of to-day. It is turning from the postrider to the locomotive. Not a single feature is recognizable except the splendid prospect of the White Mountains and the

Fortunate geo

the Ammonoosuc is intersected by that coming from Plymouth. In time a small road-side hamlet clustered about the spot. Dr. Timothy Dwight, one of the earliest as well as one of the most observant trav-magnificent collection of other mountains ellers here, speaks of the appearance of in the neighborhood. Bethlehem in 1803. "There is," he says, graphical position, salubrity, fine scenery "nothing in Bethlehem which merits no--these features, and these alone, are the tice except the patience, enterprise, and legitimate cause of what may be termed hardihood of the settlers, which have in- the rise and progress of Bethlehem. All duced them to stay upon so forbidding a that the original settlers seem to have acspot, a magnificent prospect of the White complished is to clear away the forests Mountains, and a splendid collection of which intercepted, and to make the road other mountains in their neighborhood, conducting to, the view. particularly in the southwest."

It was

It does seem at first almost incredible then reached by one wretched road, pass-that the two or three houses, the store, the ing the Ammonoosuc by a dangerous ford. The few scattered habitations were mere log cabins, rough and rude. The few planting fields were still covered with dead trees, stark and forbidding, which the settlers, unable to fell with the axe, killed by girdling, as the Indians did.

From this historical picture of Bethlehem in the past we turn to the Bethlehem

solitary meeting-house, of those days should suddenly become the most populous and most frequented of mountain resorts. This newness, which you at first resent, besides introducing here and there some attempt at architectural adornment, contrasts very agreeably with the ill-built, rambling, and slipshod appearance of the older village centres. They are invaria

bly most picturesque from a distance. But here there
is an evident effort to render the place itself attractive
by rendering it beautiful. Good taste generally pre-
vails. I suspect, however, that the era of good taste,
beginning with the incoming of a more refined and intelligent
class of travellers, communicated its spirit to two or three enter-
prising and sagacious men, who saw in what nature had done an
incentive to their own efforts. We walk here in a broad, well-
built thoroughfare, skirted on both sides with modern cottages,

in which four or five thousand sojourners annually take refuge. All this has grown from the one small hotel of a dozen years ago. An immense horizon is visible from these houses. The landscape swarms with mountains, although neither of the great ranges is in sight from the thickly settled district called "The Street." One is hid by the curvature of the mountain, which also intercepts the view of the other.

tinue along the high plateau to the eastern skirt of the village. No envious hill now obstructs the truly "magnificent view." Through the open valley the lordly mountains again inthrall us with the might of an overpowering majesty. This locality has taken the name of the

whose hand is everywhere visible in Bethlehem. It is known as the Maplewood, in distinction to the more central portion clustered around the Sinclair House.

Bethlehem is emphatically the place of sunsets. In this respect no other mountain haunt can pretend to rival it. From no other village are so many mountains visible at once; at no other has the landscape such length and breadth for giving full effect to these truly wonderful displays. I have seen some here that may never be repeated, certainly never excelled, while the sun, the heavens, and the mountains shall last.

Even the sultriest summer days are rendered tolerable here by the light airs set in motion by the oppressive heats of the valley. The hottest season is therefore no bar to out-of-door exercise for persons of average health. But in the evening all these houses are emptied of their occupants. The whole village is out-of-great hotel erected here by Isaac Cruft, doors enjoying the coolness, or the panorama, with all the zest unconstrained gratification always brings. The multitudes of well-dressed promenaders surprise every new-comer, who immediately thinks of Saratoga or Newport, and their social characteristics, minus their so-called "style" and fussy consequentialness. These people really seem to be enjoying themselves; you are left in doubt as to the others. Bethlehem, we think, should be the ideal of those who would carry city-or at least suburban-life among the mountains, who do not care a fig for solitude, but prefer to find their pleasures still closely associated with their home life. They are seeing life and seeing nature at one and the same time. Between this and that aspect of life among mountains and what is to be derived from it there is the same difference that exists between a wellconducted picnic, where the ladies wear their prettiest dresses, and everything is perfectly comme il faut, and the abandon and unconstraint of camp life, where the ladies wear blue flannels, which the men think so becoming. One class of travellers takes its world along with its trunks, the other is bent on discovering a new one. Which is nearer Eden? Chacun à son goût.

A strikingly large and beautiful prospect opens as we come to the Belleview. Here the road, making its exit from the village, descends to the Ammonoosuc. Six hundred feet below us the bottom of the valley exhibits its rich savannas, interspersed with cottages and groves. The valley broadens and deepens, exposing to view all the town of Littleton, picturesquely scattered about the distant hillsides. Above this deep hollow, the Green Mountains glimmer in the far west. "Ah!" you say, we will stop here."

Like Bethlehem, Jefferson lies reposing in mid-ascent of a mountain. Here the resemblance ends. The mountain above it is higher, the valley beneath more open, permitting an unimpeded view up and down. The hill-side, upon which the clump of hotels is situated, makes no steep plunge into the valley, but inclines gently down to the banks of the river. Instead of crowding upon and jostling each other, the mountains forming opposite sides of this valley remain tranquilly in the alignment they were commanded not to overstep. The confusion there is reduced to admirable order here. The smooth slopes, the clean lines, the ample views, the roominess, so to speak, of the landscape, indicate that everything has been done without haste, with precision, and without deviation from the original plan, which contemplated a paradise upon earth.

On the north side Starr King Mountain rises 2400 feet above the valley, and 3800 feet above the sea. On the south side Cherry Mountain lifts itself 3670 feet higher than tide-level. The village lies on the southern slope of the former mountain. These two summits form the broad

A second ramble to the top of the mountain by the old road to Franconia | basin through which Israel's River flows reveals in the most striking manner pos- for more than half its length, after issusible the grandeur of those mountains ing from the wasted side of Mount Adams. through which we have just come. A Here again, and as at Bethlehem, only third is altogether indispensable before we arranged in a strikingly different and can say we know Bethlehem. We con-unique order, at the head of the valley,

we have the great range. Madison now stands

a little thrown back on the right, Adams next

erects his sharp lance, Jefferson his shining crescent, Washington his broad buckler, and Monroe his twin crags against the sky. Jefferson, as the nearest, stands boldly forward, showing its tremendous ravines and long supporting ridges with great distinctness. Washington loses something of his grandeur here. From Madison to Lafayette, our two rallying-points, the distance can hardly be less than forty miles as the eye travels; the entire circuit can not fall short of seventy or eighty miles.