Heart of f lie*
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I leg'll anies ... a Series
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о
ligbl the outbort might hove seen in 1880—
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multi-o> tfom yoked to more
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io»mill out ol the hill* into Franklin
Land of the Noon-Day Sun
How Macon County appeared
7.»
years ago-
a primitive, rugged and beautiful country:
a picture of sleepy Franklin.
By ZFIGLFK A ( KOSSd l»
It Is one of thoie numcroui "thel-d ’oeuvre”
of creation which Cotl h at scattered over
the earth . but which lie conceals so fre¬
quently on the summit ol naked rocks, in
the depth of Inacccnlblc raulnc*. on the
unapproachable shore»
о/
the ocean, like
jewels which He unveil» rarely, and that
only to simple beings, to children, to shep¬
herds. or fishermen, or the devout wor¬
shippers ol nature.— Lamartine.
In Macon county. North Carolina,
is a section of country so seldom visited
by strangers, that few persons living
beyond its limits arc aware of its exist¬
ence. except as they find it located on
the map. In pomp of forest, purity of
water, beauty of sky. wildness of moun¬
tains. combining in a wonderful wealth
of sublime scenery, the valley of the
Nantihala river is not surpassed by any
region of the Allcghanlcs. While a
great portion of Macon and of other
counties have had attention occasion¬
ally called to them by magazine
articles, and by a few novels with plots
laid in the familiar picturesque sec¬
tions, the Nantihala and the moun¬
tains mirrored on its surface, have to
this day remained an unrolled scroll.
This is not strange, from the fact of the
wild and rugged nature of the moun¬
tains, its few inhabitants, its remote¬
ness from railroads, and the rough¬
ness of the highways and trails by
which it is traversed, liven the ambi¬
tious tourist who enters Western North
Carolina with (lie purpose of seeing
all the points of picturesque interest,
finds his summer vacation at a close
before he has completed a tour of
those scenic sections lying within
г
radius of fifty miles from Asheville.
The musical name of Nantihala. as
applied to the river, is a slight change
from the Cherokee pronunciation of
it — Nanteyaleh. Judging from the
fact of different interpreters giving
different meanings for the name, its
signification is involved in obscurity.
By some it is said to mean Noon-day
Sun, from the fact of the mountains
hugging it so closely that the sunlight
strikes it only during the middle of the
day. The other meaning is Maiden’s
Bosom.
The river is mainly in Macon
county. Rising near the Georgia
boundary, amid the wilds of the Stand¬
ing Indian and Chunky Gal moun¬
tains — peaks of its bordering eastern
and western ranges — it flows in a
northerly and then north-easterly di¬
rection, and after a swift course of
fifty miles, empties its waters into the
Thu 1* another extract from the travel
book, "The Heart of the .\lleghanlc«,“ by
Wilbur G. Zelgler and lien S. t’ roue lip. pub¬
lished in m*r
Little Tennessee. The ragged, strag¬
gling range, sloping abruptly up from
its eastern bank, takes the name of
the river. This range breaks from the
Blue Ridge, in Georgia, and trends
north, with the Little Tennessee receiv¬
ing its waters on one side, and the
Nantihala. those on the other. The Val¬
ley River mountains, forming the
Macon county western boundary, run
parallel with the Nantihala range. It
is in the narrow cradle between these
two chains that the river is forever
rocked.
Through most of the Distance from
its sources to where it crosses the State
road, the river flows at the feet of piny
crags, under vast forests, and down
apparently inaccessible slopes. Its up¬
per waters teem with trout, and its
lower, with the gamiest fish ol the
pure streams of level lands. The red
deer brouscs along its banks and amid
the laurel and brier thickets which
shade its fountain-heads, the black
bear challenges the pursuit of hounds
and hunters. Near the State road are
gems of woodland scenery, where all
the natural character of the stream —
its wildness — is absent; and under
the soft sunlight and cool shadows of
THE STATE. DECIMBCR 1. 1956
13
