its author I have before mentioned as being prevented by his sudden and
alarming illness. The whole assembly were deeply moved, and this was the
most interesting part of the transactions of the day.
The society marched out of the church to music, and, preceded by the
band, to the college, and up the steps of the hall to dinner, in the
order of seniority as members.
We hastened home to dress for dinner at the president's, where we met
the corporation of the University. My seat was between Dr. Bowditch and
one of the professors; and the entertainment to us strangers was so
great and so novel, that we were sorry to return home, though it was to
meet an evening party no less agreeable.
The ceremonial of commencement-week was now over, but not the bustle and
gayety. The remaining two days were spent in drives to Boston and to
Bunker Hill, and in dinner and evening visits to Judge Story's, to some
of the professors, and to Mr. Everett's, since governor of the state.
The view from Bunker Hill is fine, including the city and harbour of
Boston, the long bridges and the Neck which connect the city with the
mainland, the village of Medford, where the first American ship was
built, and the rising grounds which advantageously limit the prospect.
The British could scarcely have had much leisure to admire the view
while they were in possession of the hill, for the colonists kept them
constantly busy. I saw the remains of the work which was the only
foothold they really possessed. They roamed the hills and marched
through the villages, but had no opportunity of settling themselves
anywhere else. Their defeat of the enemy was more fatal to themselves
than to the vanquished, as they lost more officers than the Americans
had men engaged.
A monument is in course of erection, but it proceeds very slowly for
want of funds. It is characteristic of the people that funds should fall
short for this object, while they abound on all occasions when they are
required for charitable, religious, or literary uses. The glory of the
Bunker Hill struggle is immortal in the hearts of the nation, and the
granite obelisk is not felt to be wanted as an expression. When it will
be finished no one knows, and few seem to care, while the interest in
the achievement remains as enthusiastic as ever.
While we were surveying the ground a very old man joined us with his
plan of the field. It was well worn, almost tattered; but he spread it
out once more for us on a block of the monumental granite, and related
once again, for our benefit, the thousand times told tale. He was in the
battle with his musket, being then fifteen years old. Many were the boys
who struck some of the first blows in that war; and of those boys one
here and there still lives, and may be known by the air of serene
triumph with which he paces the field of his enterprise, once soaked
with blood, but now the centre of regions where peace and progress have
followed upon the achievement of freedom.
THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.
"Hast thou entered the storehouses of the snow?"
_Book of Job._
One of the charms of such travelling as that of the English in the
United States is its variety. The stopping to rest for a month at a
farmhouse after a few weeks of progress by stage, with irregular hours,
great fatigues, and indifferent fare, is a luxury which those only can
understand who have experienced it; and it is no less a luxury to hie
away from a great city, leaving behind its bustle and formalities, and
the fatigues of sightseeing and society, to plunge into the deepest
mountain solitude. I have a vivid recollection of the dance of spirits
amid which we passed the long bridge at Boston on our way out to
New-Hampshire, on the bright morning of the 16th of September. Our party
consisted of four, two Americans and two English. We were to employ
eight or ten days in visiting the White Mountains of New-Hampshire,
returning down the valley of the Connecticut. The weather was brilliant
the whole time, and I well remember how gay the hedges looked this first
morning, all starred over with purple, lilach, and white asters, and gay
with golden rod; with which was intermixed, here and there, a late pale
brier rose. The orchards were cheerful with their apple-cropping. There
was scarcely one which had not its ladder against a laden tree, its
array of baskets and troughs beneath, and its company of children
picking up the fruit from the grass. What a contrast to the scenery we
were about to enter upon!
Of the earlier part of this trip (our visit to Lake Winnipiseogee and
the Red Mountain) I gave an account in my former work,[4] little
supposing that I should ever return to the subject. My narrative must
now be taken up from the point where I then dropped it.
Footnote 4: Society in America, vol. i., p. 220-225.
From the summit of Red Mountain I had seen what kind of scenery we were
to pass through on our road to Conway. It was first mountain and wild
little valleys, and then dark pine scenery; barrens, with some autumnal
copses, and intervals of lake and stream. Lake Ossippee looked like what
I fancy the wildest parts of Norway to be; a dark blue expanse, slightly
ruffled, with pine fringing all its ledges, and promontories, bristling
with pines, jutting into it; no dwellings, and no sign of life but a
pair of wildfowl, bobbing and ducking, and a hawk perched on the tiptop
of a scraggy blighted tree.
In the steamboat on Lake Winnipiseogee there was a party whom we at once
concluded to be bride, bridegroom, and bridemaid. They were very young,
and the state of the case might not have occurred to us but for the
obvious pride of the youth in having a lady to take care of. Our
conjectures were confirmed by the peculiar tone in which he spoke of "my
wife" to the people of the inn in giving orders. It had a droll mixture
of pride and awkwardness; of novelty with an attempt to make the words
appear quite familiar. For some days we were perpetually meeting this
party, and this afternoon they introduced themselves to me, on the
ground of their having expected to see me at Portsmouth on my way to the
White Mountains. I imagine they would have been too busy with their
wedding arrangements to have cared much about me if I had gone. I was
glad we fell in with them, as it added an interest to the trip. We
looked at the scenery with their eyes, and pleased ourselves with
imagining what a paradise these landscapes must appear to the young
people; what a sacred region it will be to them when they look back
upon it in their old age, and tell the youth of those days what the
White Mountains were when they towered in the midst of a wilderness.
We all took up our quarters at the inn at Conway; and the next morning
we met again at breakfast, and improved our acquaintance by sympathizing
looks about the badness of everything on the table. Eggs were a happy
resource, for the bread was not eatable. We did not start till ten, our
party having bespoken a private conveyance, and the horses having to be
sent for to a distance of eight miles. So the wedding-party had the
companionship of our luggage instead of ourselves in the stage; and we
four stepped merrily into our little open carriage, while the skirts of
the morning mist were drawing off from the hilltops, and the valley was
glowing in a brilliant autumn sunshine. This was to be the grand day of
the journey; the day when we were to pass the Notch; and we were
resolved to have it to ourselves, if we could procure a private
conveyance from stage to stage.
We struck across the valley, which is intersected by the Saco river.
Never did valley look more delicious; shut in all round by mountains,
green as emerald, flat as water, and chumped and fringed with trees
tinted with the softest autumnal hues. Every reach of the Saco was thus
belted and shaded. We stopped at Pendexter's, the pretty house well
known to tourists; having watered the horses, we went on another stage,
no less beautiful, and then entered upon the wilderness. For seven miles
we did not see a single dwelling; and a head now and then popped out of
the stage window, showing that our friends "the weddingers" were making
sure of our being near, as if the wilderness of the scene made them
relish the idea of society.
The mountains had opened and closed in every direction all the morning;
they now completely shut us in, and looked tremendous enough, being
exceedingly steep and abrupt, bare, and white where they had been seamed
with slides, and in other parts dark with stunted firs. At the end of
seven miles of this wilderness we arrived at the elder Crawford's, a
lone house invested with the grateful recollections of a multitude of
travellers. The Crawfords, who live twelve miles apart, lead a
remarkable life, but one which seems to agree well with mind and body.
They are hale, lively men, of uncommon simplicity of manners, dearly
loving company, but able to make themselves happy in solitude. Their
year is passed in alternations of throngs of guests with entire
loneliness.[5] During the long dreary season of thaw no one comes in
sight; or, if a chance visiter should approach, it is in a somewhat
questionable shape, being no other than a hungry bear, the last of his
clan. During two months, August and September, while the solitaries are
trying to get some sort of harvest out of the impracticable soil, while
bringing their grain from a distance, a flock of summer tourists take
wing through the region. Then the Crawfords lay down beds in every
corner of their dwellings, and spread their longest tables, and bustle
from morning till night, the hosts acting as guides to every accessible
point in the neighbourhood, and the women of the family cooking and
waiting from sunrise till midnight. After the 1st of October comes a
pause, dead silence again for three months, till the snow is frozen
hard, and trains of loaded sleighs appear in the passes. Traders from
many distant points come down with their goods, while the roads are in a
state which enables one horse to draw the load of five. This is a season
of great jollity; and the houses are gay with roaring fires, hot
provisions, good liquor, loud songs, and romantic travellers' tales;
tales of pranking wild beasts, bold sleigh-drivers, and hardy woodsmen.
Footnote 5: The region must, however, be less desolate than it was. The
land in the neighbourhood had been worth only twenty-five cents per
acre, and was now worth just six times as much.
The elder Crawford has a pet album, in which he almost insists that his
guests shall write. We found in it some of the choicest nonsense and
"brag" that can be found in the whole library of albums. We dined well
on mutton, eggs, and whortleberries with milk. Tea was prepared at
dinner as regularly as bread throughout this excursion. While the rest
of the party were finishing their arrangements for departure, I found a
seat on a stone, on a rising ground opposite, whence I could look some
way up and down the pass, and wonder at leisure at the intrepidity which
could choose such an abode.
We proceeded in an open wagon, the road winding amid tall trees, and the
sunshine already beginning to retreat up the mountain sides. We soon
entered the secluded valley where stands the dwelling of the Willeys,
the unfortunate family who were all swept away in one night by a slide
from the mountain in the rear of the house.[6] No one lives in that
valley now, and this is not to be wondered at, so desolate is its
aspect. The platform on which the unharmed house stands is the only
quiet green spot in the pass. The slides have stripped the mountains of
their wood, and they stand tempest-beaten, seamed, and furrowed; while
beneath lies the wreck of what was brought down by the great slide of
1826, a heap of rock and soil, bristling with pine-trunks and upturned
roots, half hidden by a rank new vegetation, which will in time turn all
the chaos into beauty.
Footnote 6: Society in America, vol. i., p. 227.
A dark pine hill at the end of this pass is the signal of the
traveller's approach to the Notch. We walked up a long ascent, the road
overhanging a ravine, where rocks were capriciously tumbled together,
brought down, doubtless, by a winter-torrent. At present, instead of a
torrent, there were two sparkling waterfalls leaping down the mountain.
The Notch is, at the narrowest part, only twenty-two feet wide. The
weather was so still that we were scarcely aware of the perpetual wind,
which is one characteristic of the pass. There the wind is always north
or south; and it ordinarily blows so strong as to impair the traveller's
pleasure in exploring the scene. It merely breathed cool upon us as we
entered the tremendous gateway formed by a lofty perpendicular rock on
the right hand and a steep mountain on the left. When we were through
and had rejoined our wagon, my attention was directed to the Profile, an
object which explains itself in being named. The sharp rock certainly
resembles a human face; but what then? There is neither wonder nor
beauty in it. I turned from it to see the infant Saco bubble forth from
its spring among stones and bushes, under the shelter of the
perpendicular rock, and in a semicircular recess of the greenest sward.
Trees sprang from sharp projections, and wrenched themselves out of
crevices, giving the last air of caprice to the scene.
We were just in time for the latest yellow light. Twilight stole on, and
we grew silent. The stars appeared early to us on our shadowy way, and
birds flitted by to their homes. A light still lingered on the mountain
stream, when Sirius was tremblingly reflected in it. When the lights of
Ethan Crawford's dwelling were seen twinkling in the distance, we were
deep in the mutual recitation of poetry. As we drove up to the open
door, Mr. D. said, quietly, as he looked up into the heavens, "Shall we
get out, or spend the evening as we are?" We got out, and then followed
supper, fiddle, and dancing, as I have elsewhere related.[7]
Footnote 7: Society in America, vol. i., p. 227.
We proposed to ascend Mount Washington the next morning if the weather
should allow. It is a difficult and laborious ascent for all travellers,
and few ladies venture upon the enterprise; but the American lady of our
party was fully disposed to try her strength with me. I rose very early,
and, seeing that the mountain peak looked sharp and clear, never doubted
that I ought to prepare myself for the expedition. On coming down,
however, I was told that there was rather too much wind, and some
expectation of rain. By noon, sure enough, while we were upon Mount
Deception (so called from its real being so much greater than its
apparent height), we saw that there was a tempest of wind and snow about
the mountain top. This peak is the highest in the Union. It rises 6634
feet above the level of the sea, 4000 feet of this height being clothed
with wood, and the rest being called the bald part of the mountain. We
spent our day delightfully in loitering about Mount Deception, in
tracking the stream of the valley through its meadows and its thickets
of alders, and in watching the course and explosion of storms upon the
mountains. Some gay folks from Boston were at Crawford's, and they were
not a little shocked at seeing us pack ourselves and our luggage into a
wagon in the afternoon, for a drive of eighteen miles to Littleton. We
should be upset; we should break down; we should be drowned in a deluge;
they should pick us up on the morrow. We were a little doubtful
ourselves about the prudence of the enterprise; but a trip to Franconia
Defile was in prospect for the next day, and we wished that our last
sight of the White Mountains should be when they had the evening sun
upon them. Our expedition was wholly successful; we had neither storm,
breakage, nor overturn, and it was not sunset when we reached and walked
up the long hill which was to afford us the last view of the chain.
Often did we stand and look back upon the solemn tinted mountains to the
north, and upon the variegated range behind, sunny in places, as if
angels were walking there and shedding light from their presence.
We passed the town of Bethlehem, consisting, as far as we could see, of
one house and two barns. It was no more than six o'clock when we reached
Littleton; so, when we had chosen our rooms, out of a number equally
tempting from their cleanliness and air of comfort, we walked out to see
what the place looked like. Our attention was caught by the endeavours
of a woman to milk a restless cow, and we inadvertently stood still to
see how she would manage. When she at last succeeded in making the
animal stand, she offered us milk. We never refused kindness which might
lead to acquaintanceship; so we accepted her offer, and followed her
guidance into her house, to obtain a basin to drink out of. It was a
good interior. Two pretty girls, nicely dressed, sat, during the dusk,
by a blazing fire. Their talkative father was delighted to get hold of
some new listeners. He sat down upon the side of the bed, as if in
preparation for a long chat, and entered at large into the history of
his affairs. He told us how he went down to Boston to take service, and
got money enough to settle himself independently in this place; and how
much better he liked having a house of his own than working for any
amount of money in a less independent way. He told us how Littleton
flourishes by the lumber-trade, wood being cut from the hills around,
and sent floating down the stream for five miles, till it reaches the
Connecticut, with whose current it proceeds to Hartford. Twenty years
ago there was one store and a tavern in the place; now it is a
wide-spreading village on the side of a large hill, which is stripped of
its forest. The woods on the other bank of the river are yet untouched.
Scarcely a field is to be seen under tillage, and the axe seems almost
the only tool in use.
We were admirably cared for at Gibb's house at Littleton, and we enjoyed
our comforts exceedingly. It appeared that good manners are much
regarded in the house, some of the family being as anxious to teach them
to strangers as to practice them themselves. In the morning, one of my
American friends and I, being disposed to take our breakfast at
convenient leisure, sat down to table when all was ready, our companions
(who could make more haste) not having appeared. A young lady stood at
the side-table to administer the steaming coffee and tea. After waiting
some time my companion modestly observed,
"I should like a cup of coffee, if you please."
There was no appearance of the observation having taken effect, so my
friend spoke again:
"Will you be so good as to give me a cup of coffee?"
No answer. After a third appeal, the young lady burst out with,
"Never saw such manners! To sit down to table before the other folks
come!"
I hope she was pacified by seeing that our friends, when they at length
appeared, did not resent our not having waited for them.
We set out early in an open wagon for a day's excursion to Franconia
Defile, a gorge in the mountains which is too frequently neglected by
travellers who pass through this region. Before we reached Franconia
some part of our vehicle gave way. While it was in the hands of the
blacksmith we visited the large ironworks at Franconia, and sat in a
boat on the sweet Ammonoosuc, watching the waters as they fell over the
dam by the ironworks. When we set off again our umbrellas were
forgotten; and as we entered upon the mountain region, the misty,
variegated peaks told that storm was coming. The mountain sides were
more precipitous than any we had seen, and Mount Lafayette towered
darkly above us to the right of our winding road. We passed some
beautiful tarns, fringed with trees, and brimming up so close to the
foot of the precipices as to leave scarcely a footpath on their margin.
A pelting rain came on, which made us glad to reach the solitary
dwelling of the pass, called the Lafayette Hotel. This house had been
growing in the woods thirteen weeks before, and yet we were far from
being among its first guests. The host, two boys, and a nice-looking,
obliging girl, wearing a string of gold beads, did their best to make us
comfortable. They kindled a blazing wood fire, and the girl then
prepared a dinner of hot bread and butter, broiled ham, custards, and
good tea. When the shower ceased we went out and made ourselves
acquainted with the principal features of the pass, sketching, reciting,
and watching how the mists drove up and around the tremendous peaks,
smoked out of the fissures, and wreathed about the woods on the ledges.
The scene could not have been more remarkable, and scarcely more
beautiful in the brightest sunshine. It was not various; its unity was
its charm. It consisted of a narrow rocky road, winding between
mountains which almost overhung the path, except at intervals, where
there were recesses filled with woods.
After dinner our host brought in the album of the house, for even this
new house had already its album. When we had given an account of
ourselves, we set out, in defiance of the clouds, for the Whirlpool,
four miles at least farther on. On the way we passed a beautiful lake,
overhung by ash, beech, birch, and pine, with towering heights behind.
Hereabout the rain came on heavily, and continued for three hours. The
Whirlpool is the grand object of this pass, and it is a place in which
to spend many a long summer's day. A full mountain stream, issuing from
the lake we had left behind, and brawling all along our road, here
gushes through a crevice into a wide basin, singularly overhung by a
projecting rock, rounded and smoothed as if by art. Here the eddying
water, green as the Niagara floods, carries leaves and twigs round and
round, in perpetual swift motion, a portion of the waters brimming over
the lower edge of the great basin at each revolution, and the pool being
replenished from above. I found a shelter under a ledge of rocks, and
here I could have stood for hours, listening to the splash and hiss, and
watching the busy whirl. The weather, however, grew worse every moment;
the driver could not keep the seats of the wagon dry any longer; and
after finding, to our surprise, that we had stayed half an hour by the
pool, we jumped into our vehicle and returned without delay. There were
no more wandering gleams among the mountains; but, just as we descended
to the plain, we saw the watery sun for a moment, and were cheered by a
bright amber streak of sky above the western summits. By the time we
recovered our umbrellas there was no farther need of them.
It soon became totally dark; and, if there had been any choice, the
driver would have been as glad as ourselves to have stopped. But we were
wet, and there were no habitations along the road; so we amused
ourselves with watching one or two fireflies, the last of the season,
and the driver left the horses to find their own way, as he was unable
to see a yard in any direction. At last the lights of Littleton
appeared, the horses put new spirit into their work, and we arrived at
Gibb's door before eight o'clock. The ladies of the house were kind in
their assistance to get us dried and warmed, and to provide us with tea.
Our course was subsequently to Montpelier (Vermont), and along the
White River till we joined the Connecticut, along whose banks we
travelled to Brattleborough, Deerfield, and Northampton. The scenery of
New-Hampshire and Vermont is that to which the attention of travellers
will hereafter be directed, perhaps more emphatically than to the
renowned beauties of Virginia. I certainly think the Franconia Defile
the noblest mountain-pass I saw in the United States.
CHANNING.
"And, let me tell you, good company and good discourse are the very
sinews of virtue."
--IZAAK WALTON.