The view from the top of the Paint Rock, without being grand or extensive, is very beautiful, especially on one of the summer days, when white, billowy clouds lazily follow in the wake of the sun. It is exactly such a day when we stand on the breezy height and see the French Broad with its fairy islets far below. Chains of hills melt softly into each other in every direction, for our elevation enables us to overlook those walls of green which, from the level of the river, bound the gorge, and blue peaks stand outlined against the sky. Over all the wide panorama shifting shadows fall with charming effect, and the variety of tints baffles analysis or description. We are now in view of that great range of mountains, known at different points as the Smoky, the Unaka, and the Roan, which divides North Carolina from East Tennessee; and wherever we turn, some scene of striking beauty arrests the attention. Half a mile farther down the river are the Chimneys—rocks in formation very like the one on which we stand, broken by some caprice of Nature into isolated, chimney-like shapes; but the road to them has been washed away by the turbulent river, and never replaced. Hence they are almost inaccessible. A portion of our party go as far as practicable, and report that by standing on some tilting stones in the bed of the river, and craning their necks around a cliff-like projection, they are only able to obtain a partial and unsatisfactory view. Those who remain behind, therefore, congratulate themselves on their wisdom. Certainly to sit on the summit of the great rock under the shade of the pines that grow here and there, with the boundless, sapphire sky above and the lovely, outspread world below, is a pleasure that must be put in the list of those which are as great in memory as in reality. CHAPTER IX. “It seemed some mountain, rent and riven, A channel for the stream had given, So high the cliffs of limestone gray Hung o’er the torrent’s way.” “I think,” says Sylvia, deliberately, “that I should like to climb that height.” She points as she speaks, and we all look round. Immediately behind the Paint Rock, on which we are gathered, stands an abrupt and rugged mountain, towering several hundred feet higher, and showing an almost precipitous side. “I wonder what you will propose to do next?” I say. “Who do you fancy will risk his neck by climbing that mountain with you?” “The view from there must be very fine,” she remarks, “a great deal finer than this—which I don’t consider at all remarkable.—Mr. Lanier”—she turns with her sweetest smile to that gentleman—“will _you_ go with me?” Mr. Lanier hesitates. Pity him, all prudent people who dislike unnecessary exertion and avoid useless risks! He is comfortably seated under a pine tree, fanning the young lady who proposes this feat, and, being as averse to it as a man could be, he looks at the mountain in troubled silence for an instant. Then he says: