Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1849-06-02
MISCELLANEOUS.
WRITTEN FOR THE KEowEE COURIER.
A Sketch of Il Ride.

The following description and brief
mention of 81 emery and localities is no
fancy sketch, but the real;zutions of one,
who has visited the site of that ancient
station of the British, called Fort George.
or otherwise Fort Prince George. 1t
may not be generally known, that, this
place is only some six or seven miles n
bovc Pickens Court HI use, and that this
stronghold of the mother country was
made the basis of operations against the
French and their red allies, when our
own Marion under Colonel Grant pene
trated the vast wilderness, with which
this region then abounded, and assisted
in Furnishing the murderous Cherokees.
The indulgent reader is referred to the
life of Marion by Simms, or that by
Weems.
Toproceed, | shall perhaps, never for
get the day and the particular time of our
departure. Il say our, because / went
with friend.) The dazzling lumiaa, y
OF day had passed his meridian glory, and
was fast sinking to his watery couch in
the great western ocean, ere we set out
on our excursion. The evening was as
clear as the untrenbled brow of childhood,
calm as the fields of Heaven" and
bright as the day-drcams of the youthful
poet! Right musically and ioyously did
the lucid tide Of Keo,oee ripple DER sand
ed ledge and round, pebble, as we
drove across the romantic b idge, which
spans that most beautiful and lovely of
streams near the village of Pickens. The
gnaried oaks and shelvy rocks seemed
bending in charmed admiration over the
FAIR face of the haunted riyulet, whilst
along its meandering borders, the "still
vale" and the graceful hill reposed in the
elysium of its presence Having passed
this enhancing locale of Nature, the way
presented nought but trees, hills, and
ilossed rocks. until we had reached the
eleemosynary institution of the District.
The Situation of this establishment. is a
beautiful and undulating plain. 1t Is here
the children of misfortune NAV find an
asylum from the beating storms of penu
ry and want. The next point of attrac-
ton is a narrow defile called "gap-bill f"
where even anterior to the American
Revolution, the roar of battle broke the
deep solitude of the primeval wilderness.
One sees the on,inous rocks and trees
upon Che frowning heights and shudders
10 think OF that storm of DEATH" which
was once poured from them into the Sc
a'cluded pass ;--and in the distance, the
eye looks on the "dusky splendor" Of
the Mountains, seeming to rise from the
iowly yale to kiss the blusbiug clouds.
whilst around, solemn death-like silence
prey*ils reminding him, that, here died
the brave, the noble and the generous, as
well as the gay Frenchman and the wily
savage. Then thinking Of the gallant
Englishman battling side by aide with
the proyincials against the common S;,e
perhapa you, kind reader, would he
forced to reiterate, as / did in INV heart,
those words Of re!enting affection: "Er,o.
land with all thy iaultS IoyE thee st;lj >
Alighting from thogehicls to walk tbro,
the deile and down the long slope of
gap-hill, 1 Jsk that we we're tread;no
classic ground. From this 5oint 10, M
hosPitable mansion of our friend. With.