The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-08-20
MIDSUMMER DAYS IN
 THE SAPPHIRE COUNTRY
BY ANNIE kkNDRlck WALKED.

' the mountain climbing attracts hundreds every season. From Toxaway Point more than one hundred peaks are visible, among them being Mount Mitchell, Mount Pisgnh, and Old White Sides, Mount Nit chell is the highest peak cast of the Rockies.
 Some of the peaks seen from Toxaway lodge are:
 White Side mountain, 49S1 feet; Chim- ney Top, 457s feet: Terrapin mountain, 45O9 feet; Short off mountain, 5O23 feet; 1 Balsam mountain, 6425 feet; Chirgon's Dome, eeso feet; Rabun Gap Bald, 4717 ] feet; Currohee, 1750 feet, and Hickory mountain, sO60 feet.
 It has been truly said that to the for ester, the botanist and geologist the Sap phire country Is a veritable storehouse of wonders. Here Is truly the forest primeval. In the early spring bright col- ored flowers light up the old woods and here the rhododendron growing to a ] height of thirty feet suggests the tropi- l cal regions of the south where the mag nolias are the giants of the forest. Be- tween the blooming of the rhododendron 0nd the blossoming of the golden rod these mountains present an every-vary- ing landscape. In June the woods are cleaning with the purplish pink blos- soms of the rhododendron, and even earlier the wild azalias turn the forest into a pink which yields It's subtle love liness to the mountain laurel that in its delicate pink and white blooms, wellds It's spell upon the hillsides, like a poison that might be put into the veins, SO deadly is it's sweetness, so fatal in it's wild beauty.
 To give to each month its individual flowers will probably best convey an Idea of perpetual bloom on these mountains. n ba rxyild efo ort1 f1 their rare color. Nowhere can they be seen to such perfection as in the Sap phire country. In June, the whole earth. the wild woods are fairly a bower for TitIna a, a pink and white beauty, most alluring, most bewildering July, the warm, luxurious. flower laden days of July, the sun warm in the heavens, brings the very climax of blooms and Towering grandeur-the rhododendron. The foliage. long leaved, wide, differing from the laurel gives a massive splen- dor to the towering tree q very giant among the native trees it's bloom the real empress of the flowers.
 It blooms In clusters and the petals are shaped like a wild rose, white, with one petal alone marked distinctivey with | flecks of green, very pale but quite defin- ite. About this cluster droops the green foliage, the blossoms shining starlke and
 
 they still seem to possess a vague, in- definable scent. Sometimes the blooms are purplish pink a rarely wonderful color seldom seen in the woods flowers, but now and then In clouds. l should say th7t May, June and July in the Sapphire coun- try would be the most distinctive and most interesting for fower-study. The re- maining months bring the field daisies, the black-eyed Susans and the golden rod | far m liar la all f mil gust Is the golden month and September brings a breath from the hills that is i death to the flowers. The really bril- l liant months, October and November defy all description They take possession and rule absolutely with a power that crushes the very life out of the little wood flowers i and in wind battles sweep the forests of ] their leaves. But this battle of the winds and the leaves is the time of all others to spend whole days among the Sapphire peaks, to their struggles, to watch the leaves flutter to the earth that draws ! them, to find some well beloved hillside l no longer soft with its familiar beauty, but suddenly grown wild and bare-the time of all others to interpret the last hours of the dying leaves and the fad ] ing sweetness of the flowers. I And why is this land called the Sapphire country if here the leaves moulder upon the earth and the flowers must die? Are not the skies bluer than those of Italy | and is there not perpetual blue haze | upon the mountains?t
 There is young boatman in a sailors 1 blouse dipping his oars dreamily as we idly drift on Lake Toxaway. His eyes are blue as Sapphires and he never takes them from the blue hills or the bluer waters
 ''The Sapphire country he answers, "the Sapphire country-there is a blue stone here In these hills. It Is mined, dug out like gold, and it sharpens steel. It cuts glass. It is the color of Sapphire-''
 Then he turns the boat shoreward. "There's a rain coming over Toxaway Point" he says still dreamily. And while the lake grows rough as an angry bay and little waves break over the boat the peaks take on that purplish blue, that indescribable haze until we seem to drift among deepening hills from which the green foliage has fallen.
 Then the sky line fades and we are drifting in grey mist.
 That's the way the rain comes," says the boatman, that's the way 1t does don't mind the rain myself. I like to ses the waves beat over the boat" But the rain splashes over my writing materials and the boatman still dreaming, turns shoreward.