Wonderfully vast, and strangely indistinct and dreamy, was the scene spread out on every side. To the west lay the superb Connecticut, with its fertile valley reposing in the gloom of night, while to the east, the ocean-bounded prospect, just bursting into the life of light, was faintly relieved by Winnepiseogee and Sebago lakes, and like rockets along the earth, wandered away the Merrimack, the Saco, and the Androscoggin, to their ocean home,—the whole forming an epic landscape, such as we seldom behold excepting in our dreams. Heavens! with what exquisite delight did I gaze upon the scene, as in the eyes of truth and fancy it expanded before my mind. Yonder, in one of a hundred villages, a young wife, with her first-born child at her side, was in the midst of her morning dream; and there, the pilgrim of fourscore years was lying on his couch in a fitful slumber, as the pains of age crept through his frame. There, on the Atlantic shore, the fisherman in the sheltering bay, hoisted anchor and spread his sail for the sea;—and there, the life-star of the lighthouse was extinguished, again at its stated time to appear with increased brilliancy. In reality, there was an ocean of mountains all around me, but in the dim light of the hour, and as I looked down upon them, it seemed to me that I stood in the centre of a plain, boundless as the universe; and though I could not see them, I felt that I was in a region of spirits, and that the summit of the mount was holy ground. But the morning was advancing, and the rising mists obscuring my vision, and, as I did not wish to have that day-break picture dissipated from my mind, I mounted my faithful horse, and with a solemn awe at heart descended the mountain.
The ride from the Notch House through the Notch valley, which is some twelve miles long, is perfectly magnificent. First is the Gap itself, only some twenty feet in width, and overhung with jagged rocks of wondrous height, and then the tiny spring alive with trout, which gives birth to the untamed Saco. A few more downward steps, and you are in full view of a bluff, whose storm-scathed brow seems to prop the very heavens,—its deep grey shadows strongly contrasting with the deep blue sky. A little further on, and you find yourself in an amphitheatre of mountains, whose summits and sides are perfectly barren and desolate, where the storms of a thousand years have exhausted their fury. Downward still and farther on, and you come to the memorable Wiley cottage, whose inhabitants perished in the avalanche or slide of 1826. The storm had been unceasing for some days upon the surrounding country, and the dwellers of the cottage were startled at midnight by the falling earth. They fled,—and were buried in an instant; and up to the present time, only one of the seven bodies has ever been found. As it then stood, the dwelling still stands—a monument of mysterious escape, as well as of the incomprehensible decrees of Providence. The Saco river, which runs through the valley, was lifted from its original bed, and forced into a new channel. The whole place, which but a short time before was “a beautiful and verdant opening amid the surrounding rudeness and deep shadow, is now like a stretch of desolate sea-shore after a tempest,—full of wrecks, buried in sand and rocks, crushed and ground to atoms.”
After witnessing so much of the grand and gloomy, I was glad to reach the bottom of the Notch valley, and to continue along the picturesque Saco, through a very pleasant and well cultivated country, to Conway. My last view of Mount Washington and its lordly companions was the most beautiful. The sun was near his setting, and the whole western sky was suffused with a glow of richest yellow and crimson, where hung two immense copper-colored clouds just touching the outline of the mountains; and through the hazy atmosphere the mountains themselves looked cloud-like, but with more of the bright blue of heaven upon them. In the extensive middle distance faded away wood-crowned hills, and in the foreground an exquisite little farm, with the husbandman’s happy abode almost hidden by groups of elms, and with the simple figures, only a few paces off, of a little girl sitting on a stone, with a bunch of summer flowers in her hand, and a basket of berries and a dog at her side. One more yearning gaze upon the dear old mountains, and the fountain of my affections was full, and I wept like a very child.
Well, here I am at last in Portland. At the time of starting this morning from Conway it commenced raining, and all the way here were we attended with refreshing showers. There were six passengers, and it so happened that we were acquainted with each other before we reached the mountains, and having for the most part enjoyed their scenery in company, we were in a fitting mood to be somewhat entertaining. Doctor Orville Dewy, of New York, his lady and daughter, and John Frothingham, of Montreal, and daughter, are the friends whose names will ever be associated with my recollections of the White Mountains. The Doctor’s faculty for telling a good story or cracking a joke, is well worthy of the orator and writer; and if Mr. Frothingham excels as a merchant in proportion to his entertaining manner of relating his European travels, he must indeed be a merchant prince. As to the fair ladies, I cannot pay them a better compliment than by letting
“Expressive silence muse their praise.”
Portland is a thriving city of some twenty thousand inhabitants, and commands a very fine view of the ocean. If for no other reason, it should interest the admirers of genius because it is the native place of Mrs. Seba Smith, Professor Longfellow, and John Neal. I have just received an invitation to hear some singing from the lips of one of my fellow-travellers, and as I know it will be of the rarest kind, I must conclude this rhapsody, and migrate to the parlor.
MOOSEHEAD LAKE AND THE
KENNEBECK.
Moosehead Lake is the largest and the wildest in New England. It lies in the central portion of the State of Maine, and distant from the ocean about one hundred and fifty miles. Its length is fifty miles, and its width from five to fifteen. It is embosomed among a brotherhood of mountains, whose highest peak hath been christened with the beautiful name of Katahden. All of them, from base to summit, are covered with a dense forest, in which the pine is by far the most abundant. It is the grand centre of the only wilderness region in New England, whose principal denizens are wild beasts. During the summer months, its tranquil waters remain in unbroken solitude, unless some scenery-hunting pilgrim, like myself, should happen to steal along its shores in his birchen canoe. But in the winter the case is very different, for then, all along its borders, may be heard the sound of the axe, wielded by a thousand men. Then it is that an immense quantity of logs are cut, which are manufactured into lumber at the extensive mills down the Kennebeck, which is the only outlet to the Lake.
A winter at Moosehead must be attended with much that is rare, and wild, and exciting, not only to the wealthy proprietor who has a hundred men to superintend, but even to the toiling chopper himself. Look at a single specimen of the gladdening scenes enacted in that forest world. It is an awful night, the winds wailing, the snow falling, and the forests making a moan. Before you is a spacious, but rudely built log cabin, almost covered with snow. But now, above the shriek of the storm, and the howl of the wolf, you hear a long, loud shout, from a score of human mouths. You enter the cabin, and lo, a merry band of noble men, some lying on a buffalo-robe, and some seated upon a log, while the huge fire before them reveals every feature and wrinkle of their countenances, and makes a picture of the richest coloring. Now the call is for a song, and a young man sings a song of Scotland, which is his native land; a mug of cider then goes round, after which an old pioneer clears his throat for a hunting legend of the times of old; now the cunning jest is heard, and peals of hearty laughter shake the building; and now a soul-stirring speech is delivered in favor of Henry Clay. The fireplace is again replenished, when with a happy and contented mind each woodman retires to his couch, to sleep, and to dream of his wife and children, or of the buxom damsel whom he loves.
The number of logs which these men cut in a single winter is almost incredible, and the business of conveying them to the lake upon the snow gives employment to a great many additional men and their oxen. The consequence is, that large quantities of flour, potatoes, pork, and hay, are consumed; and as these things are mostly supplied by the farmers of the Kennebeck, winter is the busiest season of the year throughout the region. When the lake is released from its icy fetters in the spring, a new feature of the logging business comes into operation, which is called rafting. A large raft contains about eighteen thousand logs, and covers a space of some ten acres. In towing them to the Kennebeck, a small steamboat is employed, which, when seen from the summit of a hill, looks like a living creature struggling with a mighty incubus. But the most picturesque thing connected with this business is a floating log-cabin, called a Raft House, which ever attends a raft on its way to the river. During the summer, as before stated, Moosehead Lake is a perfect solitude, for the “log chopper” has become a “log driver” on the Kennebeck,—the little steamer being moored in its sheltering bay, near the tavern at the south end of the lake, and the toiling oxen been permitted to enjoy their summer sabbath on the farm of their master.