The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1894-09-17
IN THE APPALACHIAN RANGE.
A Country Where the People Go
About On Horseback.
The Mountain Reads lave a Queer Way
of Going Into Partnership with the
Streams and the Wagons
Have to Float.

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 watercOurSes bravling
bown the hill sides; the same FREQUENT,
almost general. forests: 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 hin
blue wells of smoke above the cabins,
and the scenes in which humanity
figures are played by characters hat
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
'branches'' and creeks that are ioored
with great thicknesses of shady, fat,
smooth stones. The pedestrians get
over the streams by means of foot
bridges, some Of which are mere tree
trunks resting on crOss-bucks, and
some of which are quite ornamental
though simple suspension bridges, with
certainly one hand-rail, if not two, be-
side the planking.
It's a horseback country. writes
Julian Ralph, in Harper's Magazine.
There are main roads and there are
W. r0nCtO ,7Cn 11nOo fhanO h1It fhaC q 70
both valley improvements" the pro-
ducts of the greater fertility of the
lowlands, where the equality" lived as
planters before the war and worked
large tracts with slaves, or where the
small farms of h poor whites begat a
prosperous middle class between the
quality folk and the mOuntaineers.
But a great population lives on the
mountain-sides and mountain-tops,
along bride paths That are mere trails,
and these are not at all fit for wagon
eering.
1t has never occurred to anyone to
clear most Of these trails. They run
up and down the steepest inclines that
a horse can climb, and they wind
through forests and jungleS of low
growth so dense that I had to buy AN
vas ''chaps' or leggings to ward off
the thOrns. Nevertheless. | met men,
and even women, or these trails who
were dressed just as they would be at
home, and who got through without
tatters-hOw, l dom know. Often the
vegetation was SO thick that if my
companions or | halted for even less
than a minute, those who kept on
were totally lost to view. This wild
ness is on the steep hill-sides. Wherever
there is a bench or a plateau one comes
upon a clearing here and there, with
fields own in oats, potatoes and buck
wheat, and, perhaps, a 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
bOulevardS. 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 a
farmer fOrding his way looks like a HUI
man Neptune uOdIluS Ill Ills wagon
while his horses, up to their bellies in
the crystal water, show neither legs
nor fippers. Sometimes the stream
abandons it's bed and takes to the road
way for a piece, each such interchange
by the che or the other being made to
get a clear right of way through the
tree-cluttered, bowlder-strewn region.
Down in the valleys the roads are lat
ticed in by the very tallest fences that
are anywhere used by farmers. They
are called snake-and-rider fences, and
the snake part is made Of from sever
to eleven rails laid zigzag, n pile of
oars set this way and the next pile set
the other way, with at least n
rider" and sometimes two, perched
on tail crossed poles above the snake
work. Thus does West Virginia pay
generous tribute to the agility Of her
mountain-bred cattle, poor and thin to
look at or get milk or beef from, yet
able to bound about like s~elf-prOpelling
rubber balls.