Seeing me ready, Davis whistled to his dog, and we entered the
logging-road in Indian file. We at once took a brisk pace, which in a
short time brought us to the edge of a clearing, now badly overgrown
with bramble and coppice, and showing how easily nature obliterates
the mark of civilization when left alone. In this clearing an old
cellar told its sad story but too plainly. Those pioneers who first
struck the axe into the noble pines here are all gone. They abandoned
in consternation the effort to wring a scanty subsistence from this
inhospitable and unfruitful region. Even the poor farms I had seen
encroaching upon the skirts of this wilderness seemed fighting in
retreat.
We quickly came to a second opening, where the axe of God had smote
the forest still more ruthlessly than that of man. The ground was
encumbered with half-burnt trees, among which the gaudy fire-weed grew
rank and tall. Divining my thought, the guide explained in his quaint,
sententious way, "Fire went through it; then the wind harricaned it
down." A comprehensive sweep of his staff indicated the area traversed
by the whirlwind of fire and the tornado. This opening disclosed at our
left the gray cliffs and yawning aperture of the Notch--by far the most
satisfactory view yet obtained, and the nearest.
Burying ourselves in deeper solitudes, broken only by the hound in full
cry after a fox or a rabbit, we descended to the banks of the Wildcat at
a point one and a half miles from the road we had left. We then crossed
the rude bridge of logs, keeping company with the gradually diminishing
river, now upon one bank, now on the other, making a gradual ascent
along with it, frequently pausing in mid-stream to glance up and down
through the beautiful vistas it has cut through the trees. Halt at the
third crossing, traveller, and take in the long course through the
avenue of black, moss-draped firs! one so sombre and austere, the other
gliding so bright and blithesome out of its shadow and gloom. Just above
this spot a succession of tiny water-falls comes like a procession of
nymphs out of an enchanted wood.
We were now in a colder region. The sparseness of the timber led me to
look right and left for the stumps of felled trees, but I saw nothing of
the kind. To the rigorous climate and extreme leanness of the soil they
attribute the scanty, undersized growth. I did not see fifty good timber
trees along the whole route. Where a large tree had been prostrated by
the wind, its upturned and matted roots showed a pitiful quantity of
earth adhering. Finding it impossible to grow downward more than a few
poor inches, they spread themselves laterally out to a great distance.
But the fir, with its flame-shaped point, is a symbol of indomitable
pluck. You see it standing erect on the top of some huge bowlder, which
its strong, thick roots clutch like a vulture's talons. How came it
there? Look at those rotting trunks, so beautifully covered with the
lycopodium and partridge-plum! The seed of a fir has taken root in the
bark. A tiny tree is already springing from the rich mould. As it grows,
its roots grasp whatever offers a support; and if the decaying tree has
fallen across a bowlder, they strike downward into the soil beneath
it, and the rock is a prisoner during the lifetime of the tree. Its
resin protects it from the icy blasts of winter, and from the alternate
freezing and thawing of early spring. It is emphatically the tree of the
mountains.
An hour and a half of pretty rapid walking brought us to the bottom of a
steep rise. We were at length come to close quarters with the formidable
outworks of Wildcat Mountain. The brook has for some distance poured a
stream of the purest water over moss of the richest green, but now it
most mysteriously vanishes from sight. From this point the singular rock
called the Pulpit is seen overhanging the upper crags of the Dome.[18]
We drank a cup of delicious water from a spring by the side of the path,
and, finding direct access forbidden by the towering and misshapen mass
before us, turned sharply to the left, and attacked the side of Wildcat
Mountain. We had now attained an altitude of nearly three thousand feet
above the sea, or two thousand two hundred and fifty above the village
of Jackson; we were more than a thousand higher than the renowned
Crawford Notch.
On every side the ground was loaded down with huge gray bowlders, so
ponderous that it seemed as if the solid earth must give way under them.
Some looked as if the merest touch would send them crashing down the
mountain. Undermined by the slow action of time, these fragments have
fallen one by one from the high cliffs, and accumulated at the base.
Among these the path serpentined for half a mile more, bringing us at
last to the summit of the spur we had been climbing, and to the broad
entrance of the Notch. We passed quickly over the level ground we were
upon, stopped by the side of a well-built cabin of bark, threw off our
loads, and then, fascinated by the exceeding strangeness of everything
around me, I advanced to the edge of the scrubby growth in front of the
camp, in order to command an unobstructed view.
Shall I live long enough to forget this sublime tragedy of nature,
enacted Heaven knows when or how? How still it was! I seemed to have
arrived at the instant a death-like silence succeeds the catastrophe.
I saw only the bare walls of a temple, of which some Samson had just
overthrown the columns--walls overgrown with a forest, ruins overspread
with one struggling for existence.
Imagine the light of a mid-day sun brightening the tops of the
mountains, while within a sepulchral gloom rendered all objects--rocks,
trees, cliffs--all the more weird and fantastic. I was between two high
mountains, whose walls enclose the pass. Overhanging it, fifteen hundred
feet at least, the sunburnt crags of the Dome towered above the highest
precipices of the mountain behind me. These stately barriers, at once
so noble and imposing, seemed absolutely indestructible. Impossible to
conceive anything more enduring than this imperishable rock. So long
as the world stands, those mountains will stand. And nothing can shake
this conviction. They look so strong, so confident in their strength, so
incapable of change.
But what, then, is this dusky gray mass, stretching huge and irregular
across the chasm from mountain to mountain, completely filling the
space between, and so effectually blockading the entrance that we were
compelled to pick our way up the steep side of the mountain in order to
turn it?
Picture to yourself acres upon acres of naked granite, split and
splintered in every conceivable form, of enormous size and weight, yet
pitched, piled, and tumbled about like playthings, tilted, or so poised
and balanced as to open numberless caves, which sprinkled the whole area
with a thousand shadows--figure this, I repeat, to yourself--and the
mind will then grasp but faintly the idea of this colossal barricade,
seemingly built by the giants of old to guard their last stronghold from
all intrusion. At some distance in front of me a rock of prodigious
size, very closely resembling the gable of a house, thrusting itself
half out, conveyed its horrible suggestion of an avalanche in the act of
ingulfing a hamlet. And all this one beholds in a kind of stupefaction.
Whence came this colossal débris? I had at first the idea that the
great arch, springing from peak to peak, supported on the Atlantean
shoulders of the two mountains, had fallen in ruins. I even tried to
imagine the terrific crash with which heaven and earth came together in
the fall. Easy to realize here Schiller's graphic description of the
Jungfrau:
"One walks there between life and death. Two threatening peaks shut in
the solitary way. Pass over this place of terror without noise; dread
lest you awaken the sleeping avalanche."
It is evident, however, as soon as the eye attaches itself to the side
of the Dome, that one of its loftiest precipices, originally measuring
an altitude as great as any yet remaining, has precipitated itself in a
crushed and broken mass into the abyss. Nothing is left of the primitive
edifice except these ruins. It is easily conceived that, previous to
the convulsion, the interior aspect of the Notch was quite different
from what is seen to-day. It was doubtless narrower, gloomier, and
deeper before the cliff became dislodged. The track of the convulsion is
easily traced. From top to bottom the side of the mountain is hollowed
out, exposing a shallow ravine, in which nothing but dwarf spruces will
grow, and in which the erratic rocks, arrested here and there in their
fall, seem endeavoring to regain their ancient position on the summit.
There is no trace whatever of the rubbish ordinarily accompanying a
slide--only these rocks.
Seeing that all this happened long ago, I asked the guide why the larger
growth we saw on both sides of the hollow had not succeeded in covering
the old scar, as is the case with the Willey Slide; but he was unable to
advance even a conjecture. The spruce, however, loves ruins, spreading
itself out over them with avidity.
We felt our way cautiously and slowly out over the bowlders; for the
moment one quits the usual track he risks falling headlong upon the
sharp rocks beneath. In the midst of these grisly blocks stunted firs
are born, and die for want of sustenance, making the dreary waste
bristle with hard and horny skeletons. The spruce, dwarfed and deformed,
has established itself solidly in the interstices; a few bushes spring
up in the crannies. With this exception, the entire area is denuded
of vegetation. The obstruction is heaped in two principal ridges,
traversing its greatest breadth, and opening a broad way between.
This is one of the most curious features I remarked. From a flat rock
on the summit of the first we obtained the best idea of the general
configuration of the Notch; and from this point, also, we saw the two
little lakes beneath us which are the sources of the Wildcat. Beyond,
and above the hollow they occupy, the two mountains meet in the low
ridge constituting the true summit of Carter Notch. Far down, under
the bowlders, the Wildcat gropes its way out; but, notwithstanding one
or the other was continually dropping out of sight into the caverns
with which they are filled, we could neither hear nor see anything to
indicate its route. It is buried out of sight and sound.
No incident of the whole excursion is more curiously inexplicable than
the total disappearance of the brook at the mountain's foot. Notice that
it was last seen gushing from the side we ascended, half a mile below
the camp. Whence does it come? When we were on top of the bowlders,
looking down on the water of the two little lakes, we wonderingly ask,
"Where does it go? How does it get out?" The mystery is, however, solved
by the certainty that their waters flow out underneath the barrier, so
that this mammoth pile of débris, which could destroy a city, was unable
to arrest the flow of a rivulet.
But all this wreck and ruin exerts a saddening influence; it seems
to prefigure the Death of the Mountain. So one gladly turns to the
landscape--a very noble though not extensive one--enclosing all the
mountains and valleys to the south of us lying between Kearsarge and
Moat.
After this tour of the rocks, we returned to the hut and ate our
luncheon. Here the Pulpit Rock, which is sure to catch the eye whenever
it wanders to the cliffs opposite, looks very much like the broken
handle of a jug. Davis explained that, by advancing fifteen or twenty
paces upon it, it would be possible to hang suspended over the thousand
feet of space beneath. While thus occupied, the dog received his share
of the bread and meat; nor was the little tame hawk that came and hopped
so fearlessly at our feet forgotten. This bird and a cross-bill were the
only living things I saw.[19]
Being fully rested and refreshed, we started on a second exploration of
the upper part of the Notch. Thus far our examination had been confined
to the lower portion only. Descending the spur upon which the hut is
situated, we were, in a few moments, at the bottom of the deep cavity
lying between the Giants' Barricade and the little mountain forming the
northern portal. This area is undoubtedly the original floor of the
pass. We had now reached a position between the lakes. Looking backward,
the barricade lifted a black and frowning wall a hundred and fifty feet
above our heads. Looking down, the water of the lakes seemed "an image
of the Dead Sea sleeping at the foot of Jerusalem destroyed." While I
stood looking into them, a passing cloud, pausing in astonishment at
seeing itself reflected from these shadowy depths, darkened the whole
interior. Deprived all at once of sunlight, the scene became one of
great and magnificent solemnity. The pass assumed the appearance of a
vast cavern. The ponds lay still and cold below. The air grew chill,
the water black as ink. The ruddy color faded from the cliffs. They
became livid. I saw the thousands upon thousands of fir-trees, rigid and
sombre, ranged tier on tier like spectators in an immense circus, who
are awaiting the signal for some terrible spectacle to begin. When the
cloud tranquilly resumed its journey, a load seemed lifted off. It was
Nature repeating to herself,
"Put out the light, and then put out the light."
We had reached the camp at half-past ten. At half-past twelve we began
the ascent of the Dome. It is not so much the height as the steepness of
this mountain that wins our respect. The path goes straight up to the
first summit, deflects a little to reach the Pulpit, and then, turning
more northerly, ascends for a mile and a half more by a much easier rise
to the highest peak. There are no open ledges on the route. The path is
cut through a wood from base to summit; and, with the exception of a
few trees felled to open an outlook in the direction of the main range,
was covered on the summit itself with a dense growth of fir-trees from
twelve to fifteen feet high. To obtain a view of the whole horizon, it
was necessary, at the time of my visit, to climb one of these trees.
I will not fatigue the reader with any detailed account of the ascent.
Suffice it to say that it was a slow and toilsome lifting of one heavy
foot after another for three-quarters of an hour. Sometimes the slope
was so near the vertical that we could ascend only a few rods at a
time. I improved these halts by leaning against a tree, and panting like
a doe pursued by the hunter. Davis threw himself upon the ground and
watched me attentively, but without speaking. If he expected me to give
out, I disappointed him by giving the signal to move on. I had already
served my apprenticeship on Carrigain. It was difficult to maintain
an upright position. Once, indeed, on looking up, I perceived that
the guide had abandoned in disgust the idea of walking erect, and was
creeping on all-fours, like his dog. This breathless scramble continued
for three-quarters of an hour, at the end of which we turned into the
short by-path conducting to the Pulpit.
Near the Pulpit is a cleared space large enough to afford standing room
for fifteen or twenty persons. This Pulpit is a huge, rectangular rock,
jutting out from the face of the cliff on which we stood, and is not at
all unworthy of the name given to it by the guide. It is a fine station
from which to survey the deep rent in the side of the mountain, as well
as the mammoth stone-heap, which it overlooks. The black side of Mount
Wildcat, ploughed from top to bottom with four deep gashes,
"The least a death to nature,"
is also seen to excellent advantage across the airy space between the
mountains. The fluttering of a handkerchief at the door of the little
cabin greatly enlivened the solitary scene, and drew from us the same
signal in return.
At first sight the ascent by the chasm seems feasible; but Davis, who
has twice performed this difficult feat, declared with a shrug that
nothing would tempt him to do it again. Those who have ever come to
close quarters with the shrubby growth of these ruins will know how to
leave it in undisputed possession of its own chosen ground. The dwarf
spruce is the Cossack of the woods.
What a beautiful landscape is that from the Pulpit! The southern horizon
is now widely opened. The mountains around Jackson have dwindled
to hills. Especially curious are the flattened top and distorted
contour-lines of Iron Mountain. Another singular feature is the way we
look through the cloven summit of Doublehead to Kearsarge's stately
pyramid. Here are strips of the Ellis and Saco Valleys, and all of the
Wildcat. The lakes in Ossipee are dazzling to look upon. Old Chocorua
lifts his brilliant spire; then Moat his iron bulwarks. Crawford,
Resolution, and the Giants' Stairs extend on the right, behind Iron.
The view is then cut off by the burly form of Wildcat. Far back in the
picture are the notched walls of the Franconia and Sandwich chains,
topped by pale blue peaks.
Continuing the ascent for about three-fourths of a mile, we came to a
point only a rod or two distant from the head of the great slide of
1869, and from the top of a tree here was the most thrilling prospect of
Washington and the great northern peaks I ever beheld. All the summits
as far south as Monroe are included in the view.
Over the right shoulder of Wildcat appeared the dazzling summit of
Washington, having at his left the noble cone of Jefferson, the
matchless shaft of Adams, and the massive pyramid of Madison. Each gray
head was profusely powdered with snow. Dark clouds, heavily charged with
frost, partially intercepted the sun's rays, and, enveloping the great
mountains in their shadows, cast over them a mantle of the deepest blue;
but enough light escaped to gild the arid slopes of the great ravines a
rich brown gold, and to pierce through, and beautifully expose, against
the dark bulk of Adams, a thin veil of slowly falling snow. Imagine an
Ethiopian wrapped from head to foot in lace!
A chapter could not give the thousand details of this grand picture.
One devours it with avidity. He sees to the greatest possible advantage
the magnificent proportions of Washington, with his massive slopes
rolling up and up, like petrified storm-clouds, to the final summit.
He sees the miles of carriage-road, from where it leaves the woods,
as far as the great northern plateau. He looks deep down into the
depths of Tuckerman's and Huntington's ravines, and between them sees
Raymond's Cataract crusting the bare cliffs with a vein of quicksilver.
The massive head-wall of Tuckerman's was freely spattered with fresh
snow; the Lion's Head rose stark and forbidding; the upper cliffs of
Huntington's,
"With twenty trenched gashes in his head,"
the great billows of land rushing downward into the dark gulfs,
resembled the vortex of a frozen whirlpool.
But for refinement of form, delicacy of outline, and a predominant,
inexplicable grace, Adams stands forth here without a rival.
Washington is the undisputed monarch, but Adams is the highest type of
mountain beauty here. That splendid, slightly concave, antique shaft,
rising in unconscious symmetry from the shoulders of two supporting
mountain-peaks, which seem prostrating themselves at its feet, changes
the emotion of awe and respect to one of admiration and pleasure. Our
elevation presented all the great summits in an unrivalled attitude for
observation or study; and whoever has once beheld them--banded together
with bonds of adamant, their heads in the snow, and their feet in the
impenetrable shades of the Great Gulf; with every one of their thousands
of feet under his eye--every line as firm and strong, and every contour
true as the Great Architect drew it--without loss or abatement; vigorous
in old age as in youth; monuments of one race, and silent spectators
of the passing of another; victors in the battle with Time; chronicles
and retrospect of ages; types of the Everlasting and Unchangeable--will
often try to summon up the picture of the great peaks, and once more
marshal their towering battlements before the memory.
The descent occupied less than half an hour, so rapidly is it made.
We had nothing whatever to do with regulating our speed, but were
fully occupied in so placing our feet as to avoid pitching headlong,
or sitting suddenly down in a miry place. We simply tumbled down the
mountain, like two rocks detached from its peak.
After a last survey of the basin of the Notch, from the clearing above
the upper lake, we crossed the little mountain at its head, taking the
path leading to the Glen House. We descended the reverse side together,
to the point where the great slide referred to came thundering down from
the Dome into the gorge of Nineteen Mile Brook. This landslip, which
happened October 4th, 1869, was one of the results of the disastrous
autumnal storms, which deluged the mountains with rain, and set in
motion here an enormous quantity of wreck and débris. It was at this
time that Mr. Thompson, the proprietor of the Glen House, lost his life
in the Peabody River, in a desperate effort to avert the destruction of
his mill.
Here I parted from my guide; and, after threading the woods for two
hours more, following the valley of Nineteen Mile Brook, came out of
their shadowy embrace into the stony pastures above the Glen House.
IV.
_THE PINKHAM NOTCH._
Levons les yeux vers les saintes montagnes.
--RACINE.
The Glen House is one of the last strongholds of the old ways of travel.
Jackson is twelve, Randolph seven, and Gorham eight miles distant. These
are the nearest villages. The nearest farm-houses are Copp's, three
miles on the road to Randolph, and Emery's, six on the road to Jackson.
The nearest railway-station is eight miles off, at Gorham. The nearest
steam-whistle is there. So much for its seclusion.
Being thus isolated, the Glen House is naturally the point of direction
for the region adjacent. Situated at the base of Carter Mountain, on a
terrace rising above the Peabody River, which it overlooks, it has only
the valley of this stream--a half mile of level meadow here--between
it and the base of Mount Washington. The carriage-road to the summit,
which, in 1861, superseded the old bridle-path, is seen crossing this
meadow. This road occupied six years in building, is eight miles long,
and is as well and solidly built as any similar piece of highway in New
England.
When it is a question of this gigantic mass, which here offers such an
easy mode of ascent, the interest is assured. 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 from the
hotel to more eligible posts of observation, say the clearings on Mount
Carter, or, better still, the slopes of Wildcat, which are easily
reached over a good path.
Still, Mount Washington is surveyed with more astonishment, perhaps,
from this point, than from any other. Its lower section 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. As seen from this spot, the peculiar formation of the
mountain gives the impression 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 forever visible.
When the first mass cooled, it received a second, a third, and a fourth.
One believes, so to speak, certain intervals to have elapsed in the
process of solidifying these masses, which seem, to me at least, not
risen above the earth, but poured down upon it.