A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf by John Muir

I had climbed but a short distance when I was overtaken by a young man on horse-back, who soon showed that he intended to rob me if he should find the job worth while. After he had inquired where I came from, and where I was going, he offered to carry my bag. I told him that it was so light that I did not feel it at all a burden; but he insisted and coaxed until I allowed him to carry it. As soon as he had gained possession I noticed that he gradually increased his speed, evidently trying to get far enough ahead of me to examine the contents without being observed. But I was too good a walker and runner for him to get far. At a turn of the road, after trotting his horse for about half an hour, and when he thought he was out of sight, I caught him rummaging my poor bag. Finding there only a comb, brush, towel, soap, a change of underclothing, a copy of Burns's poems, Milton's Paradise Lost, and a small New Testament, he waited for me, handed back my bag, and returned down the hill, saying that he had forgotten something.

I found splendid growths of shining-leaved _Ericacee_ (heathworts) for which the Alleghany Mountains are noted. Also ferns of which _Osmunda cinnamomea_ [Cinnamon Fern] is the largest and perhaps the most abundant. _Osmunda regalis_ [Flowering Fern] is also common here, but not large. In Wood's[1] and Gray's Botany _Osmunda cinnamomea_ is said to be a much larger fern than _Osmunda claytoniana_. This I found to be true in Tennessee and southward, but in Indiana, part of Illinois, and Wisconsin the opposite is true. Found here the beautiful, sensitive _Schrankia_, or sensitive brier. It is a long, prickly, leguminous vine, with dense heads of small, yellow fragrant flowers.