now and then a little patch of poor corn on a steep hillside,
occasionally a few apple-trees, and a peach-tree without fruit. Here
and there was a house that had been half finished and then abandoned,
or a shanty in which a couple of young married people were just
beginning life. Generally the cabins (confirming the accuracy of the
census of 1880) swarmed with children, and nearly all the women were
thin and sickly.

In the day's ride we did not see a wheeled vehicle, and only now and
then a horse. We met on the road small sleds, drawn by a steer,
sometimes by a cow, on which a bag of grist was being hauled to the
mill, and boys mounted on steers gave us good-evening with as much
pride as if they were bestriding fiery horses.

In a house of the better class, which was a post-house, and where the
rider and the woman of the house had a long consultation over a
letter to be registered, we found the rooms decorated with
patent-medicine pictures, which were often framed in strips of mica, an
evidence of culture that was worth noting. Mica was the rage. Every
one with whom we talked, except the rider, had more or less the mineral
fever. The impression was general that the mountain region of North
Carolina was entering upon a career of wonderful mineral development,
and the most extravagant expectations were entertained. Mica was the
shining object of most "prospecting," but gold was also on the cards.

The country about Burnsville is not only mildly picturesque, but very
pleasing. Burnsville, the county-seat of Yancey, at an elevation of
2840 feet, is more like a New England village than any hitherto seen.
Most of the houses stand about a square, which contains the shabby
court-house; around it are two small churches, a jail, an inviting