blue and limitless as the ocean, the undulating plain of the more level country extends until it melts into the sky.

As the glance leaves this view, and, sweeping back over the Blue Ridge, follows the main ledge of the Black, one begins to appreciate the magnitude of this great mountain. For miles along its dark crest appear a succession of conelike peaks, and, as it sweeps around westwardly, it divides into two great branches-one of which terminates in the height on which we stand, while numerous spurs lead off from its base; the other stretches southward, forming the splendid chain of Craggy. At our feet lie the elevated counties of Yancey and Mitchell, with their surfaces so unevenly mountainous that one wonders how men could have been daring enough to think of making their homes amid such wild scenes. Beyond these counties stretches the chain of the Unaka, running along the line of Tennessee, with the Roan Mountainfamous for its extensive view over seven states-immediately in our front.

Through the passes and rugged

chasms of this range, we look across the entire valley of East Tennessee to where the blue outlines of the Cumberland Mountains trend toward Kentucky, and we see distinctly a marked depression which Eric says is Cumberland Gap. Turning our gaze due westward, the view is, if possible, still more grand. There the colossal masses of the Great Smoky stand, draped in a mantle of clouds, while through Haywood and Transylvania, to the borders of South Carolina, rise the peaks of the Balsam Mountains, behind which are the Cullowhee and the Nantahala, with the Blue Ridge making a majestic curve toward the point where Georgia touches the Carolinas.

It is enough to sit and watch the inexpressible beauty of the vast prospect as afternoon slowly wanes into evening.

There is a sense of isolation, of solemnity and majesty, in the scene which none of us are likely to forget. So high are we elevated above the world that the pure vault of ether over our heads seems nearer to us than the blue rolling earth, with its wooded hills and smiling valleys below. No sound comes up to us, no voice of water or note of bird breaks the stillness. We are in the region of that eternal silence which wraps the summits of the "everlasting hills." A repose that is full of awe broods over this lofty peak, which still retains the last rays of the sinking sun, while over the lower world twilight has fallen.

HENRY WOODFEN GRADY.

1851-1889.

HENRY WOODFEN GRADY was born at Athens, Georgia, and educated at the State University. He became an editor, and in 1880 purchased an interest in the Atlanta "Constitution" on whose staff he remained till his death. His articles, addresses, and editorials made his name well known throughout the country, and contributed no little to the development of Southern industries after the war. monument has been erected to him in Atlanta,

A

The New South, [a series of articles].

WORKS.

Editorials, addresses, &c.

THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR.

(From The New South, 1889.*)

Master and Slave.-Perhaps no period of human history has been more misjudged and less understood than the slave* By permission of "New York Ledger," Robert Bonner's Sons, N. Y.

holding era in the South. Slavery as an institution cannot be defended; but its administration was so nearly perfect among our forefathers as to challenge and hold our loving respect. It is doubtful if the world has seen a peasantry so happy and so well-to-do as the negro slaves in America. The world was amazed at the fidelity with which these slaves guarded, from 1861 to 1865, the homes and families of the masters who were fighting with the army that barred their way to freedom. If "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had portrayed the rule of slavery rather than the rarest exception, not all the armies that went to the field could have stayed the flood of rapine and arson and pillage that would have started with the first gun of the civil war. Instead of that, witness the miracle of the slave in loyalty to his master, closing the fetters upon his own limbs-maintaining and defending the families of those who fought against his freedom—and at night on the far-off battle-field searching among the carnage for his young master, that he might lift the dying head to his breast and bend to catch the last words to the old folks at home, so wrestling the meantime in agony and love that he would lay down his life in his master's stead.

History has no parallel to the faith kept by the negro in the South during the war. Often five hundred negroes to a single white man, and yet through these dusky throngs the women and children walked in safety, and the unprotected homes rested in peace. Unmarshalled, the black battalions moved patiently to the fields in the morning to feed the armies their idleness would have starved, and at night gathered anxiously at the "big house to hear the news from marster," though conscious that his victory made their chains enduring. Everywhere humbie and kindly. The body-guard of the helpless. The rough companion of the

little ones.

lowly cabin.

The observant friend. The silent sentry in his

The shrewd counsellor.

The shrewd counsellor. And when the dead came home, a mourner at the open grave. A thousand torches would have disbanded every Southern army, but not one was lighted. When the master, going to a war in which slavery was involved, said to his slave, "I leave my home and loved ones in your charge," the tenderness between man and master stood disclosed.

The Northern man, dealing with casual servants, querulous, sensitive, and lodged for a day in a sphere they resent, can hardly comprehend the friendliness and sympathy that existed between the master and the slave. He cannot understand how the negro stood in slavery days, open-hearted and sympathetic, full of gossip and comradeship, the companion of the hunt, frolic, furrow, and home, contented in the kindly dependence that had been a habit of his blood, and never lifting his eyes beyond the narrow horizon that shut him in with his neighbors and friends. But this relation did exist in the days of slavery. It was the rule of that régime. It has survived war, and strife, and political campaigns in which the drum-beat inspired and Federal bayonets fortified. It will never die until the last slaveholder and slave has been gathered to rest. It is the glory of our past in the South. It is the answer to abuse and slander. It is the hope of our future.

Ante-bellum Civilization.-The relations of the races in slavery must be clearly understood to understand what has followed, and to judge of what is yet to come. Not less important is it to have some clear idea the civilization of that period.

That was a peculiar society. Almost feudal in its splendor, it was almost patriarchal in its simplicity. Leisure and wealth gave it exquisite culture. Its wives and mothers,