The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-08-31
FAVORED OF THE GODS.
Purng Cascades and Streams Of the Old North State.
BY A. E. cAFFEE.

cAFFEE.
the French Broad-a glorious, dashing,
whirling, curling succession of cascades
and foaming stretches for fifty miles.
1t was Christian Reid, the eminent ro-
nance writer who first gave to this sec
ton of North Carolina, of which Ashe-
vile Is the r3diating center, OF 50 much
picturesque loneliness, the name of
The Land of the Sky but the southern
artist-poet, Sidney Banier, apostrophised
its peaceful glens, it's sublime heights,
and Its rapid, chasing, siivery waters
wild and picturesque as they foam and
fall over rocky terraces IN musical cas-
cades through profound depths Of the
rocky mountain gorges.
The Cherokee title, NantEhala, signi-
fies the light OF the MONDAY sun within
the dark glens and unfrequented depths
Of the forests The word strikes the ed
ucated ear soothingly and pleasantly.
and is Indicative of the poetical trend Of
the aboriginee. Nantahala. in the gi-
gantic personality Of The Cherokee tribe.
was a mighty power IN days gone by,
In the Southland His sixty towns and
six thousand stern, stole warriors made
a bloody history in their alliance with
the British In their wars with the French
and afterwards In harassing our Amer
lean colonists. Even at The beginning
Cherokees remained hidden in the "a
vines and fastnesses Of their native
mountains and about i've hundred stall
wart braves enlisted with -the cenfeder-
ates. Others Joined Tennessee regiments
who fought with the federais. Locality
and environment seems to have been re-
sponsible for this diversity of opinion"
Today 1t is estimated that about BOOB
souls of this once noble tribe are dwell
n q n han nj
of Cherokees is mainly of full-bloods.
They have six or seven day schools. and
an excellent training school managed by
Quakers. They are entieled to the right
of voting, and natui ally the republicans
almost to a man, for 1t Is rom the re-
publican government they got their scant
1avors-a bare pittance fer their once
rich and beautiful ancestral inheritance.
The Cherokee is claimed to be the
highest type of the American Indian, ard
scent as 1t is, furnishes the pest tangible
testimony in support Of the legendary
theory that when the gentle Toltecs were
overcome and driven out Of what Is
now Mexico, by the more vicious Aztecs,
they migrated overland to the southern
border states and became the prcgenit-
crs Of the southern tribes which DeSoto
and Ponce de Leon found here. The
Toltecs, though were even lighter than
yanced in the erts of civilization, never
practicing human sacrifices, while the
Cherokee is much darker Of skin, and
fierce and warlilxe. The intervening per-
iod is scarcely long enough for climatic
differences TO have effected material
change, they having left their homes in
Mexico in the eleventh century. How
ever, hard usage and exposure to the
cruelties of man and the elements may
have worked even this radical change;
that of temperament being much more
likely to have been susceptible to change
than the human integunent. The chief
distinction of the Cherokee Indians is
that they were the first, II not the only
Inolan tribe to have written language of
its own The Cherokee buck in North
Carolina enjoys the right to vote on state
and national questions, while he holds
his own councils and elects his own chief
every four years.
Asheville is indeed a spot favored by
the gods and among its mighty peaks
and dark gorges. laughing cascades and
dancing waterfalls the tourist-traveller
finds the acme OF delight. If we place
enc point of pair of compasses upon
the peak on which, like a gigantic senti-
mel sits The glorious Battery Park Ho-
tel, and let the other point describe a CHI
Gle OF 100 miles from thar center, the
country included would be the most In
tensely interesting parts of the Blue
Ridge, Great Smoky and Cumberland
Notwithstanding the six states of
North and South Carolina, Georgia, Ten
nessee, Kentucky and Virginia.
All of these ranges, with their distinct
i've names, are parts of the great Ap.
glory and grandeur rests within this
limited circle. If we desire to climb into
the center of this magicians circle
lovely queenly Asheville on her hundred
laurel-crowned peaks, coming from the
east we must surmount the bold escarp-
ment Of the Blue Ridge, and from the
west we can more gradually and smooth
ly pass the less stern barriers of the
Great Smoky sentinel peaks-those mon
itors that point from afar to travellers
the lovely design of nature resting far
below in the valleys, by the waterfall
and over the gorges. OF the Great
1.-THE everlasting hills that bow"-that