demanded his bride. The alliance was too honorable to permit an abrupt refusal. Smothering his wrath, the father assembled his braves. The matter was debated in solemn council. It was determined that the rivals should settle their dispute by a trial of skill, the winner to carry off the beautiful prize. A mark was set up, the ground carefully measured, and the two warriors took their respective places in the midst of the assembled tribe. The heart of the Indian maiden beat with hope when her lover sent his arrow quivering in the edge of the target; but it sunk when his rival, stepping scornfully to his place, shot within the very centre. A shout of triumph rewarded the skill of the victor; but before it died away the defeated warrior strode to the spot where his mistress was seated and spoke a few hurried words, intended for her ear alone. The girl sprung to her feet and grasped her lover’s hand. In another moment they were running swiftly for the woods. They were hotly pursued. It became a matter of life and death. Perceiving escape impossible, rendered desperate by the near approach of their pursuers, the fugitives, still holding fast each other’s hand, rushed to the verge of the cataract and flung themselves headlong into its deadly embrace.
Over the pool the gray and gloomy wall of Wildcat Mountain seems stretching up to an incredible height. The astonishing wildness of the surroundings affects one very deeply. You look up. You see the firs surmounting those tall cliffs sway to and fro, as if growing dizzy with the sight of the abyss beneath them.
The Ellis Cascade is not so light as those mountain sylphs in the great Notch, which a zephyr lifts from their feet, and scatters far and wide; it is a vestal hotly pursued by impish goblins to the brink of the precipice, transformed into a water-fall. For an instant the iron grip of the cliff seems clutching its snowy throat, but with a mocking courtesy the fair stream eludes the grasp, and so escapes.
While returning from Glen Ellis, I saw, not more than a quarter of a mile from this fall, a beautiful cascade come streaming down a long trough of granite from a great height, and disappear behind the tree-tops that skirt the narrow gorge. I had never before seen this cascade, it being usually dry in summer. The sight of glancing water among the shaggy upper forests of the mountain—for you hear nothing—is a real pleasure to the eye. The rock down which this cascade flows is New River Cliff.
Before leaving the Ellis, which I did regretfully, it is proper to recall an incident which gave rise to one of its affluents. In 1775, says Sullivan, in his “History of Maine,” the Saco was found to swell suddenly, and in a singular manner. As there had not been rain sufficient to account for this increase of volume, people were at a loss how to explain the phenomenon, until it was finally discovered to be occasioned by a new river having broken out of the side of the White Mountains.
When this river issued from the mountains, in October, 1775, a mixture of iron-ore gave the water a deep red color, and this singular, and to them most startling, appearance led the people inhabiting the upper banks of the Saco to declare that the river ran blood—a circumstance which these simple-minded folk regarded as of evil omen for the success of their arms in the struggle then going on between the Colonies and Great Britain. Except for illustrating a marked characteristic the incident would possess little importance. Considerable doubt exists as to the precise course of this New River, by which it is conjectured that the ascents of Cutler, Boott, Bigelow, and perhaps others, early in this century, were made to the summit of Mount Washington. But this is merely conjecture.[20]
After Glen Ellis one has had enough, for the day at least, of waterfalls and cascade. Its excitement is strangely infectious and exhilarating. At the same time, it casts a sweet and gentle spell over the spirits. If he be wise, the visitor will not exhaust in a single tour of the sun the pleasures yet in store, but, after a fall, try a ravine or a mountain ascent, thus introducing that variety which is the spice of all our pleasures.
V.
A SCRAMBLE IN TUCKERMAN’S.
The crag leaps down, and over it the flood:
Know’st thou it, then?
‘Tis there! ‘tis there
Our way runs.... Wilt thou go?—Goethe.
AT the mountains the first look of every one is directed to the heavens, not in silent adoration or holy meditation, but in earnest scrutiny of the weather. For here the weather governs with absolute sway; and nowhere is it more capricious. Morning and evening skies are, therefore, consulted with an interest the varied destinies of the day may be supposed to suggest. From being a merely conventional topic, the weather becomes one of the first importance, and such salutations as “A fine day,” or “A nice morning,” are in less danger of being coupled with a wet day or a scowling forenoon. To sum up the whole question, where life in the open air is the common aim of all, a rainy day is a day lost, and everybody knows that a lost day can never be recovered. Sun worship is, therefore, universal.