"Let it be on a summer evening, just as the shadows have crept across the landscape."  Nantihala ; Valley River ; Little Tennessee ; Warrior Bald

"Barking a squirrel is one of the fine arts.  The hunter takes aim and fires at the upper edge of the limb on which the squirrel sits, instantly killing him from concussion created by the splintered bark."  Cheowah mountain ; Little Tennessee ; Nantihala [Nantahala] ; Cat's Stairs ;  Anderson Roughs

But let us pursue the river from the Cheowah mountain to the Little Tennessee. It is a distance of twelve miles, and not once do the road and stream part company. At Widow Nelsons's it is a white winding-sheet of rapids, as far as the eye can reach. A hundred yards by the house, and the mountains draw themselves together again. The road straggles around the foot of a cliff. The waters roar and splash beside it. Overhead, the foliage is of a brilliant green, and the sky usually a transparent blue. By the dilapidated dwelling of Widow Jarett you soon pass. There is a cleared tract of land here. Across the river, with its foot in the water, one of the Nantihala range towers 2,000 feet above the valley. You must lean back to look upward along its green face and see the edge of the summit. Up one steep ravine is a trail leading to Brier Town. It is termed the Cat's Stairs. Your mule must be dragged by the bridle if you attempt the ascent.

Three miles down the stream, as you issue from the forest on the brow of a gentle declivity, a wild picture lies spread before the eyes. You are looking across a long pent-in vale. On one side the Anderson Roughs, lofty and impending, with steep ridges, one behind the other, descending to the river, reach away to where the blue sky dips in between them and the last visible perpendicular wall that frowns along the valley's opposite softened by the vision of Campbell's lowly cabin in the center of the narrow corn-fields. You see the smoke above its blackened roof; several uncombed children tumbling in the sunshine; the rail fence close by its frail porch; and, beyond it, the limpid Nantihala, smooth and turbulent alternately, and filling the ears with its loud monotone. (See Frontispiece.)

"Buck" Campbell is a whole-souled fellow; his wife, a pleasant woman. If you have time, stop here. Excepting the good-natured bearing of the mountaineer and his wife, you will see nothing inviting about the place, until the table is set for supper, out in the open air, at one end of the cabin. The meal will be an appetizing one. Between each bite you take of a smoking piece of corn-dodger, you can look up at the shadowed front of the Anderson Roughs (for long since the western wall had intercepted the sunlight from pouring on it), and watch how the shadows thicken, while still the sky is bright and clear above. The signification of noon-day sun, as applied to the river, will strike you forcibly. Late in the morning and early in the evening the valley is in shade. There is but one room in the cabin, consequently you will all sleep together, and awake in the morning felling that there is something in the humblest path of life to keep a man happy.

"Every morning, except in winter, a heavy fog fills the valley. This is unfavorable for the cultivation of small grain, consequently corn is the only profitable production on the Nantihala [Nantahala]. Issuing from the cabin, you jump the fence and go to the river to perform your ablutions. A tin basin is not one of Campbell's possessions. You are sure of clean water, however; and, leaning over the river's bosom, you have something to act as a mirror, while you comb your hair with your fingers. If you yell for it, a towel will be brought by one of a pair of black-eyed youngsters, fondly called "Dutch" and "Curly" by their father. Campbell says he believes in nicknaming his children; for he does not see why they should go by their proper names any more than people should call him "Buck," instead of Alexander.

By 9 o'clock the mist has rolled itself in clouds and drifted up the heights, a belt of sunshine is half way down the mountain on the west, and day has fairly dawned. If it is in the early fall, the drum of the pheasant may be heard from the near woods. The quail has ceased his piping for the season, but he has by no means migrated, as one might infer from his silence; for if you stroll through the fields, great bevies will frequently rise from your feet and start in all directions with such a whirr of wings that you will jump in spite of yourself. I have started wood-cock in the wet tangles of the mountain streams, but they are rare birds. ..."

"At the margin of the stream the slope of the opposite mountains begins, which, with impending forests on their precipitous fronts, lift themselves to dizzy altitudes."  Nantihala