The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1877-07-12
southern watering Places.
From a, Occasional cOrrespOndent.l
BKERsHEnA, CuMBERLAND Mrs,

Summer resorts OF Southern people |
will not be overcrowded. The season is |
late and visitors few, and for the res-
son that the people are peor rather |
than forgetful of delights incident to |
sojourns in the midst OF the mountains
of Tennessee and West Virginia. The
prosperous In business life are very few
and the rich of former years are the
poverry-strcken of to-day. Those re-
aiming wrecks of estates once deemed
magnificent send wives and daughters
to these uplified resorts of idleness
while they themselves remain on farms
or in counting houses. Few, very
few, young Elen frequent fashions
hsunts ut the oldea time, and invslids
are denied, hv uaivrrsal poverty or
transformed socIal facts, advantages
incident Ia all snLuIi change of air
and scene ami walter. Then, too,
cities of the S luth have been eX
empt for some years past from the raw
ages of destructive epidemics, and
though We have heard that cholera was
decimatiBg the ranks of United States
troops near Townsville, Texas, there
is no such prevalent apprehension of
danger as in former years sent multi
tudes from cotton, sugar and rice fields
Of the South TO these ssIubnous
heights.
On the very summit OF tie Gambler
land Mountains, ninety mites southeast
from Nashville, sixty miles north )l
Chattanooga ami thirty six hundred
feet above the sea level. is the choicest
-
ans and of dweliers in the lowlaniS of
the Mississippi. There Is no such place
as Reersheba in any vi It's pc, lar
aspects. Eirginian aud New York
watering places are in the midst,
but not, like BreIsheba, on ih.
very SUBMITS of mountains. There are
health giving springs rs far shove the
SEA level, but none like this on the very
mountain top. At Beersbeba no rugged
heights lift themselves above our heads
to obstIuct the breeZes of summertime
and only fifty feet below this "Con-
gress Hail." from the very midst of
m 'untain crags scattered by the light
nlngs of unnumbered centuries, leap,
q, from Horeb's rock, living water to
which invaluable medicinal virtues are
| ascrlbed. From the long colonnade in
| front of the imposing hot, one To- ks
down precipitous heights into the deep
valley between par4n / III. u tain
ranges, from ten To twenty Mules apart.
Farm houses and grees fields and den e
| forests III the shadows of ciou is NOV
ing above aid Often below US pres, Mt
aspects in ns'Lr 5 IAN Escape painting
as changeful a d beautiful. as are co.,
templsted Ill the III DIST OF Alpine soil
tudes. These parallel ranges extend
from east to west perhaps forty miles
and trend away "a the southeast on the
one hsni and towards tie setting sun
on the other. Even While | write a
great wAlte cloud, moving southwardly,
r, lis over the northern line of moua-
tsins. 1t rests a moment on their very
crests ami Tho rolls down, q dense mass
of heavy por, dream of Niagara,
far down into the deep valley. There
was a share of sublime beauty in the
incident, and yet it reminded me OF
snowy clouds of flcecy cotton that is.
sue from gin on Southern plants
ton, falling in great broad snowy
flakes to be gathered up and com
pressed and sent abroad to clothe and
civilize the nations, even as this cloud
will robe in deepest verdure tie pref
ty homes and farms in the valley at my
feet.
The mountain top is perfectly
level plain, crowned at intervals with
farm houses and flourishing villages
Twelve miles away is the colony of two
hundred Swiss vine dressers; six mile!
away is Altamont, named by its French
denizens; and at Tracy City, of per
haps $500 inhabitants, many coal pit:
have been opened. The strata of these
coal measures vary in thickness from
three to six feet. The coal is con
sumed in Nashville and used by the
furnaces at Chattapaeeaa Oh aISdortHeffn
Georgia. Trains freighted at Tracy
City with coal return from Chatta-
nooga and Rome and Atlanta laden,
am told, with iron to be used in
rolling mills here. Not far from
Tracy City, at Sewanee, on the same
mountains brow, is the University of
the South, the central seat of Episct .
pal intelligence and power. 1t was
feared that the untimely death OF
Bishop General Polk would be fatal to
the institution, but under the super
vision of Bishop Quintard and his as
sociate lecturers and professors it pros
pers as never before. The number of
resident undergraduates varies from
300 to 900. A few miles nearer Beer
sheba, on the railway to Tracy City, a
building has been reared Of great
beauty and costliness, in which 200
young ladies are edu 'ated. Here and
there along the roadside there aIe
pretty cottages and gardens and orch
ards laden with glowing fruit that
glistened in the mellowing sunlight.
But there are still many poor and illit-
crate jewellers on this broad, beautiful
plateau. They occupy wretched log
huts, and when I asked Dorcas Gran
dali, 9 poor, ruddy-taced, unkempt
mountain lassie, low these people
lived, she answered, while twisting
her sunburnt, nut-brown hair about her
fingers, that her nanny made lots o.
money sellin chickens in Tracy City. &"
D0rcas is sweet sixteen, and had never
worn q pair of shoes. Her eyes ale
brown and lustrous and devilish. She
was going home from Tracy City,
seven miles, on foot, when the stage
driver, plying her WEAKNESS or won
as l was by her charms, gave her a
seat on the coach. When we reached
the point on the highway at which the
path leading to Dorcas's little cabin
left the main road, she lesped from the
top of the vehicle over the heads OF
passengers within and ran away. The
coachman sought a kiss in payment
for the ride, and Dorcas's ringing
laughter, when she escaped, was
as musical as If sic were q
daughter of opulence, and her home Il
brown stone front. She told me she
had never descended the mountain and
that Tracy City, sic knew, was the
"Oiggest town in the world"
The dry, transparent atmosphere of
this elevated plain has cured many
consumptives, especially from remote
northwestern States. These dare not
leave Tennessee. They own pretty
farms and gardens and vineyards and
charming yankee" homes on the
broad level summit of this mountain
range. Surely there is no local cause
for disease. and death at Beersheba.
Willingly one would never leave such
q spot and il en- route to abodes of the
blest he would linger by the wayside
at Beershebs. This morning, before
the sun rose; standing on the verge G
the deep precipice, beside which is the
great hotel, was looking down into
the deep valley. Its depths were filed
with uraviah whita clonds lhnvo