In proportion as I descended, the mountain ridge below regained, little by little, its actual character. Except where patches of snow mottled it with white, it displayed one uniform and universal tinge of faded orange where the soft sunshine fell full upon it, toned into rusty brown when overshadowed, gradually deepening to an intense blue-black in the ravines. But so insignificant did the summits look, when far below, that I hardly recognized them for the same I had seen from Fabyan’s and had traversed from Crawford’s. Monroe, the nearest, has, however, a most striking resemblance to an enormous petrified wave on the eve of dashing itself down into the valley. The lower you descend the stronger this impression becomes; but from the summit of Mount Washington this peak is so belittled that the mountains seemed saying to each other, “Good-morning, Mole-hill!” “Good-morning, Big Bully!”
When I reached the stone-corral, the ground, if ground it can be called, descended less abruptly, over successive stony terraces, to a comparative level, haired over with a coarse, wiry, and tangled grass, strewed with bowlders, and inundated along its upper margin by torrents of stones. Upon closer inspection these stones arranged themselves in irregular semicircular ridges. In the eyes of the botanist and entomologist this seemingly arid region is more attractive than the most beautiful gardens of the valley. Among these grasses and these stones lie hid the beautiful Alpine flowers of which no species exist in the lowlands. Only the arbutus, which puts forth its pink-and-white flowers earliest of all, and is warmed into life by the snows, at all resembles them in its habits. Over this grassy plain the wind swept continually and roughly; but on putting the grass aside with the hand, the tiny blossoms greet you with a smile of bewitching sweetness.
These areas, extending between and sometimes surrounding the high peaks, or even approaching their summits, are the “lawns” of the botanist, and his most interesting field of research. Within its scope about fifty species of strictly Alpine plants vegetate. As we ascend the mountain, after the dwarf trees come the Lapland rhododendron, Labrador tea, dwarf birch, and Alpine willows, which, in turn, give place to the Greenland sandwort, diapensia, cassiope, and other plants, with arctic rushes, sedges, and lichens, which flourish on the very summit.
To the left, this plain, on which the grass mournfully rustled, sloped gently for, I should guess, half a mile, and then rolled heavily off, over a grass-grown rim, into Tuckerman’s Ravine. In this direction the Carter Mountains appeared. Beyond, stretching away out of the plain, extended the long Boott’s Spur, over which the Davis path formerly ascended from the valley of the Saco, but which is now, from long disuse, traced with difficulty. Between this headland and Monroe opened the valley of Mount Washington River, the old Dry River of the carbuncle hunters, which the eye followed to its junction with the Saco, beyond which the precipices of Frankenstein glistened in the sun, like a corselet of steel. Oakes’s Gulf cuts deeply into the head of the gorge. The plain, the ravine, the spur, and the gulf transmit the names of those indefatigable botanists, Bigelow, Tuckerman, Boott, and Oakes.
On the other side of the ridge—for of course this plain has its ridge—the ground was more broken in its rapid descent toward the Ammonoosuc Valley, into which I looked over the right shoulder of Monroe.
But what a sight for the rock-wearied eye was the little Lake of the Clouds, cuddled close to the hairy breast of this mountain! On the instant the prevailing gloom was lighted as if by magic by this dainty nursling of the clouds, which seemed innocently smiling in the face of the hideous mountain. And the stooping monster seemed to regard the little waif, lying there in its rocky cradle, with astonishment, and to forego his first impulse to strangle it where it lay. Lion and lamb were lying down together.
Casting an eye upward, and finding the houses on the summit were hidden by the retreating curvature of the cone, I saw, with chagrin, light mists scudding over my head. It was a notice to hasten my movements idle to disregard here. Crossing as rapidly as possible Bigelow’s Lawn—the half-mile of grass ground referred to, where I sunk ankle-deep in moss, or stumbled twenty times in as many rods over concealed stones—I skirted the head of the chasm for some distance. But from above the ravine does not make a startling impression. I, however, discovered, lodged underneath its walls, a bank of snow. All around I heard water gurgling under my feet in rock-worn channels while making its way tranquilly to the brow of the ravine. These little underground runlets are the same that glide over the head-wall, and are the head tributaries of the Ellis.[29]
Retracing my way to the ridge and to the path, which I followed for some distance, startling the silence with an occasional halloo, I descended into the hollow, where the Lake of the Clouds seems to have checked itself, white and still, on the very edge of the tremendous gully, cut deep into the western slopes. The lake is the fountain-head of the Ammonoosuc. Its waters are too cold to nourish any species of fishes; they are too elevated for any of the feathered tribe to pay it a visit.
Strange spectacle! A fairy haunt, rock-rimmed and fringed about with Alpine shrubs, half-disclosing, half-concealing its bare bosom, coyly reposed on this wind-swept ridge, like “a good deed in a naughty world.” From its crystal basin a tiny rill trickled through soft moss to the dizzy verge beyond, where, like some airy sprite, clothed with the rainbow and tossing its white tresses to the sport of the breeze, it tripped gayly over the grisly precipice and fell in a silvery shower from height to height. Where it passed, flowers, ferns, and rich herbage sprung forth upon the hard face of the granite. Tapering fir-trees exhaled a dewy freshness; aspens quivered with the delight of its coming, and aged trees, tottering, decrepit, piteous to see, stretched their withered limbs toward heaven. On it went, and still on, leaving its white robe clinging to the mountain side. All the forest seemed crowding forward to catch it; but, now reverently kissing the feet of the old trees, now saucily flinging a handful of crystal in the faces of scowling cliffs, it eluded the embrace of the forest, which thrilled with its musical laughter from lowest deeps to the summit of high-rocking pines. When it was no longer visible a sonorous murmur heralded its triumphal progress. No wonder the bewildered eye roved from bleak summit to voluptuous vale; from the handful of drops above to the brimming river below. The miracle of Horeb was being repeated hour by hour, like an affair of every-day life.