the intrusion of white rock in the face of the cliff. This accident gives it the name of White-horse Ledge. All marriageable ladies, maiden or widow, run out to look at it, in consequence of the superstition, current in New England, that if after seeing a white horse you count a hundred, the first gentleman you meet will be your future husband. Underneath this cliff a charming little lake lies hid. The next is called the Cathedral Ledge, from the curious rock cavity it contains. But now from these masses of hard rock let us turn once more to the valley where the rich intervales spread an exhaustless feast for the eye. If autumn be the season, the vase-like elms, the stacks of yellow corn, the golden pumpkins, the cloth of green and gold, damasked with purple gorse and coppice, give the idea of an immense table groaning beneath its luxurious weight of fruit and flowers. Our first visit will naturally be to the ledges. I will not ask the reader to wade the river, as I once did, but taking one of the light mountain wagons in vogue here, we pass it by a bridge, hearing the Saco resounding below in its bed of pebbles, and catching, up and down its tumultuous course, the loveliest vistas imaginable through the frame-work of elmtrees. As we approach nearer, the ledges are full of grim recesses, rude rock niches, and traversed by perpendicular cracks from brow to base. Take care! there is a huge piece of the cliff just ready to fall. some places the rock is sheer and smooth; in others it is broken regularly down for half its whole height to where it is joined by rude buttresses of massive granite. The maples climb up the steepest ravines, but can not pass the waste of sheer rock stretching between them and the firs, which look down from the brink of the precipice. The prevailing color is a rusted purple, marked with scattered blotches of white like the drip oozing from limestone. Hovering under the precipices which lie heavily shadowed on its glossy surface are gathered the waters flowing from the little rills, the rivulets, the cascades leaping from the airy heights above. The tremendous shadow which the cliff flings down seems lying deep in the bosom of the lake, as if perpetually imprinted there. Slender birches, green and gold leafage, are daintily etched upon the surface, like arabesques on polished steel. The water is perfectly transparent and without a ripple. Indeed, the breezes playing around the summit, or humming in the tree-tops, seem forbidden to enter this haunt of Dryads. The lake laps the yellow strand with a light, fluttering movement. The place is dedicated to silence itself. A small cannon is loaded and fired to destroy our illusion. The echo comes sharp and angry. The after-effect is like knocking at half a dozen doors at once. And the silence which follows seems all the deeper. Following a woodland path, skirting the base of the cliffs, we stand at the enIn trance to the Devil's Den, formed by a huge piece of the cliff falling upon other detached fragments in such a way as to leave an aperture large enough to admit fifty | trunks the resemblance to a chancel. persons at once. A ponderous mass divides the cavern into two chambers, one of which is light, airy, and spacious, the other dark, gloomy, and contracted-a mere hole. This might well have been the lair of the bears or panthers which formerly roamed the woods unmolested. The Cathedral is a recess higher up in the same cliff, hollowed out by the cleaving off of the lower rock, leaving the upper portion of the precipice overhanging. The top of the roof is as high as a tall tree. Some maples that have grown here since the outer portion of the rock fell, assist with their straight-limbed, columnar A little way off, this cavity has really the appearance of a gigantic shell, like those fossils seen imbedded in subterranean rocks. We must not miss here the delicious glimpses of Kearsarge, and of the mountains across the valley. The shadows fall here early in the afternoon, filling the groves with coolness, while through the fringe of foliage sunlight still brightens all that side, as if the light had been turned off here to give greater effect there. Still farther on, we come upon a fine cascade falling down a long irregular staircase of broken rock. One of these steps extends, a solid mass of granite, for more than a hundred feet across the bed of the stream, and is twenty feet high. Unless the brook is full, it is not a single sheet we see, but twenty, fifty crystal streams gushing or spirting from the grooves they have channelled in the hard granite, and falling into basins they have hollowed out beneath. It is these curious stone cavities, out of which the freshest and cleanest water constantly flows, that give to the cascade the name of Diana's Baths. The water never dashes itself noisily down, but slips like oil from the rocks, with a pleasant, purling sound we know not how to describe. This is quite enough for one day. We therefore reserve for another our visit to Artists' Falls, and our ramble in the Cathedral Woods among the fragrant pines. The falls are on Artists' Brook, which comes from the Green Hills, on the east side of the village. I found the walks along this brook, following its picturesque windings, more remunerative than the falls themselves. The brook, flowing first over a smooth granite ledge, collects in a little pool below, out of which the pure water filters through bowlders and among glittering pebbles, to a gorge between two rocks, down which it plunges. The beauty of this fall consists in its waywardness. Now it is a thin sheet flowing demurely along, now it breaks out in a succession of cascades, and at length, as if tired of this sport, darts like an arrow down the rocky fissure, and is a mountain brook again. The ascent of Kearsarge or of Moat fittingly crowns the series of excursions which are the most attractive feature of out-of-door life at North Conway. The northern peak of Moat is the one most frequently climbed, but the southern affords equally admirable views of the Saco, the Ellis, and the Swift river valleys, with the mountain chains inclosing them. The high ridge is an arid and desolate heap of summits, stripped bare of vegetation by fire. When this fire occurred, twenty odd years ago, it drove the bears and rattlesnakes from their forest homes, so that they fell an easy prey to their destroyers. We can not stop to describe the view, but content ourselves with saying that all the great summits are finely visible, in a clear day, from the massive and firmly crested Moats. For a wide region they divide with Chocorua the honors of the landscape. In the winter of 1876, finding myself at North Conway, I determined to make the ascent of Kearsarge. Ordinarily this is only fatiguing. The mountain has an elevation of only 3250 feet above the sea, but its position is a most commanding one, with reference to all the summits lying east of the great chain. This, with the extraordinary purity of the air at this season, was my sole inducement. The mercury stood at three degrees below zero when I set out on foot from the village. After a laborious upward march through snow, I emerged from the woods to find the bare ledges sheeted in ice, over which you might go as you pleased, but certainly not in an erect posture. I therefore approached the summit like a pious Moslem the tomb of the Prophet-on my knees, and shedding tears. But at last I did reach it; and standing in the midst of a most exquisite garden of frost-work, surrounded by a death-like silence, confronted by a vast expanse, below, all dead white, above, all steely-hard blue, felt stirred as never before on a mountain-top, and triumphed in the thought of having thus stolen a march upon the mountain. But this triumph was short-lived. It was necessary to descend, as I had quite forgotten, so fully absorbed was I in the surpassing extent of this glorious winter landscape. I therefore prepared to descend, for the cold was intense, the wind cut to the bone. I say prepared to descend, for the thing at once so easily said, yet so difficult of performance, presented a really perplexing problem to be solved. But it must be solved. Go down I must. But how? Inspired by the crisis, I suddenly recollected that Bourrienne relates in his memoirs how Bonaparte was forced to slide down the Great St. Bernard seated, while making his famous passage of the Alps. Yes, the great Bonaparte advanced to the conquest of Italy in this undignified posture. But never did great example find more unworthy imitator. Seating myself as the Little Corporal had done, using my stick for a rudder, and steering for protruding rocks, in order to check the force of the descent, I slid down the peak with a celerity the very recollection of which makes my head swim, arriving safely at the snow patch, but breathless, much astonished, and white as a miller. But we must leave the village, with all its enticements, behind us-enticements ains, arrested in their advance by the command, "Thus far, and no farther." The vale regards the stormy summits around in perfect security. It rests you to look at it. Again we scan the great peaks which on clear days come boldly down and stand at your very doors, but on hazy ones remove to a vast distance, and keep vaguely aloof day in and day out. They are by turns graciously condescending, or tantalizingly incomprehensible. Nevertheless, we enjoy this constant espionage from a distance, this exchange of preliminary civilities, before invading the heart of the mountains. But we can no longer delay our departure for the Notch. The locomotive takes us as far as Bartlett, which indicates the limit of progress in this direction. Near Glen Station is the remarkable Bartlett Bowlder. While on its travels through the mountains it was left, poised upon four smaller stones, in the position seen in the illustration. All who can should pass over the remaining thirteen or fourteen miles on foot. Thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the mountains, the traveller now regards distances with indifference, fatigue with disdain. He learns to make his toilet by the running stream, and his bed in groves. Truly the brown face that peers at him as he bends over some pine-bowered pool is not that he has been accustomed to seeing; but having solved the problem of man's true existence, having returned like the Prodigal Son to creative nature, he only laughs at his tawny countenance while shouldering his pack and tightening his belt. At Bartlett we enter an ellipse of fertile land inclosed by mountain walls, through which a river murmurs unseen. Kearsarge looks up and Carrigain looks down the valley. One gives his adieu, the other his welcome. One is the perfection of symmetry, of grace; the other simply demands our homage. These two mountains are the presiding genii of this charming nook. Step out into the village street, and take the road with me on a crisp October morning, sharp air and cutting wind acting like whip and spur. Only, for the moment, I must be the narrator. I retain a vivid recollection of this morning. Soft as three-piled velvet, the green turf left no trace of our quick tread. The sky was of a dazzling blue, and frescoed with light clouds, transparent as gauze, pure as the snow glistening on the high summits. On both sides of us audacious mountains braced their feet in the valley, while others mounted over their brawny shoulders as if to scale the heavens. |