On the same trip, while we were rounding a bend below Warm Springs, the hat of a passenger who was standing on the rear platform, was blown from his head. The train was stopped for a time to allow the unfortunate man to run back and find the relic. He searched until he found it and then regained his place. For several miles after leaving Asheville, low, undulating hills, sloping upward from the river, fill the landscapes. The water runs deep and dark around these bends, and no rapids of any consequence break the smooth surface of the stream; but as further down you go, sweeping along over the rattling rails, piles of huge drift logs, and clusters of Titanic boulders appear at intervals, and the country becomes wilder and more rugged. The foot-hills begin to roll higher, and with steep, stony fronts staring at each other across the intervening space of waters, resemble the severed halves of hills thus rent in twain by the impetuous river. On, on, the scenery becomes more grandly wild and beautiful. Now passes an old-fashioned country farmhouse--extensive portico bordering the front, and huge brick chimneys at each end--with dingy barn; pine log-cabins fast falling to decay around it; rail-fences encircling, and then meadows, fields, and forests sweeping back on three sides. The old road lies before the fence, and a stretch of white sand, shaded by willows and alders, comes down to the restless river. Alexanders, a wayside station, has long been known as a summer resort. As early as 1826 a hotel, located on the present building’s site, was the only tavern between Asheville and the Tennessee line. The old man, smoking his pipe of home-cured tobacco, and daily seated on the veranda, has not yet become so familiarized with the vision of the iron horse and whirling coaches as to abandon his custom of walking to the gate as the train draws in sight. The women appear at the windows; the inmates of the barn-yard disappear behind the out-buildings. Then comes a sudden stop to valley scenery, and you are passing between frowning walls of clay and rock, forming cañons. Then across the stream ascends a high mountain--the ancient stage-way at its base, and oak and chestnut forests receding upward--with a deep ravine in its front holding the waters of a mountain torrent that gleam white through the rustling foliage of the steep; then woods of pine above; then bare precipices, festooned with evergreen vines and mosses, set on top with lonely pines, and, above all, blue unfathomable space.