nets.
On this sustaining repast we fared on nearly twelve miles farther,
through a rolling, good farming country, offering little for comment,
in search of a night's lodging with one of the brothers Snap. But one
brother declined our company on the plea that his wife was sick, and the
other because his wife lived in Greenville, and we found ourselves
as dusk came on without shelter in a tavernless land. Between the two
refusals we enjoyed the most picturesque bit of scenery of the day, at
the crossing of Camp Creek, a swift little stream, that swirled round
under the ledge of bold rocks before the ford. This we learned was a
favorite camp-meeting ground. Mary was calling the cattle home at the
farm of the second Snap. It was a very peaceful scene of rural life, and
we were inclined to tarry, but Mary, instead of calling us home with the
cattle, advised us to ride on to Alexander's before it got dark.

It is proper to say that at Alexander's we began to see what this
pleasant and fruitful country might be, and will be, with thrift and
intelligent farming. Mr. Alexander is a well-to-do farmer, with plenty
of cattle and good barns (always an evidence of prosperity), who owes
his success to industry and an open mind to new ideas. He was a Unionist
during the war, and is a Democrat now, though his county (Greene) has
been Republican. We had been riding all the afternoon through good land,
and encountering a better class of farmers. Peach-trees abounded (though
this was an off year for fruit), and apples and grapes throve. It is
a land of honey and of milk. The persimmon flourishes; and,
sign of abundance generally, we believe, great flocks of
turkey-buzzards--majestic floaters in the high air--hovered about.
This country was ravaged during the war by Unionists and Confederates
alternately, the impartial patriots as they passed scooping in corn,
bacon, and good horses, leaving the farmers little to live on. Mr.
Alexander's farm cost him forty dollars an acre, and yields good crops
of wheat and maize. This was the first house on our journey where at
breakfast we had grace before meat, though there had been many tables
that needed it more. From the door the noble range of the Big Bald is in
sight and not distant; and our host said he had a shanty on it, to which
he was accustomed to go with his family for a month or six weeks in the
summer and enjoy a real primitive woods life.

Refreshed by this little touch of civilization,