The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-04-16
SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEFRS.

LHcli CouHtTy, opeeCH anu IlospltdlI
 ty.
 It is odd to think that he was not dis
 covered until the outbreak of the civl
 war although he was nearly d centur,
 old then, and 1t is really startling ro re
 alize that when che speaks of neuri,
 three million of people who live il
 eight southern states Virginia ant
 Alabama and the southern states be
 tWeen--and occupy region equal il
 area to the combined areas of Ohio ant
 Pennsylvania, as big say, as the Ger
 man empire, ana richer, perhaps, il
 timber and mineral deposits, than any
 other region of similar extent in the
 world. This region was and is an un-
 known land. It has been aptly called
 Appalachian America" and the work
 of discovery is yet going on. The
 American mountaineer was discov-
 red, I say, at the beginning of the war,
 when the confederate leaders w,, | SSesiitiiS pii tllS tHul Nld
 son and Dixon's linz was the dividing
 line between the north and south, and
 formed, therefore, the plan of march-
 ing an army from Wheeling, in West Virginia, to some point on the lakes,
 and thus discovering the north nt one
 blow. The plan seemed So feasible that
 1t is said to have materially aided the sale of confederate bonds in England,
 but when Captain Garnett, West Point graduate, startad to carry it cut. he got no farther than Harper's Ferry. When he struck the m mountalns, he struck enemies who shot at his men from ambush, fctit&down bridges be- fore him. catkfed fhe news of his march to the federals, and Garnett himself fell with bullet from noun taineers squirrel rifle at Harper's Fer ry.
 In his speech the mountaineer touches very remote past. Strictly speaking. he has no dialect. The mountaineer simply keeps in use old words and meanings that the valley people have ceased to use; but no- where Is this usage so sustained md consistent as to form dialect. TO writers of mountain stories, the lernp- tation seems quite irresistible to use more peculiar words in one story than can be gathered from the people in a month. Still. unusual words are abun- dant. There are perhaps two hundred ,iv,ol q ,d tinvc that in the mountaineer's speech go back unchanged to Chaucer. Some of the words are: Afeard, afore, axe, holp, crope, clonrb, peert, beest (horse), I cryke, eet (ate), farwe, fer far), fool | (foolisl-'' fool women'D. heepe. hit Gt), is, lepte, pore (poor), right (very) slyk, study (think), souple tsup- ple), up (verb), The up and done 1t, usen. yer for year, yond, instid, yit, etc There are others which have English dialect authority; blather, doated, an- tic, dreen, brash, faze (now modern slang), fernent, feminist, master, size, etc. Many of these words, of course, the upper classes use throughout the south. These the young white master got from his negro playmates, who took them from the lips of the poor whites. The double negative, always used by the old English, who seem to have resisted 1t no more than did the Greeks, is invariable with the noun taineer. With him triple negative IS common. A mountaineer had been shot. His friends came in to see him and kept urging him to revenge. A wanted them to stop.
 Hit jes' raises the ambition in him and don't do no good nohow." The dialect" is not wholly deteriora- ion then. What we are often apt to 'egard as ignorance in the mountaineer S simply our own disuse. Unfortu- lately, the speech is a mixture of so many old English dialects that it is of title use in tracing the origin of the people who use it. T The latch-string hangs outside every abin door if the men folks are at lome but you must shout "hello' all ways outside the fence. L. we 'uns is pore,' you will be told. but y'u're welcome eff y'u kin put up with what we have" After stay of a week at a noun ain cabin young further" asked E yhat his bill was. The old mountain CT waved his hand. 'Nothin'," he Il aid, "'cept come agin!' A belated traveller asked to stay all q ight at a cabin. The mountaineer nswered that his wife was sick and ( 1ey were sorter out O fixins to eat, ut he reckoned he mought step over Q , neighbours an borrer some. He 7 i'd step over, and was gone three { ours. He brought back little bag1 meal, and they had corn-bread and otatoes for supper and for breakfast, :: ,oked by the mountaineer. The ranger asked how far away his next aighbor lived. "A leetle the rise O six iles, ] reckon,'' was the answer.
 Which way?"
 'Oh, jes' over the mountain thar" r He had stepped six miles over the T ountain and back for that little bag meal, and he would allow his guest 1 pay nothing next morning.
 have slept with nine others in a ngle room. The host gave up his bed
 two of our party, and he and his fife slept with the rest of us on the )or. He gave us supper, kept us all ght. sent us away next morning with parting draught of moonshine apple ok, Of his own brewing, by the way,