s of
Morality," seemed to attract flies. Query, Why should this have such a
different effect from Porter's? A white house,--a pleasant-looking
house at a distance,--amiable, kindly people in it,--why should we have
arrived there on its dirty day? Alas! if we had been starving, Valle
Crusis had nothing to offer us.

So we rode away, in the blazing heat, no poetry exuding from the
Professor, eight miles to Banner's Elk, crossing a mountain and passing
under Hanging Rock, a conspicuous feature in the landscape, and the only
outcropping of rock we had seen: the face of a ledge, rounded up into
the sky, with a green hood on it. From the summit we had the first
extensive prospect during our journey. The road can be described as
awful,--steep, stony, the horses unable to make two miles an hour on it.
Now and then we encountered a rude log cabin without barns or outhouses,
and a little patch of feeble corn. The women who regarded the passers
from their cabin doors were frowzy and looked tired. What with the heat
and the road and this discouraged appearance of humanity, we reached
the residence of Dugger, at Banner's Elk, to which we had been directed,
nearly exhausted. It is no use to represent this as a dash across
country on impatient steeds. It was not so. The love of truth is
stronger than the desire of display. And for this reason it is
impossible to say that Mr. Dugger, who is an excellent man, lives in
a clean and attractive house, or that he offers much that the pampered
child of civilization can eat. But we shall not forget the two eggs,
fresh from the hens, whose temperature must have been above the normal,
nor the spring-house in the glen, where we found a refuge from the flies
and the heat. The higher we go, the hotter it is. Banner's Elk boasts an
elevation of thirty-five to thirty-seven hundred feet.

We were not sorry, towards sunset, to descend along the Elk River
towards Cranberry Forge. The Elk is a lovely stream, and, though not
very clear, has a reputation for trout; but all this region was under
operation of a three-years game law, to give the trout a chance to
multiply, and we had no opportunity to test the value of its reputation.
Yet a boy whom we encountered had a good string of quarter-pound trout,
which he had taken out with a hook and a feather rudely tied on it, to
resemble a fly. The road, though not to be commended, was much better
than that of the morning, the forests grew charming in the cool o