We took the eastern train one evening to Round Nob (Henry’s Station), some thirty miles, in order to see the wonderful railway that descends, a distance of eight miles, from the summit of Swannanoa Gap (2657 feet elevation) to Round Nob Hotel (1607 feet).  The Swannanoa Summit is the dividing line between the waters that flow to the Atlantic and those that go to the Gulf of Mexico.  This fact was impressed upon us by the inhabitants, who derive a good deal of comfort from it.  Such divides are always matter of local pride.  Unfortunately, perhaps, it was too dark before we reached Henry’s to enable us to see the road in all its loops and parallels as it appears on the map, but we gained a better effect.  The hotel, when we first sighted it, all its windows blazing with light, was at the bottom of a well.  Beside it—­it was sufficiently light to see that —­a column of water sprang straight into the air to the height, as we learned afterwards from two official sources, of 225 and 265 feet; and the information was added that it is the highest fountain in the world.  This stout column, stiff as a flagstaff, with its feathery head of mist gleaming like silver in the failing light, had the most charming effect.  We passed out of sight of hotel and fountain, but were conscious of being—­whirled on a circular descending grade, and very soon they were in sight again.  Again and again they disappeared and came to view, now on one side and now on the other, until our train seemed to be bewitched, making frantic efforts by dodgings and turnings, now through tunnels and now over high pieces of trestle, to escape the inevitable attraction that was gravitating it down to the hospitable lights at the bottom of the well.  When we climbed back up the road in the morning, we had an opportunity to see the marvelous engineering, but there is little else to see, the view being nearly always very limited.

The hotel at the bottom of the ravine, on the side of Round Nob, offers little in the way of prospect, but it is a picturesque place, and we could understand why it was full of visitors when we came to the table.  It was probably the best-kept house of entertainment in the State, and being in the midst of the Black Hills, it offers good chances for fishing and mountain climbing.

In the morning the fountain, which is, of course, artificial, refused to play, the rain in the night having washed in debris which clogged the conduit.  But it soon freed itself and sent up for a long time, like a sulky geyser, mud and foul water.  When it got freedom and tolerable clearness, we noted that the water went up in pulsations, which were marked at short distances by the water falling off, giving the column the appearance of a spine.  The summit, always beating the air in efforts to rise higher, fell over in a veil of mist.