Northern or Western States, and seem to have remained in much the same condition as when these mountains were first settled more than a century ago. The more energetic no doubt have emigrated or gone to the towns, and those who remain do not encourage strangers to settle amongst them. I was told that they will not allow negroes to come into many parts of the mountains, and have established a boundary over which no nigger dares to set his foot on pain of being shot.
About midday, after a long ascent through virgin forest over a very rough and bad road, we reached some open meadows where I caught, amongst other butterflies, a Clouded Yellow, Colias chrysotheme, which though very common in the Western and Southern States, I had not expected to find here. We came to a log house where my driver said we could get dinner, and an old man with bare feet, who was in the house, invited me to sit down in the porch and wash my hands at the pump. After a little while his son, also bare-footed and with a great half-healed scar on his forehead, came home and sat down by me without a word. The driver afterwards told me that he was the only survivor of three brothers, the others having been killed in a family feud which still went on, and of which the scar was the latest evidence. At intervals three little boys rode up on horses which they hitched to a rail; they washed their hands and sat down to wait for dinner. At last a tall gaunt woman came out and guessed that the stranger looked hungry; which he was. We all went in and sat down before a bare wooden table, on which was a great wooden dish of boiled pork and another of Indian corn mush; a pitcher of milk and another of water, and a jar of molasses, completed the menu. We all helped ourselves with our own spoons, and fell to with a good appetite. The rather suspicious reception which I had received was gradually changed as they learned that I was a Britisher, and when they discovered that I was also a "bug-sharp" which in American means an entomologist, they realised that I was perfectly harmless. The old man tried hard to sell me a mica mine which he owned, and the produce of which was being cut into square sheets for sale by the women of the house. He informed me that the three boys were his grandsons, and, as their father had been killed in the feud, he had got them appointed mail carriers at fifteen dollars a month each. I asked if there were many letters to carry; he said very few, but hinted that as a prominent politician in the county his influence was sufficient to get over that fact. When, however, he discovered that I was interested in “sang/ 5 which is the local name for the valuable root ginseng—which used to be largely ex¬ ported from this country to China, where it is sold to adulterate or as a substitute for the more valuable Korean ginseng—he became more com¬ municative, and told me how when he was young he could make five dollars a day by collecting sang in the forest; now it was nearly all gone and, owing to its being cultivated in Pennsylvania, or for some other reason, the price was lower too. I asked him why they did not grow it here too; he said it took five or six years to produce a good-sized root from seed, and that unless you sat over it with a shot-gun you would not get much for yourself. There are still many other medicinal plants whose leaves, roots and stems are collected and dried for sale on a large
