1. I.
“Keowee Old Fort,” as the people in that
quarter style it, is a fine antique ruin and relic of
the revolution, in the district of Pendleton, South
Carolina. The region of country in which we
find it, of itself, is highly picturesque and interesting.
The broad river of Keowee, which runs
through it, though comparatively small, as a
stream, in America, would put to shame, by its
size, not less than its beauty, one half of the far-famed
and boasted rivers of Europe; — and then
the mountains, through and among which it winds
its way, embody more of beautiful situation and
romantic prospect, than art can well figure to the
eye, or language convey to the imagination. To
understand, you must see it. Words are of little
avail when the ideas overcrowd utterance; and
even vanity itself is content to be dumb in the
awe inspired by a thousand prospects, like Niagara,
the ideal of a god, and altogether beyond
the standards common to humanity.
It is not long since I wandered through this interesting
region, under the guidance of my friend,
Col. G—, who does the honors of society,
in that quarter, with a degree of ease and unostentatious
simplicity, which readily makes the visiter
at home. My friend was one of those citizens to
whom one's own country is always of paramount
interest, and whose mind and memory, accordingly,
have been always most happily employed when
storing away and digesting into pleasing narrative
those thousand little traditions of the genius loci,
which give life to rocks and valleys, and people
earth with the beautiful colors and creatures of
the imagination. These, for the gratification
of the spiritual seeker, he had forever in readiness;
and, with him to illustrate them, it is not
surprising if the grove had a moral existence in
my thoughts, and all the waters around breathed,
and were instinct with poetry. To all his narratives
I listened with a satisfaction which book-stories
do not often afford me. The more he told,
the more he had to tell; for nothing staled
There may have been something in the style of
telling his stories; there was much, certainly, that
was highly attractive in his manner of doing
every thing, and this may have contributed not a
little to the success of his narratives. Perhaps,
too, my presence, upon the very scene of each
legend, may have given them a life and a vraisemblance
they had wanted otherwise.
In this manner, rambling about from spot to
spot, I passed five weeks, without being, at any
moment, conscious of time's progress. Day after
day, we wandered forth in some new direction,
contriving always to secure, and without effort,
that pleasurable excitement of novelty, for which
the great city labors in vain, spite of her varying
fashions, and crowding, and not always innocent
indulgences. From forest to river, from
hill to valley, still on horseback, — for the mountainous
character of the country forbade any more
luxurious form of travel, — we kept on our way,
always changing our ground with the night, and
our prospect with the morning. In this manner
we travelled over or round the Six Mile, and the
Glassy, and a dozen other mountains; and sometimes,
with a yet greater scope of adventure,
pushed off on a much longer ramble, — such as
took us to the falls of the White Water, and gave
us a glimpse of the beautiful river of Jocassée,
named sweetly after the Cherokee maiden, who
threw herself into its bosom on beholding the scalp
of her lover dangling from the neck of his conqueror.
The story is almost a parallel to that of
the sister of Horatius, with this difference, that
our Cherokee girl did not wait for the vengeance
of her brother, and altogether spared her reproaches.
I tell the story, which is pleasant and
curious, in the language of my friend, from whom
I first heard it.
