spruces-spirit sounds, voices of the mountain-far from the reach of all human sounds of kindred men, above all the sounds of creatures and things ruled by man-neigh of horse, bleat of lambs, low of heifer, crow of cock, chirp of familiar bird or insect-and feel, like Manfred, face to face, with solemn, silent nature; or, like the "Wanderer," in the "Excursion," when that dark mountain spirit, the man-shunning raven, comes hoarsely croaking and flapping his black Plutonian wings athwart the scene:

If the solitary nightingale be mute;

And the soft woodlark here did never chaunt
Her vespers, nature fails not to provide
Impulse and utterance. The whispering air
Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights
And blind recesses of the caverned rocks;
The little rills and caverns numberless,
Inaudible by daylight, blend their notes
With the loud streams; and after, at the hour
When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard,
Within the circle of their fabric huge,
One voice-the solitary raven, flying

Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome,
Unseen, perchance above all power of sight-
An iron knell.

I confess to a late-grown fondness for a sort of free and easy comrade communing with nature; but there are some "secret, sweet, and precious" delights—some profound and ravishing mysteries, which may not be shared, which will only impart a feejoy "due to some single soul." But one worshipper at a time may be initiated within nature's inmost shrines.

Setting out with the promise of Col. James Hornblower to meet us at his wigwam below, we began the steep descent of Socoah. "Alas, poor Lo," I thought as I gazed upon these sterile, thinly clad lands, with grim irony bestowed upon these aborigines, for services rendered the early settlers, and upon the fertile paleface lands upon the other side of Socoah Gap, "he gets the worst of every bargain." It's always: "I'll take the turkey and you take the crow; or you take the crow and I'll take the turkey," and "Ugh! paleface never say turkey to Injun onct.'

Our road runs steeply down Socoah Creek, which has already become a considerable stream as it comes down from the upper peaks

of the Socoah. A mile and a half down the broad stream roars, foaming down a deep, rocky canyon, arched with laurels, fringed with ivies, and overhung with dark hemlock boughs, wet and sparkling with continual spray. The gorge is lined with vast broken, jagged, craggy cliffs, and the creek makes its toilsome way over and among huge granites of many tons' weight, piled in wild confusion in its channel.

At a turn in the road we come upon the magnificent Socoah Falls. The bold crystal stream dashes, with a long sweep, twenty feet down a smooth incline, out of a dark covert of green boughs into the sunlight, falling checkered through sparse overhanging boughs, and pauses on the brink for the first wild leap for liberty, "frenetic to be free." Foaming and boiling on the edge of a deep chasm,

Between walls

Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass,

it plunges down twenty feet into a bubbling cauldron; gathers strength and, a few feet farther on, leaps into the abyss below

Through wavering lights and shadows broke, Rolling, a slumberous sheet of foam below. Thence out of the sunlight and out of its swirling basin it glides, sending up thin clouds of steamy spray, touched by the slant morning sunbeams to all the rainbow hues, and goes gliding into the deep shadows of dark granites and darker spruce boughs, to roll and tumble and fret and fume, over, under, around, and over great boulders, here and there disclosing, through green boughs, ravishing views of nature's wild magnificence.

Here, in the Indian country, one may imagine some dusky Alfriata, spirit of some blue Juniata, wooed by dusky lover, in unison with the swelling notes of this wildly and weirdly tuneful waterfall-forest notes, suited to nature's wildest mood-where civilized lovers would seek purling brooks and softer music.

According to the only tradition I have found lingering here, the last battle fought by the Cherokees of this region was fought here in Socoah Gap. Strangely this was a conflict between rival Cherokees. Of wars