The lands here were not so rich as the
wide acres thirty miles or more below, where on the fat bottom
soil, black and deep, the negroes raised in abundance the
wealth-making crop of the country. On the contrary, this, although
it was the capital of the vast Dunwody holdings thereabout, was
chosen not for its agricultural richness so much as for its
healthfulness and natural beauty.
In regard to these matters, the site could not better have been
selected. The valley, some three or four miles across, lay like a
deep saucer pressed down into the crest of the last rise of the
Ozarks. The sides of the depression were as regular as though
created by the hands of man. Into its upper extremity there ran a
little stream of clear and unfailing water, which made its entrance
at an angle, so that the rim of the hills seemed scarcely nicked by
its ingress. This stream crossed the floor of the valley, serving
to water the farms, and, making its way out of the lower end by a
similar curious angle, broke off sharply and hid itself among the
rocks on its way out and down from the mountains--last trace of a
giant geology which once dealt in continental terms, rivers once
seas, valleys a thousand miles in length.
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