From this description the reader may have some conception, however faint, of the majesty of the Balsam range, the longest of the transverse chains between the Blue Ridge and the Smokies, and forming with its high valleys, numerous mountains and those lofty summits of the Great Smoky chain towards which it trends, the culminating region of the Alleghanies. On the south brow of the Great Divide, only a few feet lower than the extreme summit, lies an open square expanse of about 20 acres embosomed in the black balsams. It has every feature peculiar to a clearing left for nature to train into its primitive wildness, but in all its abandonment the balsams have singularly failed to encroach upon it; and, as though restrained by sacred lines which they dare not pass, stand dense and sombre around its margin. Its gentle slope is covered thick with whortleberry bushes, in this instance, contrary to the nature of that shrub, springing from a rich, black soil. Only one small clump of trees, near the upper edge, mars the level surface of the shrubs. It is called the Judyculla old field, and the tradition held by the Indians is that it is one of the footprints of Satan, as he stepped, during a pre-historic walk, from mountain to mountain. We were informed by mountaineers that flint arrow heads and broken pieces of pottery have been found in this old field, showing almost conclusively that some of the Cherokees themselves, or the nation that built the many mounds, laid the buried stone walls and worked the ancient mica mines, occupied it as an abiding place for years. There are other bare spots on these mountains known as scalds, and like this old field, situated in the heart of fir forests. They are grown with matted ivy, poisonous hemlock and briers, but traces of the fire, that at recent date swept them of their timber, are to be seen. In a few years the wilderness will have reclaimed them; but the Judyculla old field will remain, as now, a mysterious vistage, which the mutilations of time cannot efface. Through a dark aisle, leading from the summit of the Great Divide, we descended to the Brier Patch gap, and here one of our number was stationed, while the rest of us toiled up a nameless black spur, crossed it and dropped slowly down to Grassy gap. It was past noon, and while we listened to the low baying of the hounds in the depths, we munched at a snack of corn bread and boiled corned beef. In the meantime, Wid was examining the trail from one slope to the other. He would peer closely into every clump of briers, pulling them apart with his hands, and bend so low over the grasses along the path, that the black strip in his light colored trousers, hidden by his brown coat tails when he walked erect, would be exposed to view.