her head, and I remarked a general twitching of muscles on the faces
around me. The driver shook his head in silent glee. The little woman's
eyes emitted sparks.
From West Ossipee I drove over to Tamworth Iron Works, where I passed
the night, and where I had, so to speak, Chocorua under my thumb.
This mountain being the most proper for a legend, it accordingly has
one. Here it is in all its purity:
After the terrible battle in which the Sokokis were nearly destroyed,
a remnant of the tribe, with their chief, Chocorua, fled into the
fastnesses of these mountains, where the foot of a white man had never
intruded. Here they trapped the beaver, speared the salmon, and hunted
the moose.
The survivors of Lovewell's band brought the first news of their
disaster to the settlements. More like spectres than living men, their
haggard looks, bloodshot eyes, and shaking limbs, their clothing hanging
about them in shreds, announced the hardships of that long and terrible
march but too plainly.
Among those who had set out with the expedition were three brothers--one
a mere stripling, the others famous hunters. The eldest of the three,
having fallen lame on the second day, was left behind. His brethren
would have conducted him back to the nearest village, but he promptly
refused their proffered aid, saying,
"'Tis enough to lose one man; three are too many. Go; do my part as well
as your own."
The two had gone but a few steps when the disabled ranger called the
second brother back.
"Tom," said the elder, "take care of our brother."
"Surely," replied the other, in some surprise. "Surely," he repeated.
"I charge you," continued the first speaker, "watch over the boy as I
would myself."
"Never fear, Lance; whatever befalls Hugh happens to me."
"Not so," said the other, with energy; "you must die for him, if need
be."
"They shall chop me as fine as sausage-meat before a hair of the lad's
head is harmed."
"God bless you, Tom!" The brothers then embraced and separated.
"What was our brother saying to you?" demanded the younger, when Tom
rejoined him.
"He begged me, seeing he could not go with us, to shoot two or three
redskins for him; and I promised." The two then quickened their pace in
order to overtake their comrades.
Among those who succeeded in regaining the settlements was a man who had
been wounded in twenty places. He was at once a ghastly and a pitiful
object. Faint with hunger, fatigue, and loss of blood, he reeled, fell,
slowly rose to his feet, and sunk lifeless at the entrance to the
village. This time he did not rise again.
A crowd ran up. When they had wiped the blood and dirt from the dead
man's face, a by-stander threw himself upon the body with the cry, "My
God, it is Tom!"
The following day the surviving brother joined a strong party despatched
by the colonial authorities to the scene of Lovewell's encounter, where
they arrived after a forced march. Here, among the trampled thickets,
they found the festering corpses of the slain. Among them was Hugh, the
younger brother. He was riddled with bullets and shockingly mangled.
Up to this moment, Lance had hoped against hope; now the dread reality
stared him in the face. The stout ranger grew white, his fingers
convulsively clutched the barrel of his gun, and something like a curse
escaped through his clinched teeth; then, kneeling beside the body, he
buried his face in his hands. Hugh's blood cried aloud for vengeance.
Thorough but unavailing search was made for the savages. They had
disappeared, after applying the torch to their village. Silently and
sadly the rangers performed the last service for their fallen comrades,
and then, turning their backs upon the mountains, commenced their march
homeward.
The next day the absence of Lance was remarked; but, as he was their
best hunter, the rangers made no doubt he would rejoin them at the next
halt.
Chocorua was not ignorant that the English were near. Like the vulture,
he scented danger from afar. From the summit of the mountain he had
watched the smoke of the hostile camp-fires stealing above the forest.
The remainder of the tribe had buried themselves still deeper in the
wilderness. They were too few for attack, too weak for defence.
One morning the chief ascended the pinnacle, and swept the horizon
with his piercing eye. Far in the south a faint smoke told where the
foe had pitched his last encampment. Chocorua's dark eye lighted with
exultation. The accursed pale-faces were gone.
He turned to descend the mountain, but had not taken ten steps when a
white hunter, armed to the teeth, started from behind the crags and
barred his passage. The chief recoiled, but not with fear, as the muzzle
of his adversary's weapon touched his naked breast. The white man's
eyes shone with deadly purpose, as he forced the chieftain, step by
step, back to the highest point of the mountain. Chocorua could not pass
except over the hunter's dead body.
Glaring into each other's eyes with mortal hate, the two men reached the
summit.
"Chocorua will go no farther," said the chief, haughtily.
The white man trembled with excitement. For a moment he could not speak.
Then, in a voice husky with suppressed emotion, he exclaimed,
"Die, then, like a dog, thou destroyer of my family, thou incarnate
devil! The white man has been in Chocorua's wigwam; has counted their
scalps--father, mother, sister, brother. He has tracked him to the
mountain-top. Now, demon or devil, Chocorua dies by my hand."
The chief saw no escape. He comprehended that his last moment was come.
As if all the savage heroism of his race had come to his aid, he drew
himself up to his full height, and stood erect and motionless as a
statue of bronze upon the enormous pedestal of the mountain. His dark
eye blazed, his nostrils dilated, the muscles of his bronzed forehead
stood out like whip-cord. The black eagle's feather in his scalplock
fluttered proudly in the cool morning breeze. He stood thus for a moment
looking death sternly in the face, then, raising his bared arm with a
gesture of superb disdain, he spoke with energy:
"Chocorua is unarmed; Chocorua will die. His heart is big and strong
with the blood of the accursed pale-face. He laughs at death. He spits
in the white man's face. Go; tell your warriors Chocorua died like a
chief!"
With this defiance on his lips the chief sprung from the brink into
the unfathomable abyss below. An appalling crash was followed by
a death-like silence. As soon as he recovered from his stupor the
hunter ran to the verge of the precipice and looked over. A horrible
fascination held him an instant. Then, shouldering his gun, he retraced
his steps down the mountain, and the next day rejoined his comrades.
[Illustration: PASSACONNAWAY FROM THE BEAR-CAMP RIVER.]
The general and front views of the Sandwich group, which may be had in
perfection from the hill behind the Chocorua House, or from the opposite
elevation, are very striking, embracing as they do the principal summits
from Chocorua to the heavy mass of Black Mountain. There are more
distinct traits, perhaps, embodied in this range than in any other among
the White Hills, except that incomparable band of peaks constituting the
northern half of the great chain itself. There seems, too, a special
fitness in designating these mountains by their Indian titles--Chocorua,
Paugus, Passaconnaway, Wonnalancet--a group of great sagamores, wild,
grand, picturesque.[2]
The highway now skirted the margin of Chocorua Lake, a lovely little
sheet of water voluptuously reposing at the foot of its overshadowing
mountain. I cannot call Chocorua beautiful, yet of all the White
Mountain peaks is it the most individual, the most aggressively
suggestive. But the lake, fast locked in the embrace of encircling
hills, bathed in all the affluence of the blessed sunlight, its bosom
decorated with white lilies, its shores glassed in water which looks
like a sheet of satin--ah, this was beautiful indeed! Its charming
seclusion, its rare combination of laughing water and impassive old
mountains; above all, the striking contrast between its chaste beauty
and the huge-ribbed thing rising above, awakens a variety of sensations.
It is passing strange. The mountain attracts, and at the same time
repels you. Two sentiments struggle here for mastery--open admiration,
energetic repulsion. For the first time, perhaps, in his life, the
beholder feels an antipathy for a creation of inanimate nature. Chocorua
suggests some fabled prodigy of the old mythology--a headless Centaur,
sprung from the foul womb of earth. The lake seems another Andromeda
exposed to a monster.
A beautiful Indian legend ran to the effect that the stillness of the
lake was sacred to the Great Spirit, and that if a human voice was heard
upon its waters the offender's canoe would instantly sink to the bottom.
Chocorua, as seen from Tamworth, shows a long, undulating ridge of white
rising over one of green, both extending toward the east, and opening
between a deep ravine, through which a path ascends to the summit. But
this way affords no view until the summit is close at hand. Beyond the
hump-backed ridge of Chocorua the tip of the southern peak of Moat
Mountain peers over, like a mountain standing on tiptoe.
The mountain, with its formidable outworks, is constantly in view until
the highway is left for a wood-road winding around its base into an
interval where there is a farm-house. Here the road ends and the ascent
begins.
Taking a guide here, who was strong, nimble, and sure-footed, but who
proved to be lamentably ignorant of the topography of the country, we
were in a few moments rapidly threading the path up the mountain. It
ought to be said here that, with rare exceptions, the men who serve you
in these ascensions should be regarded rather as porters than as guides.
In about an hour we reached the summit of the first mountain; for there
are four subordinate ridges to cross before you stand under the single
block of granite forming the pinnacle.
[Illustration: CHOCORUA.]
When reconnoitring this pinnacle through your glass, at a distance of
five miles, you will say to scale it would be difficult; when you have
climbed close underneath you will say it is impossible. After surveying
it from the bare ledges of Bald Mountain, where we stood letting the
cool breeze blow upon us, I asked my guide where we could ascend. He
pointed out a long crack, or crevice, toward the left, in which a few
bushes were growing. It is narrow, almost perpendicular, and seemingly
impracticable. I could not help exclaiming, "What, up there! nothing but
birds of the air can mount that sheer wall!" It is, however, there or
nowhere you must ascend.
The whole upper zone of the mountain seems smitten with palsy. Except
in the ravines between the inferior summits, nothing grew, nothing
relieved the wide-spread desolation. Beyond us rose the enormous conical
crag, scarred and riven by lightning, which gives to Chocorua its highly
distinctive character. It is no longer ashen, but black with lichens.
There was little of symmetry, nothing of grace; only the grandeur of
power. You might as well pelt it with snow-balls as batter it with the
mightiest artillery. For ages it has brushed the tempest aside, has seen
the thunder-bolt shivered against its imperial battlements; for ages to
come it will continue to defy the utmost power that can assail it. And
what enemies it has withstood, overthrown, or put to rout! Not far from
the base of the pinnacle evidence that the mountain was once densely
wooded is on all sides. The rotted stumps of large trees still cling
with a death-grip to the ledges, the shrivelled trunks lie bleaching
where they were hurled by the hurricane. Many years ago this region
was desolated by fire. In the night Old Chocorua, lighting his fiery
torch, stood in the midst of his own funeral pyre. The burning mountain
illuminated the sky and put out the stars. A brilliant circle of light,
twenty miles in extent, surrounded the flaming peak like a halo; while
underneath an immense tongue of forked flame licked the sides of the
summit with devouring haste. The lakes, those bright jewels lying in the
lap of the valleys, glowed like enormous carbuncles. Superstitious folk
regarded the conflagration as a portent of war or pestilence. In the
morning a few charred trunks, standing erect, were all that remained of
the original forest. The rocks themselves bear witness to the intense
heat which has either cracked them wide open, crumbled them in pieces,
or divested them, like oysters, of their outer shell, all along the path
of the conflagration.
The walk over the lower summits to the base of the peak occupied
another hour, and is a most profitable feature of the ascent. On each
side a superb panorama of mountains and lakes, of towns, villages, and
hamlets, is being slowly unrolled; while every forward step develops the
inaccessible character of the high summit more and more.
Having strayed from the path to gather blueberries, my companion set me
again on the march by pointing out where a bear had been feeding not
long before. Yet, while assuring me that Bruin was perfectly harmless
at this season, I did not fail to remark that my guide made the most
rapid strides of the day after this discovery. While feeling our way
around the base of the pinnacle, in order to gain the ravine by which
it is attacked, the path suddenly stopped. At the right, projecting
rocks, affording a hold for neither hand nor foot, rose like a wall;
before us, joined to the perpendicular rock, an unbroken ledge of
bare granite, smoothly polished by ice, swept down by a sharp incline
hundreds of feet, and then broke off abruptly into profounder depths. To
advance upon this ledge, as steep as a roof, and where one false step
would inevitably send the climber rolling to the bottom of the ravine,
demands steady nerves. It invests the whole jaunt with just enough of
the perilous to excite the apprehensions, or provoke the enthusiasm of
the individual who stands there for the first time, looking askance at
his guide, and revolving the chances of crossing it in safety. While
debating with myself whether to take off my boots, or go down on my
hands and knees and creep, the guide crossed this place with a steady
step; and, upon reaching the opposite side, grasped a fragment of rock
with one hand while extending his staff to me with the other. Rather
than accept his assistance, I passed over with an assurance I was far
from feeling; but when we came down the mountain I walked across with
far more ease in my stockings.[3]
When he saw me safely over, my conductor moved on, with the remark,
"A skittish place."
"Skittish," indeed! We proceeded to drag ourselves up the ravine by the
aid of bushes, or such protruding rocks as offered a hold. From the
valley below we must have looked like flies creeping up a wall. After a
breathless scramble, which put me in mind of the escalade of the Iron
Castle of Porto Bello, where the English, having no scaling-ladders,
mounted over each other's shoulders, we came to a sort of plateau, on
which was a ruined hut. The view here is varied and extensive; but after
regaining our breath we hastened to complete the ascent, in order to
enjoy, in all its perfection, the prospect awaiting us on the summit.
Like Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, it is among mountains that my knowledge
of them has been obtained. I have little hesitation, then, in
pronouncing the view from Chocorua one of the noblest that can reward
the adventurous climber; for, notwithstanding it is not a high peak, and
cannot, therefore, unfold the whole mountain system at a glance, it yet
affords an unsurpassed view-point, from which one sees the surrounding
mountains rising on all sides in all their majesty, and clothed in all
their terrors.
Let me try to explain why Chocorua is such a remarkable and eligible
post of observation.
One comprehends perfectly that the last high building on the skirts of a
city embraces the largest unobstructed view of the surrounding country.
This mountain is placed at the extremity of a range that abuts upon
the lower Saco valley, and therefore overlooks all the hill-country
on the east and south-east as far as the sea-coast. The arc of this
circle of vision extends from the Camden Hills to Agamenticus, or from
the Penobscot to the Piscataqua. The day being one of a thousand, I
distinctly saw the ocean with the naked eye; not merely as a white
blur on the horizon's edge, but actual blue water, over which smoke
was curling. This magnificent _coup-d'oeil_ embraces the scattered
villages of Conway, Fryeburg, Madison, Eaton, Ossipee, with their
numerous lakes and streams. I counted seventeen of the former flashing
in the sun.
In the second place, Chocorua stands at the entrance to the valley
opening between the Sandwich and Ossipee chains, and commands,
therefore, to the south-west, between these natural walls, the northern
limb of Winnipiseogee and of Squam, which are seen glittering on each
side of Red Hill. In the foreground, at the foot of the mountain,
Chocorua Lake is beyond question the most enticing object in a landscape
wonderfully lighted and enriched by its profusion of brilliant waters,
which resemble so many highly burnished reflectors multiplying the rays
of the sun. I was now looking back to my first station on Red Hill,
only the range of vision was much more extensive. It is unnecessary
to recapitulate the names of the villages and summits seen in this
direction. Over the lakes, Winnipiseogee and Squam, the humid peaks of
Mount Belknap and of Mount Kearsarge, in Warner, last caught the eye.
These two sections of the landscape first meet the eye of the climber
while advancing toward the peak, whose rugged head and brawny shoulders
intercept the view to the north, only to be enjoyed when the mountain is
fully conquered.
Upon the cap-stone crowning the pinnacle, supporting myself by grasping
the signal-staff planted on the highest point of this rock, from which
the wind threatened to sweep us like chaff, I enjoyed the third and
final act of this sublime tableau, in which the whole company of
mountains is crowded upon the stage. Hundreds of dark and bristling
shapes confronted us. Like a horde of barbarians, they seemed silently
awaiting the signal to march upon the lowlands. As the wind swept
through their ranks, an impatient murmur rose from the midst. Each
mountain shook its myriad spears, and gave its voice to swell the
sublime chorus. At first all was confusion; then I began to seek out
the chiefs, whose rock-helmed heads, lifted high above their grisly
battalions, invested each with a distinction and a sovereignty which
yielded nothing except to that imperial peak over which attendant clouds
hovered or floated swiftly away, as if bearing a message to those
distant encampments pitched on the farthest verge of the horizon.
At my left hand extended all the summits, forming at their western
extremity the valley of Mad River, and terminating in the immovable
mass of Black Mountain. The peaks of Tripyramid, Tecumseh, and
Osceola stretched along the northern course of this stream, and over
them gleamed afar the massive plateau-ridge of Moosehillock. From my
stand-point the great wall of the Sandwich chain, which from Tamworth
presents an unbroken front to the south, now divided into ridges running
north and south, separated by profound ravines. Paugus crouched at my
feet; Passaconnaway elevated his fine crest next; Whiteface, his lowered
and brilliant front; and then Black Mountain, the giant landmark of half
a score of towns and villages.
Directly at my feet, to the north-west, the great intervale of Swift
River gleamed from the depths of this valley, like sunshine from
a storm-cloud. Following the course of this little oasis, the eye
wandered over the inaccessible and untrodden peaks of the Pemigewasset
wilderness, resting last on the blue ridge of the Franconia Mountains.
About midway of this line one sees the bristling slopes of Mounts
Carrigain and Hancock, and the Carrigain Notch, through which a hardy
pedestrian may pass from the Pemigewasset to the Saco by following
the course of the streams flowing out of it. Besides its solitary,
picturesque grandeur, Carrigain has the distinction of being the
geographical centre of the White Mountain group. Taking its peak for an
axis, a radius thirty miles long will describe a circle, including in
its sweep nearly the whole mountain system. In this sense Carrigain is,
therefore, the hub of the White Mountains.
Having explored the horizon thus far, I now turned more to the north,
where, by a fortunate chance, Chocorua dominates a portion of the chain
intervening between itself and the Saco Valley. I was looking straight
up this valley through the great White Mountain Notch. There was the
dark spire of Mount Willey, and the scarred side of Webster. There was
the arched rock of Mount Willard, and over it the liquid profile of
Cherry Mountain. It was superb; it was idyllic. Such was the perfect
transparency of the air, that I clearly distinguished the red color of
the slides on Mount Webster without the aid of my glass.
From this centre, outlined with a bold, free hand against the azure, the
undulations of the great White Mountains ascended grandly to the dome
of Mount Washington, and then plunged into the defiles of the Pinkham
Notch. Following this line eastward, the eye traversed the mountains of
Jackson to the half-closed aperture of the Carter Notch, finally resting
on the pinnacle of Kearsarge. Without stirring a single step, we have
taken a journey of three hundred miles.
Down in the valley the day was one of the sultriest; up here it was so
cold that our teeth chattered. We were forced to descend into the hollow
lying between the northerly foot of the peak and the first of the bald
knobs constituting the great white ridge of the mountain. Here is a fine
spring, and here, on either side of this singular rock-gallery, is a
landscape of rare beauty enclosed by its walls. Here, too, the mutilated
pyramid of the peak rises before you like an antique ruin. One finds,
without effort, striking resemblances to winding galleries, bastions,
and battlements. He could pass days and weeks here without a single wish
to return to earth. Here we ate our luncheon, and perused the landscape
at leisure. Before us stretched the long course of the Saco, from its
source in the Notch to where, with one grand sweep to the east, it takes
leave of the mountains, flows awhile demurely through the lowlands, and
in two or three infuriated plunges reaches the sea.
I do not remember when I have more fully enjoyed the serene calm of a
Sabbath evening than while wandering among the fragrant and stately
pines that skirt the shores of Lake Chocorua. Indeed, except for the
occasional sound of hoofs along the cool and shady road, or of voices
coming from the bosom of the lake itself, one might say a perpetual
Sabbath reigned here. Yonder tall, athletic pines, those palms of the
north, through which the glimmer of water is seen, hum their monotonous
lullaby to the drowsy lake. The mountains seem so many statues to
Silence. There is no use for speech here. The mute and expressive
language of two lovers, accustomed to read each others' secret thoughts,
is the divine medium. Truant breezes ruffle the foliage in playful
wantonness, but the trees only shake their green heads and murmur "Hush!
hush!" A consecration is upon the mere, a hallowed light within the
wood. Here is the place to linger over the pages of "Hyperion," or dream
away the idle hours with the poets; and here, stretched along the turf,
one gets closer to Nature, studying her with ever-increasing wonder and
delight, or musing upon the thousand forms of mysterious life swarming
in the clod under his hand.