The mountains here are like those of Carolina, but far grander and bolder; here the sky is more amply extended.

There, the slopes are clad with rhododendrons and azaleas, with the flowering shrub, with strawberries gleaming amid grass; here we have rhododendrons also, in clusters that scent the air with the odor of cloves, and display sheets of pink and purple bloom; here we have magnificent tree-ferns, with trunks that rise twenty feet into the air and unroll from their summits fronds ten feet in length; fifty kinds of delicate terrestrial ferns display themselves in a single morning ride; here are palms with graceful foliage; here are orchids stretching forth sprays--three or four feet long--toward the hand for plucking; here are pine-trees covering slopes with fragrant fallen needles.

A striking feature is the different flora on the different slopes of a single ridge.

Here, too, are bubbling springs, purling brooks, dashing cascades, the equals of any in the world.

And hither the tourist, with his destroying touch, will never come.
We had thought to find our wild Mixes living in miserable huts among the rocks, dressed in scanty native garb, leading half wild lives.