Asheville daily citizen., 1894-11-23
IN THE APPALACHIAN RANGE.
A Country Whore the People Go
About on Horseback.


The scenery is the same from the
middle of Pennsylvania to Georgia
the same rounded, wooded mountains;
the same green, often fertile, valleys,
Checkerboarded with farms; the same
stone-strewn watcrcourses brawling
bown the hill sides; the same frequent,
almost general, forestsI-the same few
roads and many trails; the same log
cabins: the same clearings. Every.
where the same deep blue hangs over
head, and the mountains turn from
nearby green to distant purple. The
wood fires everywhere send up thin
blue wells of smoke above the cabins,
and the scenes in which humanity
figures are played by characters that
are everywhere very much alike. Per-
haps in the north there are more
covered bridges, but the rule, over the
entire mountain system, is for the
horses and wagons to cross the
streams by means of fords over
"hranchcs" and creeks that are tloored
with great thiclSncsses of shaly, fiat,
smooth stones. The pedestrians get
over the streams by means of foot
bridges, some Of which are mere tree
! trunks resting on cross-bucis, and
some of which are quite ornamental
though simple suspension bridges, with
certainly one hand-rail, if not two, be-
side the planliing,
Us horseback country, writes
Julian Ralph, in llarper's Magazine.
There are main roads and there are
wagons to use upon them, but they are
both valley improvements" the pro-
duets Of the greater fertility of the
lowlands. where the quality" lived as
planters before the war and worked
large tracts with slaves, or where the
small farms of the poor whites begat a
prosperous middle class between the
quality folk and the mountaineers
But great population lives on the
mountain-siles and mountain-tops,
along bride paths that are mere trails,
aud these nrc not ut all fit for wagon
eering.
1t has never occurred to anyone to
clear most of these trails. They run
up and down the stcepest inclines that
a horse can climb, and they wind
through forests and jungles of low
growth So dense that had to buy can
vas chaps" or leggings to ward off
the thorns. Nevertheless. met men,
and even women, on these trails who
were dressed just as they would be at
home, ana who got through without
tattcrs-how, | don't know. Often the
vegetation was SO thick that II my
companions or | halted for even less
than minute, those who kept on
were totally lost to view This wild
ness is on the steep hill-sides. Wherever
there is bench or n plateau one comes
fields sown in oats, potatoes and buck
wheat, and, perhaps, Il little tobacco,
to be rolled into twists for home con-
sumption and for barter with the
"neighborhood men"
1t is on the wagon roads that one
meets the greater number of people,
but the roads are not exactly Partisan
houlevards Those roads that cross
the mountains have a queer way OF
going into partnership with the
streams. Sometimes they run up the
streams. so that at high water q
farmer fording his way looks like n hui
man Neptune floating in his wagon
while his horses, up to their bellies in
the crystal water, show neither legs
nor tiippers. Sometimes the stream
abandous its bed and takes to the road
way for piece, each such interchange
by the enc Or the other being made t.
get clear right of way through the
trec-cluttcrcd, bowlder-strcwn region
Down in the valleys the roads are lat
ticcd in by the very tallcst fences tha
are anywhere used by farmers. The,
IRE called snake-and-rid fences, ant
the snake part is made of from sever
to eleven rails laid zigzag, one pile o
bars set this way and the next pile So
the other way, with at least Oh,
"ridcr," and sometimes two, perchet
on tall crossed poles above the snake
work Thus does West Virginia pa,
generous tribute to the agility of he
mountain-brcd cattle, poor and thin t.
look at or get milk or beef from, ye
able to bound about like self-propellinI
, rubber balls,