with that nearly every adult
citizen has been directly interested in some murder case, either as
principal, officer, witness, kinsman, or friend.

This grewsome subject I shall treat elsewhere, in detail. It is
introduced here only to emphasize a fact pertinent to the present topic,
namely: that the private wars of the highlanders are limited to their
own people. In our corner of North Carolina no traveler from the
outside ever has been a victim, nor do I know of any such case in the
whole Appalachian region.

[Illustration: Many of the homes have but one window]

And here is another significant fact: as regards personal property I do
not know any race in the world that is more honest than our backwoodsmen
of the southern mountains. As soon as you leave the railroad you enter a
land where sneak-thieves are rare and burglars almost unheard of. In my
own county and all those adjoining it there has been only one case of
highway robbery and only one of murder for money, so far as I can learn,
in the past _forty_ years.

The mountain code of conduct is a curious mixture of savagery and
civility. One man will kill another over a pig or a panel of fence (not
for the property's sake, but because of hot words ensuing) and he will
"come clear" in court because every fellow on the jury feels he would
have done the same thing himself under similar provocation; yet these
very men, vengeful and cruel though they are, regard hospitality as a
sacred duty toward wayfarers of any degree, and the bare idea of
stealing from a stranger would excite their instant loathing or
white-hot scorn.

Anyone of tact and common sense can go as he pleases through the darkest
corner of Appalachia without being molested. Tact, however, implies the
will and the insight to put yourself truly in the other man's place.
Imagine yourself born, bred, circumstanced like him. It implies, also,
the courtesy of doing as you would be done by if you were in that
fellow's shoes. No arrogance, no condescension, but man to man on a
footing of equal manliness.

And there are "manners" in the rudest community: customs and rules of
conduct that it is well to learn before one goes far afield. For
example, when you stop at a mountain cabin, if no dogs sound an alarm,
do not walk up to the door and knock. You are expected to call out
_Hello!_ until someone comes to inspect you. None but the most intimate
neighbors neglect this usage and there is mighty good reason