tom of the valley, a place shut in, warm, damp, and not inviting to a
long stay, although the region boasts a good many natural curiosities.

It was here that we encountered again the political current, out of
which we had been for a month. The Judge himself was reticent, as became
a public man, but he had conspicuously posted up a monster prospectus,
sent out from Augusta, of a campaign life of Blaine and Logan, in which
the Professor read, with shaking knees, this sentence: "Sure to be the
greatest and hottest [campaign and civil battle] ever known in this
world. The thunder of the supreme struggle and its reverberations will
shake the continents for months, and will be felt from Pole to Pole."

For this and other reasons this seemed a risky place to be in. There
was something sinister about the murky atmosphere, and a suspicion of
mosquitoes besides. Had there not been other travelers staying here, we
should have felt still more uneasy. The house faced Bald Mountain, 4000
feet high, a hill that had a very bad reputation some years ago, and
was visited by newspaper reporters. This is, in fact, the famous Shaking
Mountain. For a long time it had a habit of trembling, as if in an
earthquake spasm, but with a shivering motion very different from that
produced by an earthquake. The only good that came of it was that it
frightened all the "moonshiners," and caused them to join the church. It
is not reported what became of the church afterwards. It is believed now
that the trembling was caused by the cracking of a great ledge on the
mountain, which slowly parted asunder. Bald Mountain is the scene of
Mrs. Burnett's delightful story of "Louisiana," and of the play of
"Esmeralda." A rock is pointed out toward the summit, which the beholder
is asked to see resembles a hut, and which is called "Esmeralda's
Cottage." But this attractive maiden has departed, and we did
not discover any woman in the region who remotely answers to her
description.

In the morning we rode a mile and a half through the woods and followed
up a small stream to see the celebrated pools, one of which the Judge
said was two hundred feet deep, and another bottomless. These pools, not
round, but on one side circular excavations, some twenty feet across,
worn in the rock by pebbles, are very good specimens, and perhaps
remarkable specimens, of "pot-holes." They are, however, regarded here
as one of the wonders of the world. On the way to them we saw beautif