Swannanoa, nymph of beauty, I would woo thee in my rhyme, Wildest, brightest, loveliest river Of our sunny Southern clime. • • • Gone forever from the borders But immortal in thy name, Are the Red Men of the forest Be thou keeper of their fame! Paler races dwell beside thee, Celt and Saxon till thy lands Wedding use unto thy beauty-- Linking over thee their hands. The long rambling excursions which Boone made through western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee enabled him to explore every nook and corner of the rugged and beautiful mountain region. Among the companions and contemporaries with whom he hunted and explored the country were his little son James and his brother Jesse; the Linville who gave the name to the beautiful falls; Julius Cæsar Dugger, whose rock house stood near the head of Elk Creek; and Nathaniel Gist, who described for him the lofty gateway to Kentucky, through which Christopher Gist had passed in 1751. Boone had already heard of this gateway, from Findlay, and it was one of the secret and cherished ambitions of his life to scale the mountain wall of the Appalachians and to reach that high portal of the Cumberland which beckoned to the mysterious new Eden beyond. Although hunting was an endless delight to Boone he was haunted in the midst of this pleasure, as was Kipling's Explorer, by the lure of the undiscovered: Till a voice as bad as conscience, rang interminable changes On one everlasting whisper day and night repeated--so: 'Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the ranges-- 'Something lost behind the ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go.' Of Boone's preliminary explorations for the land company known as Richard Henderson and Company, an account has already been given; and the delay in following them up has been touched on and in part explained. Meanwhile Boone transferred his efforts for a time to another field. Toward the close of the summer of 1765 a party consisting of Major John Field, William Hill, one Slaughter, and two others, all from Culpeper County, Virginia, visited Boone and induced him to accompany them on the "long Journey" to Florida, whither they were attracted by the liberal offer of Colonel James Grant, governor of the eastern section, the Florida of to-day. On this long and arduous expedition they suffered many hardships and endured many privations, found little game, and on one occasion narrowly escaped starvation. They explored Florida from St. Augustine to Pensacola; and Boone, who relished fresh scenes and a new environment, purchased a house and lot in Pensacola in anticipation of removal thither. But upon his return home, finding his wife unwilling to go, Boone once more turned his eager eye toward the West, that mysterious and alluring region beyond the great range, the fabled paradise of Kentucky.