the waving ferny-mossed rocks, and disappears under the cover of the bank. The king-fisher is not an unfamiliar object. His sharp scream as he flies low over the waters will attract the attention of the observer. Ungainly herons may be startled from their dreaming along the stream; and flocks of plover, seemingly out of their latitude, at times go wheeling and whistling high above the woods.
Monday’s has a place on the map. Why? It is a cheerful, home-like country tavern. Extensive cleared lands stretch back to the green forest lines. A board fence fronts the neatly-kept lawn, on whose elevated center rises a two-story weather-beaten frame house. The steep, mossy roof is guarded at either end by a grim, stone chimney. Large windows look out upon a crooked road, and a long porch with trellised railing is just the place to tip back in a hard-bottomed chair, elevate your feet, and enjoy a quiet evening smoke. The river is out of sight below the hill, but at times the music of its rapids can be distinctly heard. The ranges of the Nantihala and Valley River rise on either side the valley. The only wagon-ways to this point are across these ranges, from Franklin on the east and Murphy on the west.
THE WARRIOR BALD.
Franklin, the county seat of Macon, is situated in the heart of one of the most fertile sections of the mountains—the valley of the Little Tennessee. Its site is on a great hill on the west bank of the river. As the traveler, approaching from the east, winds through the lands lying along the banks of the slow-flowing stream, he will be attracted by the broad, level farms, and, if in summer or early fall, by the wealth of the harvest. One of the most charming views of the village and the magnificent valley is on the road coming from Highlands. You will halt your horse. Let it be on a summer evening, just as the shadows have crept across the landscape. The green and yellow fields will lie in the foreground pervaded with a dreamy quiet. Below, you see the covered bridge, and the red road, at first hidden behind the corn, at some distance beyond, climbing the hill and disappearing amid dwellings, buildings, and churches whose spires rise above the cluster. Far in the background looms the dark, bulky form of the Warrior Bald, of the Nantihalas, and further to the south, the long, level-topped continuation of the range. If old Sol is far down, the bright green glow that marks the last moment of the day will crown the summit of his sentinel peak. A moment later the stars are seen, and as you ride on and ascend the hill, the faint mists of the river will be visible, gathering as if to veil the scene.