“The sooner we’re off now, the better,” said Quil, as he took down his rifle from the buck-prongs fastened in the cabin wall, and drew his bullet-pouch and powder-horn over his head and arm.
We stepped from the cabin’s door into the gray light of the morning. The peaks of the Smoky, through which winds Ecanetle gap, were black in shade, while the jagged rim of mountains, toward the east, was tipped with fire, and above was an azure sky without a speck of cloud upon its face. Below us, as seen from the edge of the rail fence, looking far down across red and yellow forests, the fogs of the lower valleys, lying along the stream, appeared like great rivers of molten silver. This effect was caused by the sunlight streaming through the gaps of the mountains, upon the dense masses of vapor. The glory was beyond description.
The kindled Morn, on joyous breezes borne,
Breathed balmy incense on the mountains torn
And tumbled; dreamy valleys rolled
In Autumn’s glowing garments far
Below; and cascades thundered
Sparkling down the cedared cliff’s bold
Faces: peaks perpendicular
Shot up with summits widely sundered.
The best time to visit this country is in October. The tourist who, after several months’ sojourn among the mountains, leaves for his lowland home, loses, by only a few weeks, the most pleasant season of the year. In this month is fully realized the truth of Shelley’s words:
“There is a harmony
In autumn and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard nor seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!”
The skies are intensely blue, seldom streaked with clouds, and the rain-fall is the least of the year. The atmosphere is free from the haze, that through a great part of the summer pervading the air, renders the view less extended. In it one can distinguish tree-top from tree-top on the heights thousands of feet above him; and the most distant mountains are brought out in bold relief against the sky. The days are mild and temperate.
Then it is that Autumn begins to tint the woodlands. Strange to say, although the forests on the summits are the last to bud and leaf in the spring, their foliage is the first scattered underfoot. Along the extreme heights on the northern slopes, the foot-prints of Autumn are first perceived. This is not because of stronger sunlight or deeper shade, but is due to the difference of forest growth between the north and south sides of the ranges. She earliest changes to a dull russet and bright yellow the upland groves of buckeye and linn, above whose margin the balsams remain darker and gloomier by the contrast; and touches into scarlet flame the foliage of the sugar-maple scattered widely apart amid the sturdier trees.
As the days go by, in the valleys the buckeye drops its leaves; the black-gum, festooned by the old gold leaves of the wild grape, gleams crimson against the still green poplars; the hickory turns to a brilliant yellow amid the red of the oaks; of a richer red appears the sour-wood; the slender box elder, with yellow leaves and pods, shivers above the streams; the chestnut burrs begin to open, and drop their nuts; acorns are rattling down through the oak leaves, while on the hill-sides from the top of his favorite log, the drum of the pheasant resounds, as though a warning tattoo of coming frosts.
On the farms the scene is all animation. Although some corn-fields have already been stripped of their blades, leaving the bare stalks standing with their single ears, others are just ripe for work, and amid their golden banners, are the laborers, pulling and bundling the fodder. Stubble fields are being turned under and sown with grain for next year’s wheat. The orchards are burdened with rosy fruit; and at the farm-houses, the women are busy paring apples, and spreading them on board stages for drying in the sun.
At this time the cattle, turned out in the spring to pasture on the bald mountains, are in splendid condition, and no more tender and juicy steaks ever graced a table than those cut from the hind quarters of one of these steers. The sheep, just clipped of their wool (they shear sheep twice a year in these mountains) afford the finest mutton in the world. But let us return to the hunt.