“How heavy,” exclaimed the Professor, pricking Laura Matilda to call her attention sharply to her footing—­

  “How heavy do I journey on the way,
   When what I seek—­my weary travel’s end
   Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
   Thus far the miles are measur’d from thy friend! 
   The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
   Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
   As if by some instinct the wretch did know
   His rider loved not speed, being made from thee: 
   The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
   That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
   Which heavily he answers with a groan,
   More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
   For that same groan doth put this in my mind;
   My grief lies onward and my joy behind.”

This was not spoken to the group who fluttered their farewells, but poured out to the uncomplaining forest, which rose up in ever statelier—­and grander ranks to greet the travelers as they descended—­the silent, vast forest, without note of bird or chip of squirrel, only the wind tossing the great branches high overhead in response to the sonnet.  Is there any region or circumstance of life that the poet did not forecast and provide for?  But what would have been his feelings if he could have known that almost three centuries after these lines were penned, they would be used to express the emotion of an unsentimental traveler in the primeval forests of the New World?  At any rate, he peopled the New World with the children of his imagination.  And, thought the Friend, whose attention to his horse did not permit him to drop into poetry, Shakespeare might have had a vision of this vast continent, though he did not refer to it, when he exclaimed: 

  “What is your substance, whereof are you made,
   That millions of strange shadows on you tend?”

Bakersville, the capital of Mitchell County, is eight miles from the top of Roan, and the last three miles of the way the horsemen found tolerable going, over which the horses could show their paces.  The valley looked fairly thrifty and bright, and was a pleasing introduction to Bakersville, a pretty place in the hills, of some six hundred inhabitants, with two churches, three indifferent hotels, and a court-house.  This mountain town, 2550 feet above the sea, is said to have a decent winter climate, with little snow, favorable to fruit-growing, and, by contrast with New England, encouraging to people with weak lungs.

This is the center of the mica mining, and of considerable excitement about minerals.  All around, the hills are spotted with “diggings.”  Most of the mines which yield well show signs of having been worked before, a very long time ago, no doubt by the occupants before the Indians.  The mica is of excellent quality and easily mined.  It is got out in large irregular-shaped blocks and transported to the factories, where it is carefully split by hand,