Let the reader imagine himself stationed at one of these views. Mantling the steep declivities are the wildernesses of black balsams. A cool breeze swings and beats their branches together. The sun rides in an atmosphere so clear that there seems no limit to vision. A precipice breaks away from your feet, but you do not notice where it ends; for at the attempted downward look, the mountains below, like the billows of a stormy ocean stilled in their rolling by some mighty hand, crowd upon the vision. They have all the colors of the ocean, wave beyond wave, surge beyond surge, till they blend in with the sky, or hide their most distant outlines in the cumuli bounding the horizon. You fancy hearing the sound of breakers, and look directly below as though seeking for the reason of no roar arising from the waves lying at the base of the headland. Then the dream of the sea vanishes. There lie the forests, dwarfed but real, dark green, covering the unsightly rocks and ending at brown clearings, in whose centers appear farm-houses, the almost invisible fences running wild over the hills, the yellow road revealed at intervals, and the silver threads of streams. It was on a beautiful Sunday morning that I left Calloway’s and rode down the western slope of the Blue Ridge. A quiet, seemingly more hallowed than that of other days, was brooding over the valley through which, beside the Watauga, the road descended. The fields and meadows were vacant; and the mountaineers, observant of the Sabbath, were all within their homely dwellings, or assembled at the meeting-house of the neighborhood. This place of prayer is a plain, unpainted, frame building, enclosed by a rail fence, beside the road. Just before reaching it your horse must splash through a roaring, crystal ford of the Watauga. When I passed it that morning, services had already begun, and the sounds of a hymn, sung by all the congregation, in strong, melodious chorus, came wafted through the trees. A long line of saddled horses and mules were ranged along the fence, or tied to the rhododendron hedges on the opposite side of the road. The house seemed packed; for many of the men were standing bare-headed in the sunlight before the crowded door, and a number of young folks were gathered in groups about the yard, the latter more intent on their own conversation than on what was doing indoors. Some of them nodded to me as I passed. This manner of the mountaineers saluting every one, friend or stranger, is a pleasant one, and prevents, in the traveler, all feelings of loneliness arising from his being in a strange country. At one point on the road, the further rocky end of the Grandfather mountain presents the distinct features of a face. You can see it looking out from its head-dress of firs, like a demi-god, holding eternal watch over the myriad mountains and valleys.