abundance, betoken that this is a fertile as well as a grand and attractive region. How that fine farm called Tahkeostee projects itself like an immense backbone upon the undulating piedmont, and how you scheme about the happiness of a proprietor who holds the title to such a domain! But you need a nearer view, and, as all manner of vehicles or horses are at disposal, you take an excursion there, crossing the railway track and handsome bridge to emerge upon a firm country road. You look back, and the prospect is brave with splendid hotels, villas of all manner of architecture, and the city of Asheville, which, because chiefly of the tourist travel, is rapidly taking rank with the first cities of the State, by manufacturing, by drainage and by the discovery that all of the pure air on earth cannot make amends for water contamination. And so, with generous, innocent fountain sources everywhere at the bidding of man, Asheville and all Western Carolina have nothing to crave for in the way of physical health and happiness. [Illustration: VIEWS NEAR ASHEVILLE.] Wooed by the spirit of adventure, you spur your horse higher and higher up the ascent, and find that some rich man has fixed his abode in more or less of grandeur atop the alpine plateau, and you look down upon humbler mountains and far away into the vista, where the locomotive is pushing its path from Henderson, or it may be Hickory Gap. Descending the road you follow along the bright, rippling stream, passing habitations of various kinds, now rude or humble, and now comfortable or charming. At last you reach a spot that the poet Moore would have raved about in undying song, for it is worthy of any singer, who, however tuneful, might well despair of bringing justice to the realm of so much beauty. The dwelling there is not a palace, but evidently the abode of taste and wealth. The garden is what you have dreamed about, when young and addicted to Lalla Rookh. What a wealth of flowers and how artistically displayed! The air is perfumed all about this fairy kingdom and you instinctively look askance for the apparition of Prince Charming, or the Fair One with the Golden Locks. The Prince I have not seen, but the Fair One was visible and, with her guidance, I am permitted, in a luxurious nook, to scan the surrounding glories. There is no other just such site for perfect habitation, for it is at the meeting of the waters, which glisten far below. Here the impetuous French Broad rushes to the embrace of the gentle Swannanoa, and here their mingled tides laughingly and pellucidly hasten to kiss the awaiting and absorbing sea. The mountains are marshalled on dress parade in one mighty ring around this centre of loveliness, and the dream you have fallen voluntarily into is only dissolved, and not unpleasantly, by the matter-of-fact tracks of steel that glisten at the base of the hill, and the snorting or clanging or whistling engine that