the harvest-moon; and enchanting the white splendor quivering on its
dark waters. A boat steals by; see! its oars dip up molten silver. The
voyagers troll a love-ditty. Dangerous ground this colonnade of woods
and yonder sparkling water for self-conscious lovers! Love and the ocean
have the same subtle sympathy with moonlight. The stronger its beams the
higher rises the flood.
Very little of the world--but that little the best part--gets in here.
It is out of the beaten path of mountain-travel, so that those only who
have in a manner served their apprenticeship are sojourners. One small
hotel and a few boarding-houses easily accommodate all comers. For
people who like to refine their pleasures, as well as their society,
or who have wearied of life at the great hotels, such a place offers
a most tempting retreat. Display makes no part of the social regime.
Mrs. P---- is not jealous of Mrs. Q----'s diamonds. Ladies stroll
about unattended, gather water-lilies, cardinal-flowers, and rare
ferns by brook or way-side. Gentlemen row, drive, climb the mountains,
or make little pedestrian tours of discovery. Quiet people are
irresistibly attracted to this kind of life, which, with a good degree
of probability, they assert to be the true and only rational way of
enjoying the mountains.
IV.
_LOVEWELL._
Of worthy Captain Lovewell I purpose now to sing.
How valiantly he served his country and his king.
_Old Ballad._
LET us make a détour to historic Fryeburg, leaving the cars at Conway,
which in former times enjoyed a happy pre-eminence as the centre upon
which the old stage-routes converged, and where travellers, going or
returning from the mountains, always passed the night. But those old
travellers have mostly gone where the name of Chatigee, by which both
drivers and tourists liked to designate Conway, is going; only there is
for the name, fortunately, no resurrection. No one knows its origin;
none will mourn its decease.
It is here, at Conway, or Conway Corner, that first enrapturing view of
the White Mountains bursts upon the traveller like a splendid vision.
But we shall see it again on our return from Fryeburg. Moreover,
I enjoyed this constant espionage from a distance before a nearer
approach, this exchange of preliminary civilities before coming closer
to the heart of the mountains.
Fryeburg stands on a dry and sandy plain, elevated above the Saco River.
It lies behind the mountain range, which, terminating in Conway, compels
the river to make a right angle. Turning these mountains, the river
seems now to be in no hurry, but coils about the meadows in a manner
that instantly recalls the famous Connecticut Ox-Bow. Chocorua and
Kearsarge are the two prominent figures in the landscape.
The village street is most beautifully shaded by elms of great size,
which, giving to each other an outstretched hand over the way, spring an
arch of green high above, through which we look up and down. At one end
justice is dispensed at the Oxford House--an inn with a pedigree; at the
other learning is diffused in the academy where Webster once taught and
disciplined the rising generation. A scroll over the inn door bears the
date of 1763. The first school-house and the first framed house built
in Fryeburg are still standing, a little way out of the village. On our
way to the remarkable rock, emerging from the plain like a walrus from
the sea, we linger a moment in the village graveyard to read the long
inscription on the monument of General Joseph Frye, a veteran of the old
wars, and founder of the town which bears his name. Ascending now the
rock to which we just referred, called the Jockey Cap, we are lifted
high above the plain, having the river meadows, the graceful loops of
the river itself, the fine pyramid of Kearsarge on one side, and on the
other the dark sheet of Lovewell's Pond stretched at our feet.
[Illustration: LOVEWELL'S POND]
It was here, under the shadow of Mount Kearsarge, was fought one of the
bloodiest and most obstinately contested battles that can be found in
the annals of war; so terrible, indeed, that the story was repeated from
fireside to fireside, and from generation to generation, as worthy a
niche beside that of Leonidas and his band of heroes. Familiar as is the
tale--and who does not know it by heart?--it can still send the blood
throbbing to the temples, or coursing back to the heart. Unfortunately,
the details are sufficiently meagre, but, in truth, they need no
embellishment. Their very simplicity presents the tragedy in all its
grandeur. It is an epic.
In April, 1725, John Lovewell, a hardy and experienced ranger of
Dunstable, whose exploits had already noised his fame abroad, marched
with forty-six men for the Indian villages at Pigwacket, now Fryeburg,
Maine. At Ossipee he built a small fort, designed as a refuge in case of
disaster. This precaution undoubtedly saved the lives of some of his
men. He was now within two short marches of the enemy's village. The
scouts having found Indian tracks in the neighborhood, Lovewell resumed
his route, leaving one of his men who had fallen sick, his surgeon, and
eight men, to guard the fort. His command was now reduced to thirty-four
officers and men.
The rangers reached the shores of the beautiful lake which bears
Lovewell's name, and bivouacked for the night.
The night passed without an alarm; but the sentinels who watched the
encampment reported hearing strange noises in the woods. Lovewell
scented the presence of his enemy.
In fact, on the morning of the 8th of May, while his band were on their
knees seeking Divine favor in the approaching conflict, the report of a
gun brought every man to his feet. Upon reconnoitring, a solitary Indian
was discovered on a point of land about a mile from the camp.
The leader immediately called his men about him, and told them that
they must now quickly decide whether to fight or retreat. The men, with
one accord, replied that they had not come so far in search of the
enemy to beat a shameful retreat the moment he was found. Seeing his
band possessed with this spirit, Lovewell then prepared for battle.
The rangers threw off their knapsacks and blankets, looked to their
primings, and loosened their knives and axes. The order was then given,
and they moved cautiously out of their camp. Believing the enemy was in
his front, Lovewell neglected to place a guard over his baggage.
Instead of plunging into the woods, the Indian who had alarmed the camp
stood where he was first seen until the scouts fired upon him, when he
returned the fire, wounding Lovewell and one other. Ensign Wyman then
levelled his musket and shot him dead. The day began thus unfortunately
for the English. Lovewell was mortally wounded in the abdomen, but
continued to give his orders.
After clearing the woods in their front without finding any more
Indians, the rangers fell back toward the spot where they had deposited
their packs. This was a sandy plain, thinly covered with pines, at the
north-east end of the lake.
During their absence, the Indians, led by the old chief, Paugus, whose
name was a terror throughout the length and breadth of the English
frontiers, stumbled upon the deserted encampment. Paugus counted the
packs, and, finding his warriors outnumbered the rangers, the wily
chief placed them in ambush; he divined that the English would return
from their unsuccessful scout sooner or later, and he prepared to
repeat the tactics used with such fatal effect at Bloody Brook, and at
the defeat of Wadsworth. This consisted in arranging his savages in a
semicircle, the two wings of which, enveloping the rangers, would expose
them to a murderous cross-fire at short musket-range.
Without suspecting their danger, Lovewell's men fell into the fatal
snare which the crafty Paugus had thus spread for them. Hardly had they
entered it when the grove blazed with a deadly volley, and resounded
with the yells of the Indians. As if confident of their prey, they even
left their coverts, and flung themselves upon the English with a fury
nothing could withstand.
In this onset Lovewell, who, notwithstanding his wound, bravely
encouraged his men with voice and example, received a second wound, and
fell. Two of his lieutenants were killed at his side; but with desperate
valor the rangers charged up to the muzzles of the enemy's guns, killing
nine, and sweeping the others before them. This gallant charge cost them
eight killed, besides their captain; two more were badly wounded.
Twenty-three men had now to maintain the conflict with the whole Sokokis
tribe. Their situation was indeed desperate. Relief was impossible;
for they were fifty miles from the nearest English settlements. Their
packs and provisions were in the enemy's hands, and the woods swarmed
with foes. To conquer or die was the only alternative. These devoted
Englishmen despaired of conquering, but they prepared to die bravely.
Ensign Wyman, on whom the command devolved after the death of Lovewell,
was his worthy successor. Seeing the enemy stealing upon his flanks as
if to surround him, he ordered his men to fall back to the shore of the
lake, where their right was protected by a brook, and their left by a
rocky point extending into the lake. A few large pines stood on the
beach between.
This manoeuvre was executed under a hot fire, which still further
thinned the ranks of the English. The Indians closed in upon them,
filling the air with demoniac yells whenever a victim fell. Assailing
the whites with taunts, and shaking ropes in their faces, they cried
out to them to yield. But to the repeated demands to surrender, the
rangers replied only with bullets. They thought of the fort and its ten
defenders, and hoped, or rather prayed, for night. This hope, forlorn as
it seemed, encouraged them to fight on, and they delivered their fire
with fatal precision whenever an Indian showed himself. The English were
in a trap, but the Indians dared not approach within reach of the lion's
claws.
While this long combat was proceeding, one of the English went to the
lake to wash his gun, and, on emerging at the shore, descried an Indian
in the act of cleansing his own. This Indian was Paugus.
The ranger went to work like a man who comprehends that his life depends
upon a second. The chief followed him in every movement. Both charged
their guns at the same instant. The Englishman threw his ramrod on the
sand; the Indian dropped his.
"Me kill you," said Paugus, priming his weapon from his powder-horn.
"The chief lies," retorted the undaunted ranger, striking the breech of
his firelock upon the ground with such force that it primed itself. An
instant later Paugus fell, shot through the heart.
"I said I should kill you," muttered the victor, spurning the dead body
of his enemy, and plunging into the thickest of the fight.
Darkness closed the conflict, which had continued without cessation
since ten in the morning. Little by little the shouts of the enemy grew
feebler, and finally ceased. The English stood to their arms until
midnight, when, convinced that the savages had abandoned the sanguinary
field of battle, they began their retreat toward the fort. Only nine
were unhurt. Eleven were badly wounded, but were resolved to march with
their comrades, though they died by the way. Three more were alive, but
had received their death-wounds. One of these was Lieutenant Robbins, of
Chelmsford. Knowing that he must be left behind, he begged his comrades
to load his gun, in order that he might sell his life as dearly as
possible when the savages returned to wreak their vengeance upon the
wounded.
I have said that twenty-three men continued the fight after the bloody
repulse in which Lovewell was killed. There were only twenty-two. The
other, whose name the reader will excuse me from mentioning, fled from
the field and gained the fort, where he spread the report that Lovewell
was cut to pieces, himself being the sole survivor. This intelligence,
striking terror, decided the little garrison to abandon the fort, which
was immediately done, and in haste.
This was the crowning misfortune of the expedition. The rangers now
became a band of panic-stricken fugitives. After incredible hardships,
less than twenty starving, emaciated, and footsore men, half of them
badly wounded, straggled into the nearest English settlements.
The loss of the Indians could only be guessed; but the battle led to the
immediate abandonment of their village, from which so many war-parties
had formerly harassed the English. Paugus, the savage wolf, the
implacable foe of the whites, was dead. His tribe forsook the graves of
their fathers, nor rested until they had put many long leagues between
them and their pursuers. For them the advance of the English was the
Juggernaut under whose wheels their race was doomed to perish from the
face of the earth.
V.
_NORTH CONWAY._
"Tall spire from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the listening ear,
Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote."
The entrance to North Conway is, without doubt, the most beautiful and
imposing introduction to the high mountains.
Although the traveller has for fifty miles skirted the outlying ranges,
catching quick-shifting glimpses of the great summits, yet, when at last
the train swings round the foot of the Moat range into the Saco Valley,
so complete is the transition, so charming the picture, that not even
the most apathetic can repress a movement of surprise and admiration.
This is the moment when every one feels the inadequacy of his own
conceptions.
Nature has formed here a vast antechamber, into which you are ushered
through a gate-way of mountains upon the numerous inner courts,
galleries, and cloisters of her most secluded retreats. Here the
mountains fall back before the impetuous flood of the Saco, which comes
pouring down from the summit of the great Notch, white, and panting with
the haste of its flight. Here the river gives rendezvous to several of
its larger affluents--the East Branch, the Ellis, the Swift--and, like
an army taking the field, their united streams, sweeping grandly around
the foot of the last mountain range, emerge into the open country. Here
the valley, contracted at its extremity between the gentle slope of
Kearsarge and the abrupt declivities of Moat, encloses an ellipse of
verdant and fertile land ravishing to behold, skirted on one side by
thick woods, behind which precipices a thousand feet high rise black and
threatening, overlooked on the other by a high terrace, along which the
village is built. It is the inferior summit of Kearsarge, which descends
by a long, regular slope to the intervale at its upper end, while a
secondary ridge of the Moats, advancing on the opposite side, drops
into it by a precipice. The superb silver-gray crest of Kearsarge is
seen rising in a regular pyramid behind the right shoulder of its lower
summit. Ordinarily the house perched on the top is seen as distinctly as
those in the village. It is the last in the village.
Looking up through this verdant mountain park, at a distance of twenty
miles, the imposing masses of the great summits seem scaling the skies.
Then, heavily massed on the right, comes the Carter range, divided by
the cup-shaped dip of the Carter Notch; then the truncated cone of
Double-Head; and then, with outworks firmly planted in the valley, the
glittering pinnacle of Kearsarge. The mountain in front of you, looking
up the village street, is Thorn Mountain, on the other side of which is
Jackson, and the way up the Ellis Valley to the Pinkham Notch, the Glen
House, Gorham, and the Androscoggin.
The traveller, who is ushered upon this splendid scene with the rapidity
of steam, perceives that he is at last among real mountains, and quickly
yields to the indefinable charm which from this moment surrounds and
holds him a willing captive.
[Illustration: MOUNT WASHINGTON FROM THE SACO.]
Looking across the meadow from the village street, the eye is stopped
by an isolated ridge of bare, overhanging precipices. It is thrust out
into the valley from Moat Mountain, of which it forms a part, presenting
two singular, regularly arched cliffs, seven hundred to nine hundred and
fifty feet in height toward the village. The green forest underneath
contrasts vividly with the lustrous black of these precipitous walls,
which glisten brightly in the sunshine, where they are wet by tiny
streams flowing down. On the nearest of these is a very curious
resemblance to the head and shoulders of a horse in the act of rearing,
occasioned by a white incrustation on the face of the cliff. This
accident gives to it the name of White Horse Ledge. All marriageable
ladies, maiden or widow, run out to look at it, in consequence of the
belief 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.
Next beyond is the Cathedral Ledge, so called from the curious rock
cavity it contains; and still farther up the valley is Humphrey's Ledge,
one of the finest rock-studies of them all when we stand underneath
it. But the reader now has a general acquaintance with North Conway,
and with its topography. He begins his study of mountain beauty in a
spirit of loving enthusiasm, which leads him on and on to the ripeness
of an education achieved by simply throwing himself upon the bosom of
indulgent Nature, putting the world as far as possible behind him.
[Illustration: THE LEDGES, NORTH CONWAY.]
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 looking like enormous oranges, the floor-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.
Turn now to the mountain presiding with such matchless grace and dignity
over the village. Kearsarge, in the twilight, deserves, like Lorenzo di
Medicis, to be called "the magnificent." The yellow and orange foliage
looks, for all the world, like a golden shower fallen upon it. The
gray ledges at the apex, which the clear, yellow light renders almost
incandescent, are far more in harmony with the rest of the mountain than
in the vernal season.
Are we yet in sympathy with that free-masonry of art through which our
eminent landscape-painters recognized here the true picturesque point
of view of the great mountains, the effective contrasts and harmonious
ensemble of the near scenery--the grandest allied with the humblest
objects of nature? One cannot turn in any direction without recognizing
a picture he has seen in the studios, or in the saloons of the clubs.
The first persons I saw on the platform of the railway-station were my
quondam companions, the colonel and George. We met like friends who had
parted only half an hour before. During dinner it was agreed that we
should pass our afternoon among the cliffs. This arrangement appeared
very judicious; the distance is short, and the attractions many.
We accordingly set out for the ledges at three in the afternoon.
The weather did not look promising, to be sure, but we decided it
sufficiently so for this promenade of three or four hours.
While en route, let me mention a discovery. One morning, while sitting
on the piazza of the Kearsarge House enjoying the dreamy influence
of the warm atmosphere, which spun its soft, gossamer web about the
mountains, I observed a peculiar shadow thrown by a jutting mass of the
Cathedral Ledge upon a smooth surface, which exactly resembled a human
figure standing upright. I looked away, then back again, to see if I
was not the victim of an illusion. No, it was still there. Now it is
always there. The head and upper part of the body were inclined slightly
forward, the legs perfectly formed. At ten every forenoon, punctual
to the hour, this phantom, emerging from the rock, stands, fixed and
motionless as a statue, in its niche. At every turn of the sun, this
shade silently interrogates the feverish activity that has replaced the
silence of ages. One day or another I shall demand of my phantom what it
has witnessed.
The road we followed soon turned sharply away from the main street of
the village, to the left, and in a few rods more plunged into the Saco,
leaving us standing on the bank, looking askance at a wide expanse of
water, choked with bowlders, around which the swift current whirled and
foamed with rage. We decided it too shallow to swim, but doubted if it
was not too deep to ford. We had reached our Rubicon.
"We must wade," said the colonel, with decision.
"Precisely my idea," assented George, beginning to unlace his shoes.
I put my hand in the river. Ugh! it was as cold as ice.
Having assured ourselves no one saw us, we divested ourselves of shoes,
stockings, pantaloons, and drawers. We put our stockings in our pockets,
disposed our clothing in a roll over the shoulder, as soldiers do on the
march, tied our shoes together, and hung them around our necks. Then,
placing our hands upon each others' shoulders, as I have seen gymnasts
do in a circus, we entered the river, like candidates for baptism,
feeling our way, and catching our breath.
"_Sans-culottes_," suggested the colonel, who knew a little French.
"Kit-kats," added George, who knows something of art, as the water rose
steadily above our knees.
The treacherous bowlders tripped us up at every step, so that one or
the other was constantly floundering, like a stranded porpoise in a
frog-pond. But, thanks to our device, we reached the middle of the river
without anything worse than a few bruises. Here we were fairly stopped.
The water was waist-deep, and the current every moment threatened to
lift us from our feet. How foolish we looked!
Advance or retreat? That was the question. One pointed up stream,
another down; while, to aggravate the situation, rain began to patter
around us. In two minutes the river was steaming. George, who is a great
infant, suggested putting our hands in our pockets, to keep them warm,
and our clothes in the river, to keep them dry.
"By Jove!" ejaculated the colonel, "the river is smoking."
"Let us join the river," said George, producing his cigar-case.
Putting our heads together over the colonel's last match, thus forming
an antique tripod of our bodies, we succeeded in getting a light; and
for the first time, I venture to affirm, since its waters gushed from
the mountains, incense ascended from the bosom of the Saco.
"I'm freezing!" stuttered George.
I was pushing forward, to cut the dilemma short, when the colonel
interposed with,
"Stop; I want to tell you a story."
"A story? here--in the middle of the river?" we shouted.
"In the middle of the river; here--a story!" he echoed.
"I would like to sit down while I listen," observed George.
Evidently the coldness of the water had forced the blood into our
friend's head. He was ill, but obstinate. We therefore resigned
ourselves to hear him.
"This river and this situation remind me of the Potawatamies," he began.
"Potawatamies!" we echoed, with chattering teeth. "Go on; go on."
"When I was on the Plains," continued the colonel, "I passed some time
among those Indians. During my stay, the chief invited me to accompany
him on a buffalo-hunt. I accepted on the spot; for of all things a
buffalo-hunt was the one I was most desirous of seeing. We set out at
daybreak the next morning. After a few hours' march, we came to a stream
between deep banks, and flowing with a rapid current, like this one--"
"Go on; go on!" we shiveringly articulated.
"At a gesture from the chief, a young squaw dismounted from her pony,
advanced to the edge of the stream, and began, timidly, to wade it. When
she hesitated, as she did two or three times, the chief said something
which encouraged her to proceed. All at once she stopped, threw up her
arms, and screamed something in the Indian dialect; at which all the
braves burst into a loud laugh, the squaws joining in.
"'What does she say?' I asked of the chief.
"'Up to the middle,' he replied, pushing his pony into the stream."