“To understand how much you see,” says Eric—for such a view is bewildering in its magnitude—“you must remember that this elevated country called Western North Carolina is two hundred and fifty miles long, with a breadth varying from thirty to sixty miles, and that you overlook all this—with much more besides.” “With very much more besides,” says Charley, “especially in the matter of width. Cumberland Gap is fully a hundred miles away, and the view on the other side of the Blue Ridge is even more extensive.” “You are right—it is bewildering,” says Sylvia, dropping the glass, “and it is folly to think of seeing such a view in one day or two days. We should remain here for a week at least.” “In that case we’d have to send for more provisions,” says Rupert’s voice from the rear. Then Eric rouses with a start to the consciousness that, while the sun is sloping westward, and the shadows are lengthening over all the marvelous scene, a supply of wood for the night has not been cut. The axes of the guide and Harrison are ringing down among the balsam trees, but he is too experienced a mountaineer to trust entirely to their efforts. “Come, Rupert,” he says, “a little exercise will do you no harm.—Charley, if we need recruits, I’ll call you.” “Very good,” says Charley, with resignation. Deserted thus by our instructor, we cease to ask the names of the mountain ranges or towering peaks. It is enough to sit and watch the inexpressible beauty of the vast prospect as afternoon slowly wanes into evening. There is a sense of isolation, of solemnity and majesty, in the scene which none of us are likely to forget. So high are we elevated above the world, that the pure vault of ether over our heads seems nearer to us than the blue rolling earth, with its wooded hills and smiling valleys below. No sound comes up to us, no voice of water or note of bird breaks the stillness. We are in the region of that eternal silence which wraps the summits of the “everlasting hills.” A repose that is full of awe broods over this lofty peak, which still retains the last rays of the sinking sun, while over the lower world twilight has fallen. CHAPTER XII. “Once I sat upon a mountain, Gazing on the mist before me; Like a great gray sheet of canvas, Shrouding all things in its cover, Did it float ’twixt earth and heaven.”