Tennessee is the neutral ground between North and South, because it does not distinctively belong to either, but its contiguity to both gives to the State some of the characteristics of each. Adopting slavery, it is Southern, but developing a strong pro-Union sentiment in the beginning of the civil war, Tennessee became Northern in her affinities; but the slave-marks of one hundred years have not been effaced even after thirty years of freedom, for in the country and villages there are old slave- cabins, rickety, but still habitable, the homes of white-haired relics of ante-war times, and the new generation that has not been taught to tie up their hair with cotton strings. All over the South it is the same; but in East Tennessee there is something else to bring back old memories, for here the brazen front of war marched through the land, and turned its fair acres of waving grain and fruitful orchards into battle- fields, furrowed with dead and harrowed with destruction. And yet Tennessee was pro-Union, with secession tendencies, because her interests were indissolubly linked with the South. But the wounds have all healed; the impetuous youth who went forth to battle is now a peace- loving grandfather; his daughter was captured by a Yankee, and she has never regretted it, and the railroad runs every day between the two sections with mail-bags full of peace-messages. Why, the war has been over so long that we get mixed in our history, and sometimes we are not quite clear whether it was in 1776 or 1861. In fact, many of the old farm houses along the way look decidedly Revolutionary, and none of the mountains have changed or added another wrinkle to their imperturbable faces. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: PASSAGE OF THE JAMES RIVER THROUGH THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS.—The very name of Blue Ridge is music in the ears of many thousands of good and worthy citizens of our country, whose ancestral homes were, or still are, in the midst or within view of the hazy-blue summits of these historic mountains. Any one who has seen them at a distance, in the soft light of an Indian summer, will appreciate the aptitude of the title, and the affection which must be engendered by association with such delightful scenery from childhood to the evening of life. The view presented in the photograph on this page is an exceptionally fine one, showing the mountains on either side and in the distance through the rift made by the river. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: A SCENE OF RURAL LIFE IN NORTH CAROLINA.]