A more beautiful route could scarcely be found. Lovely little valleys peeped out among the hills, pretty well cultivated, and dotted with houses that showed comparatively little signs of destitution within. The mountain sides were covered with forests, and the abounding cattle found the sweetest blue grass everywhere. Finer grazing lands for cattle or sheep could scarcely be imagined. Some day Yankee enterprise will utilize the magnificent water power, convert the forest into gold mines, and find real gold mines in the mountain chasms. The mineral wealth of this region is unimagined. Shrewd geologists were already traversing it in all directions; and with the next season we shall have the launch of company after company with “magnificent mining prospects.” The shrewdly managed will be profitable to the shareholders; the shrewd managers will find _their_ profits always, whether shareholders do or do not. Two heavy freight cars followed the last of the passenger cars in our train. They were needed in addition to the regular express car, to carry the accumulations of a single day’s express matter at Lynchburg, in the charge of a single company. Southerners were talking largely about the patronage they would extend to General Joe Johnston’s Express Company; but just then, they seemed to be doing very well in the way of sustaining its great rival. The express safes in our train contained six hundred thousand dollars in gold. A couple of hundred thousand, the agents said, was quite frequently a single day’s consignment. Most of this goes South to buy cotton—a little, also, to buy cotton plantations. All hands about these trains are Rebels, of course. Our several conductors were full of pleasant reminiscences about their narrow escapes from Yankee raiding parties. “Right yeah I had a hard chase,” said one; “I was within a mile of town when I heerd that the Yankees was thar. I run back to the watch-tank and waited. Pretty soon the Yanks heerd I was thar, unloadin’ soldiers, and off the fools went, without even destroyin’ two cah-loads of ammunition that stood thar. Nobody never tuck no train from me amongst them all,” he continued, “except Stone_man_, but he caught me nice. Stone_man_ he got a whole train from me a’most before I knowed he was thar. Smart General, that Stone_man_.” * * * * *