ceased, leaving the air purified and the of nature, with chanting winds and rushing leaves glittering in the sunshine. Not far from this village is an Indian mound, where many relics have been found. Dozens of arrow-heads and various ornaments have been discovered, as well as human teeth, mingled with the dust. These remnants of olden tribes, who have long since passed into the presence of the Great Spirit, are common in this portion of North Carolina. waters for a choir. The floor is composed of a slab that, from its proportions, might have formed the roof, where, looking up, we now see the azure tints of the heavens. Far past the high walls, frescoed by time and tempest, just on the dizzy margin of the roofless temple, stands—or stood a few years ago—the skeleton of an olden mill, the wheel of which is not only silent but gone. We asked the name of this sparkling stream singing its wild hymn to the mighty rocks. about it, but our questions were in vain-no one knew. Perhaps since our visit its name has been revealed, or one has been bestowed upon it as a guiding mark, else many a pilgrim to Nature's shrines, who would gladly turn aside and enter, must pass unawares its hidden portal. Thus from Brevard to Cesar's Head in Greenville County, South Carolina, there is a continued road of picturesque change, representing every phase of mountain view. The roads are smooth, white, hard, and broad, seldom marred by the unseemly Brevard is in Transylvania County, and is the resort of many summer tourists. The name of Brevard, if not kept fresh in remembrance for the sake of the village that wears it, will not be forgotten by many who have heard of the county sheriff bearing that name. Upon one occasion a lawyer, who had acted as counsel for a man brought to justice for some misdemeanor, failed to save him from the penalty of six months in jail. Riding out a few evenings after the sentence had been passed, what was his surprise to meet the condemned man walking along the road. "Why, Jim!" exclaimed the lawyer, "I presence of a rough stone; the mountain thought you were in jail." sides are curtained by vines, the graceful branches and leaves of which are nourished by natural cascades, that slip in silver threads across the gray stones to moss-rimmed basins at the road side; then bubbling over, they ripple away. One may readily believe that in these dusky retreats bold robbers, not so gentlemanly as Robin Hood, had, during the war, their abode, from whence they made incursions upon their neighbors, preying without mercy on their kind. Stepping hurriedly forward, the countryman held up his finger warningly, saying: "See heer, I've allers thought you was my friend. Now Sheriff Brevard, he let me out for a night or two home, an' ef you don't say nothin' about it, nobody won't ever heer of it." Not long after concluding breakfast we left Brevard, the sun glowing warmly down on us as it did on every tree and flower. Much of the beauty of this country has hitherto been as unknown to the explorer and artist as though it were bound about by the spell of some wicked magician. We visited on our way a lovely cascade, so perfectly hidden that save for guidance we should not have known of its existence. Even the fall of the water that sweeps through stony channels into shadowy depths cannot be heard from without. Completely walled about by rocks, it is only accessible through a cleft so narrow we were obliged to enter singly; a temple standing amid the solitudes We are told that Cesar's Head derives its name from its supposed likeness to a wellknown negro of that locality. Although this fact is somewhat opposed to the prejudices of romance, let us hope that the wooly head of "Uncle" Cesar rested more easily than did that of the laurel-crowned conqueror whom the name more naturally suggests. From many points about the Head, the view across the country is magnificent, seeming to the naked eye continuous and illimitable. It is as though an ocean had been instantaneously petrified, with its crested waves, its heav ing billows, thousands upon thousands chasing each other, and extending miles away, until lost in the mystery of clouds and distance. From whatever point of view one looks over the mountain lands of western North Carolina, in the days of summer or autumn, one sees only grandeur softened by the loveliness of green vales, winding streams, and brilliant flowers; whilst away above in the sky are wonderful pageants of fleecy, floating clouds. The hotel at Cesar's Head was a large, roughly built frame house, two stories in height, with walls unpapered and unplastered and unpainted, standing in their native nakedness of yellow pine. The bare floors and hard beds were clean, nevertheless, and their very roughness had attractions for those travelers accustomed to the luxurious hotels of a northern climate. The general congregating hall, extending along the greater portion of the house, was imperfectly lighted at night by a lamp at the end of the apartment, opposite to a huge fireplace, which sent forth a ruddy glare upon the numerous groups of people scattered here and there, some upon the long benches at the sides of the hall, others sitting at tables playing cards, knitting, chatting, etc. The varied scene was picturesque. On the evening of our arrival a slow and constant rain fell, spreading a gray mist over the surrounding country. The next morning the mists were rolled back, and standing on a vast rock we looked upon the valley lands below, clad in deep hues of dazzling green and delicate yellow. Beyond the slopes lay Greenville, South Carolina, with slanting roofs, and many chimneys cropping up from behind the trees. Farther on, rising above the horizon, we saw the historic summit of King's Mountain. Its coloring and rugged lines were softened to us by distance, as are the memories of the fatal struggle that helped to win us independence. Looking on it, we think only of victory, and the shining crown she laid upon its heights. I but mention the Saluda Falls, worthy in themselves of a long record and a long journey. Dashing perpendicularly, as though from the heavens, they descend hundreds of feet along a solid body of rock to a bed of stone, from whence, foaming and tumbling with deafening roar, the turbid waters wind away to regions far below. We visited these falls in 1877. Only two years before, they had been discovered by a hunting party. Esmeralda Boyle. A JUTLAND SKETCH. I was sojourning in North Jutland, Denmark, and engaged one day to accompany a family party of picnickers to a wood presumably not over a mile distant. Our programme was simply a short walk, an hour or two's bask in the fragrant and cooling shade of a rural grove, forest, or something of that nature, quite near at hand; that was all. I could see a fine lot of young, cultivated firs, from ten to twelve feet in height, grow ing on the sides of adjacent hills to the east of the ancient little town, Hjörring; and these, being the only group of trees open to public use visible within a considerable ra dius, excepting the town park, which I well knew was not the wood referred to, I concluded the thriving young naaletraer were to give us the shelter and shade in which our delicacies were to be unfolded for lunch. Not so, however. Our party took a northerly direction, clambered up the slippery, mossy sides of a hill on which, overlooking the surrounding landscape, stood Niels Ipsen's mill gleefully and defiantly swinging its four long arms, a straw-thatched sugarloaf body holding aloft a whirling wheel against the blue dome of heaven. As we neared the utilizer of the west wind, and I still looked in vain for another patch of wood, though we were now on the most elevated point of that vicinity, I ventured to ask if a joke were being played upon me, or should we promenade in a circular route and "take in" the firs for luncheon on our way home? The answer mystified me. I learned the firs were not included in our programme. Our goal was an oasis far superior to their quarter, containing grand old oaks, glorious old beeches to welcome a long absent native, stately lindens to enthuse the poetic and artistic mind, and many other handsome specimens of trees, shrubs, and vines of mature age. I was somewhat incredulous. There was nothing in any direction that I could discover to impede my range of vision. If my eyes were not to be trusted in their denial of any such place within a reasonable distance, then I felt there was danger of my soon becoming converted to the worst of the many striking superstitious beliefs, miraculous appearances and disappearances, and mystical possibilities of that land of my childhood. When we turned our backs upon the mill, which seemed to enjoy my perplexity with demoniacal hilarity, I launched another query, and learned in reply that we should soon be there. I felt by this time like openly disputing the apparently earnest as surance of my companions, but thought better of the suggestion and held my peace. Suddenly a small bush loomed up a few hundred feet distant in the foreground, and I asked with sarcasm if that was to act the part of an imaginary grove of majestic forest giants, waving their graceful limbs and rustling their abundant foliage over our deluded heads. “Denne busk?” said Kirstine by my side, laughing heartily; "det er toppen af et tra." "Toppen af et tra?" I repeated. "Impossible! How can that be the top of a tree?" I soliloquized, thinking the picnic party must only be a dreamland fancy of the midnight hour. I shook and pinched myself, to be sure it was not, and then followed, wondering if we were to sit in a body about this shrub fifty or a hundred years, Rip Van Winkle like, waiting in a state of slumber for the predicted beautiful wood to grow around us to perfection befitting our prospective luncheon hour. We should be a hungry lot by that time, ravenous enough to devour more in quantity, and something more bracing than that we had with us. But wait; my curiosity was soon to be satisfied. Expectancy of we scarcely know what very often conjures up wild, extravagant, and wide-of-the-mark mental pictures. Perhaps some miracle as regards the hasty growing of the forest awaited. me. The latter idea proved to be nearer the right. As we neared the bush it increased in size, and soon we were standing on the brink of a ravine, in the bottom and on the sloping zigzag sides of which grew in all their boasted beauty the trees, vines, and ferns as promised. To a wanderer in the Sierra Nevadas, or in any mountainous portion of America, there is nothing very strange about standing above a forest-or above the clouds, for that matter; but in Jutland, where the land is very low-lying, with small undulations; where there is not a hill worthy the name-there is something marvelously picturesque in standing close up and looking down into and over the tops of these deep green and heavily foliaged trees, which, though slow in growth, look brighter and handsomer, I think, than they do in a more southerly climate. There are absolutely no hills, only little heathergrown knolls and numerous moss-grown, cone-shaped tombs of ancient heroes, as perfect as if cast in molds; but the country is nevertheless deceiving, in that it has many little crooked valleys and round or oval basins where you least expect to find them. I stood with a park before me of no mean pretensions, of which one might well be ignorant at only a hundred feet distant to right or left. With some attention and slight protection from the severe west winds, which make every bush and shrub lean to the east, trees that shed their leaves will grow almost anywhere in North Jutland, but the historic woods of spontaneous growth are in that region usually found hidden from view until you reach them; and a stranger, joining a party of picnickers to the neighboring forest, must naturally have his doubts of its existence until "the mists have rolled away," as he stands looking down upon the Eden in all its reality. From the inviting depths of the ravine came the note of a cuckoo, as we stood gazing beyond at the placid waters of the sea, the few sailing vessels visible, the Hirtshals lighthouse dimly seen at a ten-mile range (the air is heavier and less transparent than that of America's western plains and the higher altitudes), and the whitewashed and straw-thatched farm buildings, and small fields crowding each other for room, with here and there a bunch of humpy little hills, and a strip of golden-hued meadow reposing in their midst. On the hills are sheep staked out, in the meadows sleek and shortlegged little cows, their full udders sweeping the high grasses as they lazily move about. Denmark, as a whole, is very verdant; flowers of every species, color, and tint imaginable grow here in abundance. The floral brightness and the freshness of the country in spring and summer baffles description; on the country roadways vegetable life is only trodden down in the wheeltrack and near it on the inner side; between the horses runs a strip of matted grass studded with dandelions, and on either side of them Flora's children wave defiance and lean over the brink in tantalizing spirit to brush their feet as they pass. The soil in this part of Jutland is of a sandy nature, but even the hills unfit for cultivation are beautiful; fine rootlets so closely intertwine as to form a solid sod, a clean emerald matting, pleasant to walk or look upon. Hence, though one looks in vain for a semblance of a bluff, cliff, or mountain, the panorama set forth from an elevation charms the beholder, and makes him feel half vexed at nature for her extraordinary prodigality; yet her nim ble fingers, ever busy at her artistic work, the harmony displayed in her coloring, the charm awakened with every vagrant bree z, delights the human soul, and dulls the senses to the painful phases of life. By a well-worn path we descended into the bowels of the earth, so to speak, and promenaded leisurely about in a veritable Garden of Eden, to find that other parties of family picnickers had preceded us to this delightful haunt. Our luncheon was spread in due time, but as myriads of gnats claimed that particular spot, we were driven up the hillside again, where we ate our melma iħ peace. Afterward we took a tour into a neighboring meadow, and to the top of Kjampe-bakken (Giant-hill), in shape like a bowl bottom side up; if not a tomb of uncommon size, it probably holds ancient secrets and relics of some sort, as it is evidently not a production of nature. We returned home at half-past eight o'clock, while the sun yet dallied above the dividing line between the sky and sea in the western horizon. Hjörring lies to the extreme north of Jutland, near the base of Skagen, an uninhabitable sand-bar, a horn-shaped peninsula running far north-east, and dividing the waters of Skagerak on the left from Kattegat on the right. It is only six miles from Hjörring to the sea-beach in the west, and the temperature of the water is in summer delightful for bathing. The sea-beach to the east lies farther away; yet it may easily be imagined that, being thus located in fiftyeighth degree northern latitude, totally unsheltered from the aerial sweep of arctic waves, there are seasons in the year when bleak winds stalk over the land with a vengeance. The snow falls deep in winter, and the cold is simply Greenlandish. In historic war-time we read of armies, cavalrymen, artillery, and all the equipages for battle, crossing on the ice of the broad fjords, ever teeming with herrings, flounders, eels, crabs, lobsters, and the like. This will give some idea of Jack Frost's powers in Denmark when the days grow short-and they do grow remarkably so in winter; while in June and July there are no nights; a twilight all-sufficient for reading one's correspondence intervenes between the sinking of the sun at nine and its rise at three or thereabouts. In the early summer the midnight hour acts indeed as a promoter of superstition in the most skeptical mind. From all appearances, the sun seems trying to come up all around the horizon; the earth seems swimming in a sea of light; the white-walled farmhouses won't stay in their places: they flutter upward like birds, float in the air, and hover over the ground as if undecided whether to go or stay; while the storks, perched on chimneys or the edge of their nests over the barns, look ghost-like, and seem monsters outlined against the sky. The world seems wrapped in a pleasing sort of mystery; the air is impregnated with an unworldliness which enfolds you in its arms, a half-willing captive. N. Dagmar Mariager. COMMUNICATIONS. Aristocracy and Civil Service. EDITOR OVERLAND: One of the objections-the chief objection, the only objection-offered to the establishment in the United States of a system of civil service similar to that of Great Britain, is that it would tend to the creation of a "civil service aristocracy" and the encouragement of "insolence in office." The "American idea" looks with distrust upon the one, and surely every gentleman or lady must condemn the other. The possible relation of a term of office during good behavior to aristocratic tendencies and insolence of office is worth inquiring into. appearance, and so, in endeavoring to maintain the honor and dignity of his family name, to set a good example for others. When he fails to do so, he is no longer an aristocrat but a renegade, despised as a fool even by his lowest associates. He no longer furnishes an example, but a warning. It is, however, the "aristocrat of office" against whom the warning has been proclaimed by the opponents of a stable civil service. The aristocrat of office is one whose experience and character cause him to be retained in the public service for the common weal during his good behavior, while administrations are built up and broken down by prestidigitators with the talisman. of "political expediency." There should be no aristocrat of office who does not excel in official ability; for his tenure should be determined by his record. Ambition to excel in any field of labor or in any walk of life lence gains him the hatred of the hoodlum. Only the most uninformed person could assume-if any one does assume that there is no aristocracy in the United States to-day, or that any enlightened country or community could exist without aristocratic inclinations. We have in the United States an aristocracy of wealth, an aristocracy of is what makes the "aristocrat"; and excelintellect-literary and scientific-an aristocracy of virtue, an aristocracy of industry (which is particularly abhorred by the tramping gentry), and an almost endless variety of aristocracies composed of those persons who are ambitious of being the best and doing the best in their power. Pride of ancestry has no influence in these, nor in many other aristocracies; but there is, also, an aristocracy of birth. Yet even the hereditary or blooded aristocrat has his uses in any community; for his first duty to himself is to be honest and respectable, at least in The man who worms his way into office through "political expedients," which have for their success the prerequisite of ousting an incumbent without cause, is the man who hates "an aristocracy of office-holders." Having no ability to learn and no inclination to perform his duties, he stands in no danger of becoming an aristocrat. The "insolence of office" is a phrase which combines the cutting qualities of a dagger with the crushing effects of a sandbag. It is applied in a sweeping way |