healthy and agreeable climate and much rich soil, it is one of the
finest countries on earth, lying under the temperate zone, and developes
the most extraordinary physical perfection in the human form. Its
proportion of slaves to freemen is no greater than in the other mountain
regions of the South--its area is about equivalent to that of
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island united. In considering this
with the loyalty of its inhabitants, and in studying 'Cumberland Gap,'
the great natural highway of the Alleghany Range, the observer
appreciates with pleasure the remark of Secretary Chase, who, in a
recent interview with certain eastern capitalists, disclaimed on behalf
of the Government and of General M'Clellan any purpose to send the army
into winter quarters, remarking with much significance that 'a glance at
the map will perhaps astonish those who have never reflected, _how short
is the distance from East Tennessee to Port Royal Harbor, and may
suggest the possibility of cutting a great rebellion into two small
pieces_.'

In the mountain region of North Carolina we have 'the Piedmont of the
Alleghanies.' Its seventeen counties embrace a larger area (11,700
square miles) than the whole of Vermont. Its scenery is of extraordinary
beauty, its peaks are the highest east of the Rocky Mountains. There is
full ground for the belief that in North Carolina a majority of the
people are Union at heart. The following extract from 'Alleghania' will
be read with interest as illustrating the assertion:

In the Union camps of East Tennessee, there are numerous
volunteers from Watauga and other adjacent counties over the
border. At the only popular election suffered to be held upon the
question of Union and secession, the Union majority was as two to
one; and even after the storm of Sumter, the vote in the