f 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.

II

Cranberry Forge is the first wedge of civilization fairly driven into
the northwest mountains of North Carolina. A narrow-gauge railway,
starting from Johnson City, follows up the narrow gorge of the Doe
River, and pushes into the heart of the iron mines at Cranberry,
where there is a blast furnace; and where a big company store, rows of
tenement houses, heaps of slag and refuse ore, interlacing tracks, raw
embankments, denuded hillsides, and a blackened landscape, are the signs
of a great devastating American enterprise. The Cranberry iron is in
great esteem, as it has the peculiar quality of the Swedish iron. There
are remains of old furnaces lower down the stream, which we passed on
our way. The present "plant" is that of a Philadelphia company,
whose enterprise has infused new life into all this region, made it
accessible, and spoiled some pretty scenery.

When we alighted, weary, at the gate of the pretty hotel, which crowns
a gentle hill and commands a pleasing, evergreen prospect of many gentle
hills, a mile or so below the works, and wholly removed from all sordid
associations, we were at the point of willingness that the whole country
should be devastated by civilization. In the local imagination this
hotel of the company is a palace of unequaled magnificence, but probably
its good taste, comfort, and quiet elegance are not appreciated after
all. There is this to be said about Philadelphia,--and it will go far
in pleading for it in the Last Day against its monotonous rectangularity
and the babel-like ambition of its Public Building,--that wherever its
influence extends, there will be found comfortable lodgings and the
luxury of an undeniably excellent cuisine. The visible seal that
Philadelphia sets on its enterprise all through the South is a good
hotel.

This Cottage Beautiful has on two sides a wide veranda, set about with
easy chairs; cheerful parlors and pretty chambers, finished in
native woods, among which are conspicuous the satin stripes of the
cucumber-tree; luxurious beds, and an inviting table ordered by a
Philadelphia landlady, who knows a beefsteak from a boot-tap. Is it
"low" to dwell upon these things of the senses, when one is on a tour in