[7] This house stood just within the entrance to the Notch, from the north, or Fabyan side. It was for some time kept by Thomas J., one of the famous Crawfords. Travellers who are a good deal puzzled by the frequent recurrence of the name “Crawford’s” will recollect that the present hotel is now the only one in this valley bearing the name.
[8] A portion of the slide touching the house, even moved it a little from its foundations before being stopped by the resistance it opposed to the progress of the débris.
[9] I have since passed over the same route without finding those sensations to which our inexperience, and the tempest which surrounded us, rendered us peculiarly liable. In reality, the ridge connecting Mount Pleasant with Mount Franklin is passed without hesitation, in good weather, by the most timid; but when a rod of the way cannot be seen the case is different, and caution necessary. The view of this natural bridge from the summit of Mount Franklin is one of the imposing sights of the day’s march.
[10] The remains of this ill-fated climber have since been found at the foot of the pinnacle. See chapter on Mount Washington.
[11] This analogy of belief may be carried farther still, to the populations of Asia, which surround the great “Abode of Snow”—the Himalayas. It would be interesting to see in this similarity of religious worship a link between the Asiatic, the primitive man, and the American—the most recent, and the most unfortunate. Our province is simply to recount a fact to which the brothers Schlaginweit (“Exploration de la Haute Asie”) bear witness:
“It is in spite of himself, under the enticement of a great reward, that the superstitious Hindoo decides to accompany the traveller into the mountains, which he dreads less for the unknown dangers of the ascent than for the sacrilege he believes he is committing in approaching the holy asylum, the inviolable sanctuary of the gods he reveres; his trouble becomes extreme when he sees in the peak to be climbed not the mountain, but the god whose name it bears. Henceforth it is by sacrifice and prayer alone that he may appease the profoundly offended deity.”
[12] Sullivan: “History of Maine.”
[13] Field’s second ascension (July, 1642) was followed in the same year by that of Vines and Gorges, two magistrates of Sir F. Gorges’s province of Maine, within which the mountains were believed to lie. Their visit contributed little to the knowledge of the region, as they erroneously reported the high plateau of the great chain to be the source of the Kennebec, as well as of the Androscoggin and Connecticut rivers.
[14] It also occurs, reduced to Agiochook, in the ballad, of unknown origin, on the death of Captain Lovewell. One of these was, doubtless, the authority of Belknap. Touching the signification of Agiochook, it is the opinion of Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull that the word which Captain Gyles imperfectly translated from sound into English syllables is Algonquin for “at the mountains on that side,” or “over yonder.” “As to the generally received interpretations of Agiockochook, such as ‘the abode of the Great Spirit,’ ‘the place of the Spirit of the Great Forest,’ or, as one writer prefers, ‘the place of the Storm Spirit,’” says Dr. Trumbull, “it is enough to say that no element of any Algonkin word meaning ‘great,’ ‘spirit,’ ‘forest,’ ‘storm,’ or ‘abode,’ or combining the meaning of any two of these words, occurs in ‘Agiockochook.’ The only Indian name for the White Hills that bears internal evidence of genuineness is one given on the authority of President Alden, as used ‘by one of the eastern tribes,’ that is, Waumbekketmethna, which easily resolves itself into the Kennebec-Abnaki waubeghiket-amadinar, ‘white greatest mountain.’ It is very probable, however, that this synthesis is a mere translation, by an Indian, of the English ‘White Mountains.’ I have never, myself, succeeded in obtaining this name from the modern Abnakis.”
[15] Here is what Douglass says in his “Summary” (1748-’53): “The White Hills, or rather mountains, inland about seventy miles north from the mouth of Piscataqua Harbor, about seven miles west by north from the head of the Pigwoket branch of Saco River; they are called white not from their being continually covered with snow, but because they are bald atop, producing no trees or brush, and covered with a whitish stone or shingle: these hills may be observed at a great distance, and are a considerable guide or direction to the Indians in travelling that country.”