“I took a walk with some ladies to-day over the plantation, as we wished to have a nearer view of those snowy fields which so sedulously present themselves to our view, together with orchards, gin houses, gardens, Melton’s mansion, and a considerable negro town. “We approached the mansion by a broad street running up the river bank east of the town. This street seems suspended between heaven and earth, as the whole premises for two miles, all in sight, appears to be elevated above the horizon, and none above the rest. We entered the courtyard, fronting the house, by a stile; and the first thing we met was a large scaffold overspread with cotton; as it was in the seed, there must have been many thousand pounds. Being damp from dew, and often rain, it must be dried in this manner. The mansion was large, built with logs, shingled roof, and may have been built twenty-five or thirty years since. I recoiled at the sight of a place once the habitation of such a monster as Melton was. Some of our party went in: I did not. General Jackson’s overseer, who joined us here, said he lived in the lower story, the upper being filled with cotton. This scaffold was about four feet from the ground. From this we crossed another fence, and found ourselves in a cotton field of about one hundred acres, white with cotton and alive with negroes. The center of this field is said to be the rallying point of viewing the scenery, as it doubtless is. You can see up to Brown’s Ferry, eight miles distant, with the naked eye, and the same distance down. “The term ‘beauty’ is applied to anything which excites pleasant feelings. Beauty is said to be a uniformity amidst variety, a proportion of parts adapted to a whole, fitness of things to an end, quantity and simplicity. All this is realized on Melton’s Bluff. Here is a noble river which combines in itself all you can conceive of grandeur and utility, adorned with islands, spangled with boats, and enlivened with wild flowers. Lift your eye from the river, and lo! magnificent fields, white as snow, orchards, farms and houses all in view, without moving out of the spot. You may thus form some idea of this far-famed bluff. Here the green islands look like floating meadows. Here the boatman wields his mossy oar and guides his freighted boat along. Here the wild fowl arrayed in glossy plumes, wantons as she lists. Here the distant billows breaking o’er the shoals, echo back in murmuring sounds, and mingling sweetly with the music of the boatman’s viol, swells upon the ear and softly dies away upon the breeze. To crown the whole, here the majestic swan, robed in dazzling white, moves in all her graceful attitudes. These are beauties which may be felt but cannot be described. This combination of objects, each beautiful in itself, and so materially useful, constitutes the beauty of Melton’s Bluff. All the trade of East Tennessee pass by the Bluff and halt there to take in their pilots.”