The climb up the Black mountains is arduous, and a half-day is required to complete it. Along the path is a wealth of timber that will one day entice into the forest depths something livelier than the perpendicular saw and its overshot wheel. After a five mile tramp, the second base of the Black is reached. Here, on an open, grassy tract, once stood the summer residence of William Patton, of Charleston, South Carolina. All that remains of it are the loose stones of its foundation, and a few mouldering timbers. Cattle, grazing in this common pasture, will ring their bells and low in notice of your arrival. Ravens croak from the balsams, and sail with wings expanded overhead. Close before the vision, appalling in its funereal coloring and immensity of height, rises the front of the Black mountain, the king of the Appalachians, arrayed in those forests which scorn to spring elsewhere but on the loftiest of ranges. For the next five miles the bridle-path leads through woods similar to those described at length in the sketch on bear hunting. If thin puffs of cloud are scurrying through the trees and brushing against you, do not betray your ignorance by asking the guide where the smoke comes from. They have every appearance of smoke, and it is the most natural thing in the world for you to ask this question. On Mitchell’s Peak it is advisable to remain all night, and a shelving rock, a short distance down from the summit, will furnish excellent quarters after wood is brought for a great fire before it. Eat your cold snack, drink a cup of clear, hot coffee, and, rolling up in your blanket dream of trout fishing in the Toe. Most likely they will be waking dreams; for a high old fire blazing in your eyes, and a cold rock under you, are not conducive to slumber. Even in May your back will almost freeze while your front grows hot enough to crackle. If no clouds wrap the pinnacle of Mitchell’s Peak, this, the highest mountain east of the Mississippi, will afford to the enthusiastic angler the grandest of prospects, “When heaven’s wide arch Is glorious with the sun’s returning march.” No two mornings will present the same panoply of cloud over the eastern mountainous horizon, the coloring will vary, the mists will cling in differing silver folds in the hollows of the hills, but changeless in its outlines will lie the soft purple mountain ocean.