There is nothing particularly enchanting about the landscape for the next ten miles. The road beneath is beaten hard, and smooth as a floor. It is not always so agreeable riding over, however, for it is of red clay; and in winter, with snows, thaws, and rains, it becomes almost impassible. They tell of empty wagons being stalled in places during the inclement seasons. I have a vivid recollection of helping, one dark April night, to unload a light Jersey wagon, drawn by two stout horses, in order to release the hub-deep sunken wheels, and allow us to proceed on our way from Waynesville. Now a broad valley is whirled through, with humble cottages along the way; then a hill is ascended, the stage rising slowly, and then rattling on behind the lively trotting of the horses as you pass down the opposite declivity. The driver over mountain roads always trots his horses going down hill. It is necessary in order to make up for the delay incurred in the long, wearisome ascents, and the horses, in contradiction to first principles, appear to stand up well under it. Again you strike the Big Pigeon. Concealed by its wood-bordered banks, it has passed through the valley, and now through vistas of vines, azaleas, chinquapin bushes, locust and beech trees, reveals its limpid waters, swift and slow, in turns, as the basin is deep, or a pebble-shingled bottom throws it in splashing rapids. Pairs of whistling sand-pipers run teetering over the sands, and then fly on down the river at your noisy approach; turtle doves, with “shocking tameness,” only rise from the road when some of the pebbles, struck up by the horses, shower around them; a surly dog, from a weather-worn dwelling, leaps through the broken pickets of the fence, and for a hundred yards follows, barking, close to the wheels; long open fields extend on one side; and then the driver, with foot on the break, with loud “whoa,” stops the sweating horses before a country store. He reaches down under his feet, into the giant pocket of the stage, and draws forth a pad-locked leather mail-bag which he tosses down into the outstretched arms of the bare-headed post-master, grocer, and township magistrate combined. “How yer to-day, squire?” asks the driver. “Good. How’s yourself?” “Bettah.” “Who you got inside?” “Party from Alabam’, I reckon.” “Where they going?” “White Sulphur; an’ say, look a heah, foh dis in-foh-ma-shun bring me out a twist o’ backer.”