recently, have they. One hundred years have witnessed but little
progress, almost no change, in their condition. The open fire-place, the
spinning-wheel and the home-spun jeans are familiar sights. Forgotten by
the rest of the world, they, in turn, forget that beyond these mountain
peaks, marking the limit of view and generally the limit of interest, a
nation has pressed forward to take its place among the foremost of the
earth. And yet no color line has excluded, no reservation boundary
separated, this people from their fellow countrymen. Their lack of
energy and the stagnation of their minds, is the explanation of this
condition of things.

Secondly. I found this mountain people naturally American; in deepest
sympathy with our free government; loyal to the old flag in the hour of
its greatest danger; fighting, suffering, dying, that the Union might be
preserved. To one who has spent any length of time on our western
prairies settled so largely with an emigrant people, the great
difference between the American born and educated people of the
mountains, and the naturalized American of the prairie, constantly
emphasizes itself. Here no new language has to be acquired, no new form
of government understood. A common interest, a common sympathy, a mother
country, binds one at once to this people as it never can to the
American importation which is found at the West.

Thirdly. I found homes and a home life, or rather the want of it, which
one would hardly believe possible among a white population in this
country.

The following illustrations are correct representations of what I
found to be average mountain cabins. Seldom do they contain more than
two, often only one, room. A single window, an open fire-place, and a