sed on the slightest provocation. Fights arose about
boundaries and the title to mica mines, and with the revenue officers;
and force was the arbiter of all disputes. Within the year four murders
were committed in the sparsely settled county. Travel on any of the
roads was unsafe. The tone of morals was what might be expected with
such lawlessness. A lady who came up on the road on the 4th of July,
when an excursion party of country people took possession of the cars,
witnessed a scene and heard language past belief. Men, women, and
children drank from whisky bottles that continually circulated, and a
wild orgy resulted. Profanity, indecent talk on topics that even the
license of the sixteenth century would not have tolerated, and freedom
of manners that even Teniers would have shrunk from putting on canvas,
made the journey horrible.

The unrestrained license of whisky and assault and murder had produced a
reaction a few months previous to our visit. The people had risen up in
their indignation and broken up the groggeries. So far as we observed
temperance prevailed, backed by public-opinion. In our whole ride
through the mountain region we saw only one or two places where liquor
was sold.

It is called twelve miles from Roan Station to Roan Summit. The distance
is probably nearer fourteen, and our horses were five hours in walking
it. For six miles the road runs by Doe River, here a pretty brook shaded
with laurel and rhododendron, and a few cultivated patches of ground,
and infrequent houses. It was a blithe morning, and the horsemen would
have given full indulgence to the spirit of adventure but for the
attitude of the Professor towards mountains. It was not with him a
matter of feeling, but of principle, not to ascend them. But here lay
Roan, a long, sprawling ridge, lifting itself 6250 feet up into the
sky. Impossible to go around it, and the other side must be reached. The
Professor was obliged to surrender, and surmount a difficulty which he
could not philosophize out of his mind.

From the base of the mountain a road is very well engineered, in easy
grades for carriages, to the top; but it was in poor repair and stony.
We mounted slowly through splendid forests, specially of fine chestnuts
and hemlocks. This big timber continues till within a mile and a half
of the summit by the winding road, really within a short distance of the
top. Then there is a narrow belt of scrubby hardwood, moss-grown, and
then larg