The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-09-13
THEY NEVER WALK
4 Country Where the People GO
About On Horseback.
The Mountain Roads Have q 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.
| checkerbearded with farms; the same
| stone-strewn watercourses brawling
| 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 tires 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 tridges, 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 fioored
with great thicknesses of shaly, fat.
snooth stones. The pedestrians get
over the streams by means of foot
bridges, some of which are mere tree
trunks resting on cross-bucl.s, and
some of which are quite ornamental
though simple suspension bridges, with
certainly one hapd-rail, if not two, be-
SIDE the plankine.
! It's horseback country. writes
Julian Ralph, in Harper's Magazine
There are main roads and there are
Nag9psto use upon them, but they are
poth valley improvements" the pro-
quits of the greater fertility of the
ioNlands, where the quality" lived as
Planters before the war and worked
laffe tracts with slaves, or where the
s1nEl farms Of the poor whites begat a
prosperous middle class between the
quaity folk and the Inountaineers.
By a great population lives on the
ma1ntain-sides and mountainous,
alzng bride paths that are mere trails,
and these are not at all fit for wagon
sering.
1t has never occurred to anyone to |
tlear most of these trails. They run !
up and down the steepest inclines that /
n 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, and who got through without
l don't know Often the
was SO thick that if my /
T 1n1+ tod laco {
Than minute, those who kept on
we're totally lost to view. This wild
aess is on the steep hill-sides. Wherever
here is bench or plateau one comes
upon clearing here and there, with
ields sewn in oats, potatoes and buck
wheat, and. ee-haps, little tobacco,
20 be rolled into twists for home con-
sumption and for barter with the
'neighborhood men"
It is on the wagon roads that one
meets the greater number of people,
1ut the roads are not exactly Partisan
Those roads that cross
he mountains have q queer way of |
soing into partnership with the
treams. Sometimes they run up the
- Cohioy 81 bAifSk az ing Al OIt n I
arlner fording his way looks like hui
nan Neptune floating in his wagon,
While his borses, up to their bellies in
he crystal water, show neither legs
or fippers. Sometimes the stream
bandons its bed and takes to the road
yay for piece, each such interchange
" the one or the other being made to
ct clear right of way through the ,
ree-cluttered, bowlder-strewn region.
Down in the valleys the roads are lat !
iced in by the very tallest fences that
re anywhere used by farmers. They !
re called snake-and-rider fences, and l
he snake part is made of from seven
D eleven rails laid zigzag, one pile of
ars set this way and the next pile set
he other way, with at least one +
rider" and sometimes two, perched /.
n tall crossed poles above the snake
-ork. Thus does West Virginia pay
enerous tribute to the agility of her .
lountain-bred cattle, poor and thin &c :,
,ok at or get milk or beef from, yet
BILE to bound about like self-propelling :
l5ber balls. "