is impossible to say that Mr. Dugger, who is an excellent man, lives in a clean and attractive house, or that he offers much that the pampered child of civilization can eat. But we shall not forget the two eggs, fresh from the hens, whose temperature must have been above the normal, nor the spring-house in the glen, where we found a refuge from the flies and the heat. The higher we go, the hotter it is. Banner's Elk boasts an elevation of thirty-five to thirty-seven hundred feet.

We were not sorry, towards sunset, to descend along the Elk River towards Cranberry Forge. The Elk is a lovely stream, and, though not very clear, has a reputation for trout; but all this region was under operation of a three-years game law, to give the trout a chance to multiply, and we had no opportunity to test the value of its reputation. Yet a boy whom we encountered had a good string of quarter-pound trout, which he had taken out with a hook and a feather rudely tied on it, to resemble a fly. The road, though not to be commended, was much better than that of the morning, the forests grew charming in the cool of the evening, the whippoorwill sang, and as night fell the wanderers, in want of nearly everything that makes life desirable, stopped at the Iron Company's hotel, under the impression that it was the only comfortable hotel in North Carolina.