Five miles beyond Ramsey’s the Tennessee line was crossed.  The Laurel became more rocky, swift, full of rapids, and the valley narrowed down to the riverway, with standing room, however, for stately trees along the banks.  The oaks, both black and white, were, as they had been all day, gigantic in size and splendid in foliage.  There is a certain dignity in riding in such stately company, and the travelers clattered along over the stony road under the impression of possible high adventure in a new world of such freshness.  Nor was beauty wanting.  The rhododendrons had, perhaps, a week ago reached their climax, and now began to strew the water and the ground with their brilliant petals, dashing all the way with color; but they were still matchlessly beautiful.  Great banks of pink and white covered the steep hillsides; the bending stems, ten to twenty feet high, hung their rich clusters over the river; avenues of glory opened away in the glade of the stream; and at every turn of the winding way vistas glowing with the hues of romance wrenched exclamations of delight and wonder from the Shakespearean sonneteer and his humble Friend.  In the deep recesses of the forest suddenly flamed to the view, like the splashes of splendor on the somber canvas of an old Venetian, these wonders of color,—­the glowing summer-heart of the woods.

It was difficult to say, meantime, whether the road was laid out in the river, or the river in the road.  In the few miles to Egger’s (this was the destination of our great expectations for the night) the stream was crossed twenty-seven times,—­or perhaps it would be more proper to say that the road was crossed twenty-seven times.  Where the road did not run in the river, its bed was washed out and as stony as the bed of the stream.  This is a general and accurate description of all the roads in this region, which wind along and in the streams, through narrow valleys, shut in by low and steep hills.  The country is full of springs and streams, and between Abingdon and Egger’s is only one (small) bridge.  In a region with scarcely any level land or intervale, farmers are at a disadvantage.  All along the road we saw nothing but mean shanties, generally of logs, with now and then a decent one-story frame, and the people looked miserably poor.

As we picked our way along up the Laurel, obliged for the most part to ride single-file, or as the Professor expressed it,

  “Let me confess that we two must be twain,
   Although our undivided loves are one,”

we gathered information about Egger’s from the infrequent hovels on the road, which inflamed our imaginations.  Egger was the thriving man of the region, and lived in style in a big brick house.  We began to feel a doubt that Egger would take us in, and so much did his brick magnificence impress us that we regretted we had not brought apparel fit for the society we were about to enter.