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A Thousand-Mile Walk

to take breath and to admire. The road, in many places cut into the rock, goes winding about among the knobs and gorges. Dense growth of asters, liatris,[1] and grapevines.

Reached a house before night, and asked leave to stop. “Well, you’re welcome to stop,” said the mountaineer, “if you think you can live till morning on what I have to live on all the time.” Found the old gentleman very communicative. Was favored with long “bar” stories, deer hunts, etc., and in the morning was pressed to stay a day or two.

September 16. “I will take you,” said he, “to the highest ridge in the country, where you can see both ways. You will have a view of all the world on one side of the mountains and all creation on the other. Besides, you, who are traveling for curiosity and wonder,

  1. Wood’s Botany, edition of 1862, furnishes the following interesting comment on Liatris odoratissima (Willd.), popularly known as Vanilla Plant or Deer’s Tongue: “The fleshy leaves exhale a rich fragrance even for years after they are dry, and are therefore by the southern planters largely mixed with their cured tobacco, to impart its fragrance to that nauseous weed.”

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