In the course of its windings, the road at length is crowded into the river and fording is necessary. There is no danger, unless the water is high from a freshet; and there is nothing to dread in the passage, unless you are on foot. In the latter case you must wade. The water is too deep for rolling up your pantaloons, but your upper garments may be kept on and dry, unless the swift current and slippery rocks conspire to give you a gentle ducking. The river is quite wide at this only ford on the valley road. From mid-stream a long stretch of river is visible. Usually a shimmer of sunlight lies on the ripples down its center, while cool shadows darken its surface by the banks. The green trees lean lovingly over it, and a soft breeze, as constant in its blowing as the flowing of the water, will fan your face. A fascinating solitariness pervades the picture; and this was enhanced, when we saw it, by a group of three deer, a buck and two does, which, with the antlered monarch in the lead, had just left the forest and were standing knee-deep in the icy water at some distance from our point of observation. A moment they stood there with erected heads looking toward us; and then, with quick movements, regained the nearest bank and disappeared into the wild wood.
If the traveler is observant, he will notice, soon after passing the ford, a long dug-out fastened to the bank at the end of a beaten path; and between the trees see a lonely cabin on the opposite side of the river. The dug-out and a slippery ford near by, are the only links connecting the cabin’s occupants with a road. The spot appears too isolated to be either pleasant or romantic. One of the many fish traps seen in all the mountain rivers is near this cabin. It is built, like they all are, in a shallow reach of the river. It consists of a low V shaped dam, constructed of either logs or rocks, with angle pointing down stream. The volume of the water pours through the angle where is arranged a series of slats, with openings between, large enough to admit the passage of a fish into a box set below for its receptacle. Every day its owner paddles his canoe out to the angle of the dam, and empties the contents of the box into the boat. This method of fishing is unsportsmanlike, to say the least.
Near the head of one of the islands of the Nantihala, the road from over Stecoah mountain appears on the opposite bank, and by a wide ford reaches the main road. By the Stecoah mountain highway, it is twenty miles to Robbinsville in the center or Graham county. There are no scenes of striking grandeur along the route, but the traveler will be interested in way-side pictures. A primitive “corncracker” at one point is likely to produce a lasting impression. It is a tall, frail structure with gaps a foot wide between every two logs. Through these cracks can be seen the hopper, and the stones working at their daily bushel of grain, deposited therein at dawn by the miller, and left, without watching, to be converted into meal by his return. One would conceive that other mills than the gods’ grind slowly. It is a small volume of water that pours through the flume, by means of a race,—a long, small trough, made of boards, rotten and moss-grown, and elevated on log foundations, about ten feet above the ground. Reaching back toward the wooded hill-side, fifty yards away, it receives the waters of a mountain stream. I have seen mills in the mountains, forming with roof, hopper, and all, a structure no larger than a hackney coach.
Along the road to Robbinsville, for fifteen miles, the predominating family is Crisp. It is Crisp who lives in the valley, on the mountain side, in the woods, by the mill, on the bank of Yellow creek, and in numerous unseen cabins up the coves. In fact Crisp seems ubiquitous. Robbinsville has eight or ten houses, one of which serves for a hotel; a store; a court-house, church, and school-house. Near it flows Cheowah creek, through fertile valleys. The finest tract of land in the county is owned by General Smythe, of Newark, Ohio, and is called the Junaluska farm. It is situated near the village, on the banks of Long creek, and consists of 1,500 acres, 400 or 500 acres of which are cleared valley land of rich, loamy soil. In this locality a number of Indian families own homes.
After this slight digression, let us turn to the Nantihala. A short distance from the Stecoah highway ford, the river empties into the Little Tennessee. Just before reaching that point, the road diverges from beside the crystal current; the valley widens out; a deeper roar of mightier waters arises; and, soon after, having reached the bank of the Little Tennessee, you enter its ford, and, turning in the saddle, take a parting look at the closely parallel mountain ranges, and the narrow space between them, known as the valley of the Noon-day Sun.
WITH ROD AND LINE.
Blest silent groves, O, may you be,
Forever, mirth’s best nursery!
May pure contents
Forever pitch their tents
Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains!
And peace still slumber by these purling fountains,
Which we may every year
Meet, when we come a-fishing here.
—Sir Henry Wotton.
