After breakfast we set forth to discover what miles are in this climate, and we find them quite as long as those to which we have been accustomed. Charley is right. Asheville is a place of magnificent distances, and if it is ever built up within its corporate limits, it will be the metropolis which its inhabitants fondly hope to see it. Yet as we stroll around and about (or, to speak more correctly, up and down the streets), we decide that one could hardly under any circumstances wish it other than it is—less a town than a collection of country-seats scattered irregularly and picturesquely over the innumerable hills. There is no point from which the eye does not command a great expanse of country and mountain-ranges overtopped by mountain-ranges, besides the most charming bits of foreground landscape. As a rule, I dislike comparisons in scenery— especially comparisons which introduce Switzerland—but it is impossible to refrain from saying that in general effect Asheville reminds one of a Swiss town. The green heights over which the gabled houses are scattered, the roads winding away to the breezy uplands, the air of brightness and cleanliness, the winsome glades and valleys, and the frame of distant mountains—so soft, so graceful, so heavenly fair, that it is impossible to wish their violet outlines transformed to the dazzling majesty of the pure, awful Alpine peaks. “Now,” says Eric, as with much expenditure of breath we gain the top of the beautiful hill on which the Catholic church stands—decidedly the loveliest site in the town—“you can see how Asheville is situated. You perceive that the hills on which it is built rise up from the valleys of the French Broad and Swannanoa—” “How can we perceive it?” demands Sylvia. “Neither the French Broad nor the Swannanoa is visible. It is a matter of faith, not sight, so far as _they_ are concerned. I see the hills—and they are astonishingly green.” “West of the Blue Ridge the famous blue grass grows—which makes Western North Carolina one of the finest grazing regions in the world,” says Charley, who is seated in the church-door, fanning himself with his straw hat. He utters this item of information with an air which seems to say that Eric shall not monopolize all the honors of ciceroneship. “And what are those?—and those?—and those?” asks Sylvia, indicating various peaks in the beautiful mountain panorama spread toward the south and west. “Those at which you are looking,” says Eric, “belong to the range of the Cold Mountain—and that most prominent peak is Pisgah. Its shape and height make it a landmark through all the country south of the Black.” We can well credit this, looking at Pisgah with admiring eyes. It lifts its head boldly, this commanding pyramid, from among a number of lesser peaks, the lines of which recede away on each side until they lie like azure clouds on the far horizon.