Heaven forbid that I should profane such a scene with the dry recital of this view or that! I did not even think of it. A study of one of Nature’s most capricious moods interested me far more than a study of topography. How should I know that what I saw were mountains, when the earth itself was not clearly distinguishable? Alone, surrounded by all these delusions, I had, indeed, a support for my feet, but none whatever for the bewildered senses.
I found the mountain-top untenanted except by horse-flies, black gnats, and active little black spiders. These swarmed upon the rocks. I also found buttercups, the mountain-cranberry, and a heath, bearing a little white flower, blossoming near the summit. There were the four walls of a ruined building, a cairn, and a signal-staff to show that some one had been before me. This staff is 5259 feet above the ocean, or 3245 feet above the summit of the Franconia Pass.
The ascent required about three, and the descent about two hours. The distance is not much less than four miles; but, these miles being a nearly uninterrupted climb from the base to the summit of the mountain, haste is out of the question, if going up, and imprudent, if coming down. There are no breakneck or dangerous places on the route; nor any where the traveller is liable to lose his way, even in a fog, except on the first summit, where the new and old paths meet, and where a guide-board should be erected.
IV.
FRANCONIA, AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
Believe if thou wilt that mountains change their places, but believe not that men change their dispositions.—Oriental Proverb.
ALTHOUGH one may make the journey from the Profile House to Bethlehem with greater ease and rapidity by the railway recently constructed along the side of the Franconia range, preference will unquestionably be given to the old way by all who would not lose some of the most striking views the neighborhood affords. Beginning near the hotel, the railway skirts the shore of Echo Lake, and then plunges into a forest it was the first to invade. By a descent of one hundred feet to the mile, for nine and a half miles, it reaches the Ammonoosuc at Bethlehem station. I have nothing to say against the locomotive, but then I should not like to go through the gallery of the Louvre behind one.
From Echo Lake the high-road to Franconia, Littleton, and Bethlehem winds down the steep mountain side into the valley of Gale River. To the left, in the middle distance, appear the little church-tower and white buildings constituting the village of Franconia Iron Works. This village is charmingly placed for effectively commanding a survey of the amphitheatre of mountains which isolates it from the neighboring towns and settlements.
As we come down the three-mile descent, from the summit of the pass to the level of the deep valley, and to the northern base of the notch-mountains, an eminence rises to the left. Half-way up, occupying a well-chosen site, there is a hotel, and on the high ridge another commands not only this valley, but also those lying to the west of it. On the opposite side to us rise the green heights of Bethlehem, Mount Agassiz being conspicuous by the observatory on its summit. Those farm-houses dotting the hill-side show how the road crooks and turns to get to the top. Following these heights westward, a deep rift indicates the course of the stream dividing the valley, and of the highway to Littleton. Between these walls the long ellipse of fertile land beckons us to descend.
I am always most partial to those grassy lanes and by-ways going no one knows where, especially if they have well-sweeps and elm-trees in them; but here also is the old red farm-house, with its antiquated sweep, its colony of arching elms, its wild-rose clustering above the porch, its embodiment of those magical words, “Home, sweet home.” It fits the rugged landscape as no other habitation can. It fits it to a T, as we say in New England. More than this, it unites us with another and different generation. What a story of toil, privation, endurance these old walls could tell! How genuine the surprise with which they look down upon the more modern houses of the village! Here, too, is the Virginia fence, on which the king of the barn-yard defiantly perches. There is the field behind it, and the men scattering seed in the fallow earth. Yonder, in the mowing-ground, a laborer is sharpening his scythe, the steel ringing musically under the quick strokes of his “rifle.”