It was after one of my easy gallops, that, bursting from a twilight wood, I beheld lying before me a valley scene of striking beauty. A broad and level tract of farming land, covered with meadows, corn and pea-fields, stretched away from the forested skirts of the hill-sides. From my point of observation not a house dotting the expanse could be seen, and not even the sound of running water (a marked feature of the higher valleys) disturbed the evening stillness. A cool pleasant breeze was stirring, but it scarcely rustled the leaves overhead. The dark outlines of Mackey’s mountains filled the foreground, making a broken horizon for the blue sky. On the right lay low hills. On the left the summits of a lofty line of peaks, behind which the sun was sinking, were crowned with clouds of flame, while the scattered cat-tails held all the tints and lustre of mother of pearl. That night I stopped in Pleasant Gardens, one of the richest and most beautiful valleys to be found in any land. It is miles in extent. John S. Brown was my hospitable and entertaining host. The large, frame house and surroundings vividly reminded me of my native state. Everything showed evidence of thrift and neatness, and withal a certain ancestral air, one that only appears with age, overhung the approach to, and portals of, the mansion. It was built a century ago, but many additions and repairs have been made since the original log-raising. Osage-orange hedges line the path to it under the cluster of noble trees. On the left as you approach, only a few feet from the house’s foundations, flows Buck creek with swift, clear waters: a trout stream in a day before civilization had cleared its banks. Under a clouded sky I mounted my horse on the third morning of my journey, and set out from Pleasant Gardens. The fording of a stream is of so frequent occurrence in a trip through the Carolina mountains, that one is apt to have a confused recollection of any one river or creek that he crosses, although few are devoid of beauty or wildness. Those of the Catawba, as it flows through McDowell county, have lost the characteristics of the mountain ford. Boulders and out-cropping ledges of rock are absent; the rush and roar of crystal waters have given place to a smooth and less transparent flow, or noiseless, dimpled surface; the banks are of crumbling soil, and, instead of rhododendrons and pines, alders and willows fringe the waters’ edges.