THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. CHAPTER I. Infandum regina, Jubes renovare dolorem. NOXVILLE, 12 M. Three Wagonauts, KN escaped from the dog-days' heat of Nashville, dash gaily down Gay, the main street of picturesque Knoxville, toward the long bridge across the Holston. What changes! In these streets I have seen-and borne my humble part-revolution and counter-revolution; witnessed here riot, there murder. Yonder I saw the Union desperado, Douglas, wounded by the Confederate desperado, Wash Morgan, and a few days after I saw Douglas shot-assassinated-by a shot from the Lamar House windows. I have drilled squads, companies, and battalions along these streets and over yonder hills and hep-hepped over all these hereabouts. On this Gay Street, in 1865, myself disguised in the latest New York fashion, and just from Appomattox, I saw seven or more returned Confederates brutally knocked down and beaten by Federal soldiers. I spent the afternoon in pious retirement and took the earliest train for change of air and scene. Knoxville has changed and yet it retains its individuality, social worth, and the ancient stamp of its founders. On receipt of information concerning the abundance and venomous character of copperheads in the portion of North Carolina we were about to visit, the Wagonauts provided two kegs of antidote and a canteen as provision against such breakage as left us exposed to rattlesnakes in our last journey. As we bowl along Gay Street our company consists of R. Elsie Blanc, ruddy blonde, auricomous, fourteen stone weight; G. H. Panier, blonde, shadlike-late shad-angular, nine stone; and A. T. Ramp. Our driver is a decided brunette, rejoicing in the Italian name of Lorenzo, known to us, in rainy seasons as Jupiter Pluvius, in drought as Pomery Sec. As to our team, both bays, but Frank alone entitled to the bay, Jim's chief use was to fill a place at the off-wheel as a sort of balance wheel. Panier lugubriously remarked, as we hung up on the side of a mountain, that the only mistake made was in failing to provide a seat in the wagon for Jim. Business men display varying tastes in their summer diversions. One seeks to change the sky without losing the comforts and luxuries of civilization. For him there are no delightful sharp contrasts, no delicious lights and shades, no sweet, enjoyable alternations of the rough and smooth of life; and he wants none of these. Our theory of diversion is complete change from all the conditions of daily life. Hence we sought for this summer the wild solitudes of the remote and almost inaccessible mountains of south-western North Carolina. To endure the storm, to let the rain pour on, to climb alpine heights, to thread tangled laurel thickets, to wade cool mountain streams and cast the hungry trout line, to sleep on the ground, in deserted cabins, in wayside churches and schoolhouses, to say to the elements, "blow ye winds and crack your cheeks; we tax not ye elements with unkindness; pour on, we can endure;" to relish rough fare with ostrich appetites, was our aim in going to this region, where the aboriginal Cherokee is yet found upon his autochthonal ground and where are found the highest peaks this side of the Sierras. The outfit of such party is a matter of commissary and quartermaster wisdom. We had a strong carriage, with three seats, capable of being completely closed up, a pair of horses, bucket, axe, hatchet, monkey wrench, and extra horseshoes. Our edibles consisted of canned corned beef, canvased beef, and breakfast bacon, a baked ham, butter, biscuits, sardines, caviare, coffee, lemons, olives, with ample cooking utensils, table ware, pipes and smoking tobacco. No cigars. Two mysterious kegs containing something ruddy and sunlit, which seemed greatly to comfort Panier and Blanc, continually replenished a half-gallon canteen. I have never been able to ascertain what those kegs con |