“It is infamous!” says Sylvia, with the most feeling indignation. “Something ought to be done—the Legislature ought to interfere! If the Anglo-Saxon settlers had no sense of poetry in their own rude organizations, they might at least have spared the Indian nomenclature, which is beautiful and appropriate wherever it is found.” “Yes, it is beautiful,” says Eric, who has a passion for all Indian names, and repeats them with the lingering intonation which makes them thrice musical. “Compare with such a nomenclature as I have just mentioned—Swannanoa, Nantahala, Tuckaseegee, Hiawassee, Cheowah, Feloneke, and Tahkeeostee—all Cherokee names, and all possessing excellent significations.” “What are the significations?” I ask. “Swannanoa means ‘Beautiful’; Nantahala, ‘Woman’s Bosom,’ from the rise and fall of its breast of waters; Tuckaseegee, ‘Terrapin Water’; Cheowah, ‘River of Otters’; Feloneke, ‘Yellow River’; and Tahkeeostee—the Cherokee name of the French Broad— is the most expressive of all, for it means ‘Racing River.’” “And no doubt there were any number, just as admirable, which have been lost,” says Sylvia. “It is unbearable! We do not find that the French or Spanish settlers left such barbarities behind them.” “No,” says Victor Dupont, who is walking by her side. “I have been thinking, while Mr. Markham spoke, of the names in Louisiana and Texas. None of them are ugly— unless, forgive me!—they are English. Many melodious Indian names are left, and those which the first settlers gave are full of a religious poetry—such as Laguna del Madre, Isla del Padre, Bay of St. Louis, Bayou St. Denis, Île au Breton.” “Those are certainly very different from Smithville and Jonesville and Big Pigeon River,” says Sylvia, “but I wish the Indian names could have been preserved everywhere.” This conversation takes place as we walk out of Asheville along the winding road which leads to Beaucatcher. The sun is sinking low toward the western mountains, spreading a mantle of gold over the uplands, and leaving the glades and dells full of softly-toned shadows. Eric and I form the advance guard of the party. We have been tried friends and comrades for many a day, and, when we were younger, he often paid me the compliment of wishing I were a boy. Sylvia and Victor come next; Charley and Adèle loiter in the rear. Scattered around in every direction are villa-like houses “bosomed high in tufted trees”; before us are the green hills—that in a different country would be esteemed mountains—behind, the marvelous peaks at which we are forbidden to glance. “Nobody must look round,” cries Adèle playfully, waving a flowering branch. “You shall all be turned to stones, like the princes in the story of the singing water, if you do!” “The view is not to be devoured piecemeal,” says Charley, “but to be taken whole—like an oyster—from the top of the knob to which we are bound.”