Respecting the appearance of Mount Washington from the Glen House itself, it is a received truth that neither the height nor the proportions of a high mountain are properly appreciated when the spectator is placed exactly at the base. The same is true here of Mount Washington, which is too much foreshortened for a favorable estimate of its grandeur or its elevation. The dome looks flat, elongated, obese. But it is only a step to more eligible posts of observation in the immediate vicinity.

Still, Mount Washington is surveyed with more astonishment, perhaps, from this point than from any other. The lower zone is covered with a dense forest, out of which rise the successive and stupendous undulations, culminating at last in the absolutely barren summit, which the nearer swells almost conceal. The true peak stands well to the left, indicated by a white building when the sun is shining, and a dark one when it is not. Seen from this spot, the peculiar conformation of the mountain gives the impression strongly of a semi-fluid mass, first cooled to hardness, then receiving successive additions, which, although eternally united with its bulk, have left the point of contact visible forever. When the first mass cooled, it received a second, afterward a third, and then a fourth. One believes certain intervals to have elapsed in the process of solidifying these masses, which seem, to me at least, not risen out of the earth, but poured down upon it.

It is related that an Englishman, seated on the balcony of his hotel at Chamouni, after having conscientiously followed the peripatetics of a sunset, remarked, "Very fine, very fine indeed! but it is a pity Mont Blanc hides the view." In this sense Mount Washington hides the view to the west. No peak dares show his head in this direction.

But we are still a long way from comprehending what is before us until we look down the valley, open throughout nearly its whole length, and fully expos

northern peaks, here bending majestically round to the northeast, exhibiting their titanic props, deep hollows, soaring peaks, to the admiring scrutiny of every wayfarer. It is impossible to appreciate this view all at once. No one can pretend to analyze the sensations produced by looking at high mountains. The bare thought of them creates a flutter of enthusiasm wherever we may be. At such moments one lays down the pen to revel in the recollection.

Go with me now up to the summit of the Pinkham Pass in order to gain some knowledge, not so much of what it shows as of what it hides from the traveller.

The four miles of highway back through the Pinkham forest deserve to be called the Avenue of Cascades. Not less than four drop from the mountain-tops or leap down the confined gorges. Two miles from the hotel we meet a sprightly and vigorous brook coming down from Wildcat Mountain to swell the Peabody. A short walk up this stream brings us to Thompson's Falls, which are several pretty cascades slipping down a bed of granite. The ledges over which they glide afford a practicable road to the top of the falls, from which is a most full and interesting view of Tuckerman's Ravine and of the summit of Mount Washington.

Near these falls a well-trod path leads from the road to the Emerald Pool, which Bierstadt's painting has rendered famous. At first one sees only a deep hollow, with a glassy pool at the bottom, and a cool light coming down through the high tree-tops. Two large rocks tightly compress the stream which fills it, so that the water gushes out with sufficient force to whiten a little without disturbing the placid repose of the still basin. This gives the effect of milk poured upon ink. Above these rocks we look up the stony bed of the frantic stream, and meet the humid blue of a distant mountain. Large rocks are picturesquely posed about the margin. Upon one side a birch leans out over the pool, which reflects brilliantly from its polished surface the white light of the satin bark. One sees the print of foliage on this black water like that of ferns and grasses upon coal, or rather like the most beautiful Italian mosaics-black marble inlaid with arabesques of color.

Just beyond here-for we are now back in the road, and keenly alert lest some

thing may escape uscomes that remarkable view of Tuckerman's Ravine, which is the chief glory of the walk thus far. From this spot the summit is also finely visible. At the third mile a guide-board announces the Crystal Cascade and the way into the ravine. We do not turn aside here, for Glen Ellis is our present destination. We now cross the summit of the pass.

The road is gloomy enough, edging its way always through a dense wood around a spur of Mount Washington, which it closely hugs. A signboard now

TO TUCKERMAN'S RAVINE.

where to leave the high

way, but the noise of the
fall coming clearer and
clearer is an even surer

guide. The sense of seclusion is perfect. Stately pines, funereal cedars, sombre hemlocks, throng the banks, as if come to refresh themselves with the fine spray ascending from the cataract. This spray sparkles in the sun like dia

mond-dust. Through the thickset, cleanlimbed tree trunks jets of foam can be seen in mad riot along the rocky gorge. Backward up the stream, downward beyond the fall, we see the same tumult of waters in the midst of this statuesque immobility; we hear the roar of the fall echoing in the tops of the pines; we feel the dull earth throb with the superabundant energy of the wild river.

giant trees, fallen from sheer old age, or uprooted by storms while still in the prime of a vigorous growth. These exasperating windfalls, and their thick abatis of branches, forced us alternately to go down on our hands and knees, creeping underneath, and to mount and dismount, like recruits on the wooden horse of a cavalry school.

On its upper edge the curling sheet of the fall was shot with sunlight, and shone with enchanting brilliancy. All below was one white feathery mass, gliding down with the swift and noiseless movement of an avalanche of fresh snow. No sound until the moment of contact with the submerged rocks beneath; then it finds a voice that shakes the hoary forest to its centre. How this exquisite white thing fascinates! One has almost to tear himself from the spot. From the tender dalliance of a sunbeam with the glittering mists constantly ascending is born a pale Iris. Exquisitely its floating scarf of green, crimson, and gold decorates the virgin drapery of the fall.

Our plan includes a trip in and out of Tuckerman's Ravine: in by the old Thompson Path, out by the Crystal Cascade.

Before the Mountain Club smoothed the way this was no holiday promenade, but a rude encounter with nature in arms. One day myself and a companion, a veteran of many hard-fought fields among mountains, resolved, if the thing were possible, to force our way into the ravine. For two miles our plain way led up the summit road, but at this point we turned aside and plunged into the forest.

I recall no mountain path that is so richly diversified with all the wildest forms of mountain beauty. At first our progress through primitive groves of pine, hemlock, and birch was not seriously impeded, but we advanced to find the way continually and effectually barred by

rose clumsily on his talons, flapped two sable wings, and thrice hoarsely challenged, "Caw! caw! caw!" What clamor! what a Lilliputian Babel ensued! Our ears fairly tingled with the calls, outcries, and objurgations apparently flung down at us by the multitudinous populace overhead. Hark to the woodpecker's rat-tat-tat, the partridge's muffled drum! List to the bugle-note of the wood-thrush, sweet and clear. Now sounds the cat-bird's shrill alarm, the owl's hoot of indignant surprise. Then the squirrels, those little monkeys of our Northern woods, grated their teeth sharply at us, and let fall nuts on our heads as we passed underneath.

We now began to thread a region where the forest was more open. The moss we trampled under foot, and which here replaces the grass of the valleys, was beating the tallest trees in the race for the mountain-top. It was the old story of tortoise and hare over again. But these mosses, enveloping rocks, trees, roots, everything, in one universal decoration, have you ever looked at them before your heel bruised the perfumed flowers springing from their velvet? Here are tufts daintily brilliant with coral lichens; here the violet and anemone nestle lovingly together; here it has crept by stealth up the gray trunks, and there it covers the bared roots, so that they look like huge fingers of a gloved hand. Tread softly. This is the abode of elves and fairies. Step lightly. You expect to hear the crushed flowers cry out with pain.

From here the ground rose rapidly for half a mile more, when we suddenly came out of the low firs full upon the Lion's Head crag, rising above Hermit Lake. To be thus unexpectedly confronted by

occupying, as if by stealth, the debatable ground between life and death. It is, in fact, more dead than alive.

Deeply sunk beneath is the lake. Its solitary state, its waters green and profound, and the thick shades by which it is surrounded, seem strangely at variance with the intense activity of the foaming torrents we had seen and could still hear rushing down the mountain. It was too small for a lake, or else it was dwarfed by the immense mass of overshadowing rock towering above it, whose reflected light streamed across its still and glossy surface. We had now gained a commanding

the giant cliffs seem harder by their own softness and delicacy. Here and there these exquisite draperies were torn in long rents by land-slides. In the west arose the shattered peak of Monroe, a mass of splintered granite, conspicuous at every point for its irreclaimable deformity. Everywhere was a Dantesque grandeur and solemnity.

We watched the bellying sails of a stray cloud which intercepted our view of the great summit; but it soon floated away, discovering the whitish-gray ledges to the very cap-stone of the dome itself. We then pushed on into the ravine.

From Hermit Lake the only practicable way was by clambering up the bed of the mountain brook

that falls through the ravine. The whole expanse that stretched on either side was a chaos of shattered granite, pitched about in awful confusion. Path there was none. No matter what way we turned, "no thoroughfare" was carved in stolid stone. We tried to force a passage through the stunted cedars that are mistaken a mile away for patches of grass, but were beaten back, torn and bleeding, to the brook. We then turned to the great bowlders, to be equally buffeted and abused, and finally repulsed upon the brook, which seemed all the while mocking our efforts. Once, while forcing a route inch by inch through the scrub, I

UNDER THE SNOW ARCH IN TUCKERMAN'S RAVINE.

was caught and held suspended over a deep crevice, until extricated by my companion. At another time he disappeared suddenly in a hole, from which I drew him like a blade from its scabbard. At this moment we were actually unable either to advance or retreat. The dwarf