out of the west until a late hour. In a clear and starry night all the
surrounding mountains can be distinguished long after the valley is
steeped in darkness. At half-past nine I could easily tell the time by
my watch; and even at this hour a pale, nebulous light still lingered
where the sun had gone down. So at near two thousand feet above the full
sea one peers over into that deeper horizon where twilight and dawn meet
and embrace on the dusky threshold of midnight.
While in the neighborhood, I devoted a day to an exploration of the
Ravine of the Cascades. This ravine is entered from a point on the
Gorham road about three miles distant from the Mount Adams House. A
cart-way crosses the meadow here to an abandoned mill which is on the
stream coming from the ravine, and by which you must ascend. A more
beautiful example of a mountain brook it has never been my lot to see.
The ascent is, however, tedious and toilsome in the extreme over the
smooth and slippery rocks in its bed. Four hours of this brought me to
the region of low trees, and to the foot of the first fall, which, I
judged, descended about thirty feet. This way to the summit is open only
to the most vigorous climbers. Even then it is better to descend into
the ravine from the gap between Adams and Jefferson in order to visit
these cascades.
The two most profitable excursions to be made here are undoubtedly the
ascent of Mount Adams and the drive to the top of Randolph Hill. I have
found on the first summit irrefragable evidence that, next to Washington
and Lafayette, Adams is the peak which summer tourists are most desirous
of ascending. A good path, on which there is a camp, leads to the
summit. Having other views in regard to this mountain, which I had so
often admired from a distance, I made a third reconnoisance of its
outworks and its remarkable ravine, while _en route_ for Randolph Hill.
Unquestionably fine as the views are along this road, on which you are
at one time rolling smoothly over meadow or upland, with the great
northern peak rising to its full height, or again toiling up a stony
hill-side to obtain a much better idea of its real character and
prodigious dimensions, the climax is reserved until, turning from the
highway, you begin a slow advance up the long hill-side that makes an
almost uninterrupted descent for five miles to the Androscoggin. Here
I saw from a balcony what I had before seen from the ground-floor.
The view is large and expansive. You look down the surging land into
the Androscoggin. You look over among the mountains circling its
head, huddled together like a frightened herd. You look down into the
valley of the Moose, and through the gap in the great chain you again
see the valley of the Peabody and the Carter Notch. Now you hold the
great northern peaks admiringly at arm's-length, as you would an old
friend. Putting an imaginary hand on each broad shoulder, you scan them
from head to foot. They submit calmly and with condescension to your
lengthened scrutiny. Presently the low sun floods them with royal purple
and gilds the topmost crags with refined gold. You glance up the valley.
The little river comes like a stream of fire which the huge mountains
seem crowding forward to trample out. Now look down. The same mountains
seem spurning the glittering serpent away from their feet.
King's Ravine is as well seen from this point, perhaps, as any. It
is a huge natural niche excavated high up the mountain. You see
everything--grizzled spruces, blackened shafts of stone, rifted walls,
tawny crags--all in one glance. It is formidable and forbidding, though
a way has been made through it by which to ascend Mount Adams. Now that
there is a good path skirting the ravine and avoiding it, that look will
usually suffice to deter sensible people from attempting to reach the
summit by it. It is far better to descend into it and grope one's way
down through and underneath the bowlders. The same, and even greater,
obstacles are encountered as in Tuckerman's. In early spring the walls
of the ravine are streaked with slowly-melting snows. These gulches, all
converging toward the bottom, send a torrent roaring down with noise
equal to surf on a hard sea-beach. This torrent is the principal source
of the Moose.
Well do I remember my first venture here. I had walked from Gorham.
Seeing a man chopping wood by the side of the road, I entered into
conversation with him; but at the first suggestion I let fall of an
intention to climb to the ravine he gaped open-mouthed. To ascend
the brook to the ravine, the escarpment of the ravine to the high
precipices, the precipices to the gate-way, was an exploit in those
days. But this was long ago. A good climber now puts King's Ravine down
in his list of excursions with the same nonchalance that a belle of the
ball-room enters an additional waltz on her card of engagements.[39]
One day I had fished along the Moose without success. Nothing could
give a better idea of a mountain stream than this one, fed by snows and
gushing from the breached side of Mount Adams. But either the water was
too cold or the trout too wary. They persistently refused my fly. I
tried red and brown hackle, then a white moth-miller; all to no purpose.
Feeling downright hungry, I determined to seek a dinner elsewhere.
Unjointing my rod, I returned, rather crestfallen, down the mountain
into the road.
I knocked at the first house. Pretty soon the curtain of the first
window at my left hand was partly drawn aside. I felt that I was under
the fire of a pair of very black eyes. An instant after the door was
half-opened by a woman past middle life, who examined me with a scared
look while wiping her hands on a corner of her apron. Two or three white
heads peeped out from the folds of her dress like young chickens from
the old hen's wing, and as many pairs of widely-opened eyes surveyed me
with innocent surprise.
Perceiving her confusion, I was on the point of asking some indifferent
question, about the distance, the road--I knew not what--but my stomach
gave me a twinge of disdain, and I stood my ground. Hunger has no
conscience: honor was at stake. In two words I made known my wants, I
confess with confidence oozing away at my fingers' ends.
Her confusion became still greater--so evident, indeed, that I took a
backward step and stammered, quite humbly, "A hunch of bread-and-cheese
or a cup of milk--" when the good-wife nailed me to the threshold.
Quoth she, "The men folks have all _et_ their dinners, and there hain't
no more meat; but if you could put up with a few trout?"
Put up with trout! Did I hear aright? The word made my mouth water.
I softly repeated it to myself--"Trout!"--would I put up with trout?
Not to lower myself in this woman's estimation, I replied that, seeing
there was nothing else in the house, I would put up with trout. Let it
suffice that I made a repast fit for a prince, and, like a prince, being
served by a bashful maiden with cheeks like the arbutus, which everybody
knows shows its most delicate pink only in the seclusion of its native
woods.
My hours of leisure in Jefferson being numbered, having now made the
circuit of the great range by all the avenues penetrating or environing
it, the reader's further indulgence is craved while his faithful guide
points his well-worn alpenstock to the last stage of our mountain
journeys.
Behold us at last, after many capricious wanderings, after calculated
avoidance, approaching the inevitable end. We are _en route_ for
Fabyan's by the road over Cherry Mountain. This road is twelve miles
long. As we mount with it the side of Cherry Mountain the beautiful
vistas continually detain us. We are now climbing the eastern wall of
the valley, so long the prominent figure from the heights of Jefferson.
We now look back upon the finely-traced slopes of Starr King, with the
village luxuriously extended in the sun. For some time we are like two
travellers going in opposite directions, but who turn again and again
for a last adieu. Now the forest closes over us and we see each other no
more.
Noonday found me descending that side of the mountain overlooking the
Ammonoosuc Valley. Where the Cherry Mountain road joins the valley
highway the White Mountain House, an old-time tavern, stands. The
railway passes close to its door. A mile more over the level brings us
to Fabyan's, so called from one of the old mountain landlords, whose
immortality is thus assured. Now that mammoth caravansary, which seems
all eyes, is reached just as the doors opening upon the great hall
disclose a long array of tables, while permitting a delicious odor to
assail our nostrils.
To speak to the purpose, the Fabyan House really commands a superb front
view of Mount Washington, from which it is not six miles in a bee-line.
All the southern peaks, among which Mount Pleasant is undoubtedly the
most conspicuous for its form and its mass, and for being thrown so
boldly out from the rest, are before the admiring spectator; but the
northern peaks, with the exception of Clay and Jefferson, are cut off
partly by the slopes of Mount Deception, which rises directly before the
hotel, partly by the trend of the great range itself to the north-east.
The view is superior from the neighborhood of the Mount Pleasant House,
half a mile beyond Fabyan's, where Mount Jefferson is fully and finely
brought into the picture.
[Illustration: MOUNT WASHINGTON, FROM FABYAN'S.]
The railway is seen mounting a foot-hill, crossing a second and
higher elevation, then dimly carved upon the massive flanks of Mount
Washington itself, as far as the long ridge which ascends from the
north in one unbroken slope. It is then lost. We see the houses upon
the summit, and from the Mount Pleasant House the little cluster of
roofs at the base. A long and well-defined gully, exactly dividing the
mountain, is frequently taken to be the railway, which is really much
farther to the left. The smoke of a train ascending or descending still
further indicates the line of iron, which we admit to the category of
established facts only under protest.
Sylvester Marsh, of Littleton, New Hampshire, was the man who dreamed
of setting aside the laws of gravitation with a puff of steam. Like
all really great inventions, his had to run the gauntlet of ridicule.
When the charter for a railway to the summit of Mount Washington was
before the Legislature a member moved that Mr. Marsh also have leave
to build one to the moon. Had the motion prevailed, I am persuaded Mr.
Marsh would have built it. Really, the project seemed only a little
more audacious. But in three years from the time work was begun (April,
1866) the track was laid and the mountain in irons.[40] The summit which
the superstitious Indian dared not approach, nor the most intrepid
white hunter ascend, is now annually visited by thousands, without more
fatigue than would follow any other excursion occupying the same time.
The excitement of a first passage, the strain upon the nerves, is quite
another thing.
In a little grass-grown enclosure, on the other side of the Ammonoosuc,
is a headstone bearing the following inscription:
IN MEMORY OF
CAP ELIEZER ROSBROOK
WHO DIED SEP. 25
1817
In the 70 Year
Of His Age.
When I lie buried deep in dust,
My flesh shall be thy care
These withering limbs to thee I trust
To raise them strong and fair.
WIDOW
HANNAH ROSEBROOK
Died May 4, 1829
Aged 84
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. For they rest from their labors
And their works do follow them.
So far as is known Rosebrook was the first white settler on this spot.
One account[41] says he came here in 1788, another fixes his settlement
in 1792.[42] His military title appears to have been derived from
services rendered on the Canadian frontier during the Revolutionary
War. Rosebrook was a true pioneer, restless, adventurous, and fearless.
He was a man of large and athletic frame. From his home in Massachusetts
he had first removed to what is now Colebrook, then to Guildhall, Vt.,
and lastly here, to Nash and Sawyer's Location, exchanging the comforts
which years of toil had surrounded him with, abandoning the rich and
fertile meadow-lands of the Connecticut, for a log-cabin far from any
human habitation, and with no other neighbors than the bears and wolves
that prowled unharmed the shaggy wilderness at his door. With his axe
this sturdy yeoman attacked the forest closely investing his lonely
cabin. Year by year, foot by foot, he wrested from it a little land
for tillage. With his gun he kept the beast of prey from his little
enclosure, or provided venison or bear's meat for the wife and little
ones who anxiously awaited his return from the hunt. Hunger and they
were no strangers. For years the strokes of Rosebrook's axe, or the
crack of his rifle, were the only sounds that disturbed the silences
of ages. Little by little the circle was enlarged. One after another
the giants of the forest fell beneath his blows. But years of resolute
conflict with nature and with privation found him at last in the
enjoyment of a dearly-earned prosperity. Travellers began to pass his
doors. The Great White Mountain Notch soon became a thoroughfare, which
could never have been safely travelled but for Rosebrook's intrepidity
and Rosebrook's hospitality. In this way began the feeble tide of travel
through these wilds. In this way the splendidly equipped hotel, with its
thousands of guests the locomotive every hour brings to its door, traces
its descent from the rude and humble cabin of Eleazer Rosebrook.
X.
_THE GREAT NORTHERN PEAKS._
Cradled and rocked by wind and cloud,
Safe pillowed on the summit proud,
Steadied by that encircling arm
Which holds the Universe from harm,
I knew the Lord my soul would keep,
Upon His mountain-tops asleep!
LUCY LARCOM.
Thus I found myself again at the base of Mount Washington, but on the
reverse, opposed to the Glen. Before the completion of the railway from
Fabyan's to the foot of the mountain I had passed over the intervening
six miles by stage--a delightful experience; but one now steps on
board an open car, which in less than half the time formerly occupied
leaves him at the point where the mountain car and engine wait for him.
The route lies along the foaming Ammonoosuc, and its justly admired
falls, cut deep through solid granite, into the uncouth and bristling
wilderness which surrounds the base of the mountain. The peculiarity
of these falls does not consist in long, abrupt descents of perturbed
water, but in the neatly excavated caves, rock-niches, and smoothly
rounded cliffs and basins through which for some distance the impatient
stream rears and plunges like a courser feeling the curb. Imperfect
glimpses hardly give an idea of the curious and interesting processes
of rock-cutting to one who merely looks down from the high banks above
while the train is in rapid motion. It is better, therefore, to visit
these falls by way of the old turnpike.
The advance up the valley which has first given us an outlook through
the great Notch, on our right, presents for some time the huge green
hemisphere of Mount Pleasant as the conspicuous object. The track then
swerves to the left, bringing Mount Washington into view, and in a few
minutes more we are at the ill-favored clump of houses and sheds at its
base.
[Illustration: MOUNTAIN RAILWAY-STATION IN STAGING TIMES.]
The mechanism of the road-way is very simple. The track is formed of
three iron rails, firmly clamped to stout timbers, laid lengthwise upon
transverse pieces, or sleepers. These are securely embedded, where the
surface will allow, or raised upon trestles, where its inequalities
would compel a serious deflection from a smooth or regular inclination.
One of these, about half-way up the mountain, is called Jacob's Ladder.
Here the train achieves the most difficult part of the ascent. After
traversing the whole line on foot, and inspecting it minutely and
thoroughly, I can candidly pronounce it not only a marvel of mechanical
skill, but bear witness to the scrupulous care taken to keep every
timber and every bolt in its place. In two words, the structure is
nothing but a ladder of wood and iron laid upon the side of the
mountain.[43]
The propelling force employed is equally simple. The engine and car
merely rest upon and are kept in place by the two outer rails, while
the power is applied to the middle one, which we have just called a
rail, but is, more properly speaking, a little ladder of steel cogs,
into which the corresponding teeth of the locomotive's driving-wheel
play--a firm hold being thus secured. The question now merely is, how
much power is necessary to overcome gravity and lift the weight of the
machine into the air? This cogged-rail is the fulcrum, and steam the
lever. Mr. Sylvester Marsh has not precisely lifted the mountain, but he
has, nevertheless, with the aid of Mr. Walter Aiken, reduced it, to all
intents, to a level.
The boiler of the locomotive, inclined forward so as to preserve a
horizontal position when the engine is ascending, the smoke-stack
also pitched forward, give the idea of a machine that has been in a
collision. Everything seems knocked out of place. But this queer-looking
thing, that with bull-dog tenacity literally hangs on to the mountain
with its teeth, is capable of performing a feat such as Watt never
dreamed of, or Stephenson imagined. It goes up the mountain as easily as
a bear climbs a tree, and like a bear.
I had often watched the last ascension of the train, which usually
reaches the summit at sunset, and I had as often pleased myself with
considering whether it then most resembled a big, shining beetle
crawling up the mountain side, or some fiery dragon of the fabulous
times, dragging his prey after him to his den, after ravaging the
valley. My own turn was now come to make the trial. It was a cold
afternoon in September when I entered the little carriage, not much
larger than a street-car, and felt the premonitory jerk with which the
ascent begins. The first hill is so steep that you look up to see the
track always mounting high above your head; but one soon gets used to
the novelty, and to the clatter which accompanies the incessant dropping
of a pawl into the indentures of the cogged-rail, and in which he
recognizes an element of safety. The train did not move faster than one
could walk, but it moved steadily, except when it now and then stopped
at a water-tank, standing solitary and alone upon the waste of rocks.
By the time we emerged above the forest into the chill and wind-swept
desolation above it--a first sight of which is so amazing--the sun
had set behind the Green Mountain summits, showing a long, serrated
line of crimson peaks, above which clouds of lake floated in a sea
of amber. It grew very cold. Great-coats and shawls were quickly
put on. Thick darkness enveloped the mountain as we approached the
head of the profound gulf separating us from Mount Clay, which is the
most remarkable object seen at any time either during the ascent or
descent. Into this pitchy ravine, into its midnight blackness, a long
and brilliant train of sparks trailed downward from the locomotive, so
that we seemed being transported heavenward in a chariot of fire. This
flaming torch, lighting us on, now disclosed snow and ice on all sides.
We had successfully attained the last slope which conceals the railway
from the valley. Up this the locomotive toiled and panted, while we
watched the stars come out and emit cold gleams around, above, beneath.
The light of the Summit House twinkled small, then grew large, as,
surmounting the last and steepest pitch of the pinnacle, we were pushed
before a long row of lighted windows crusted thick with hoar-frost.
Stiffened with cold, the passengers rushed for the open door without
ceremony. In an instant the car was empty; while the locomotive,
dripping with its unheard-of efforts, seemed to regard this desertion
with reproachful glances.
Reader, have you ever sat beside Mrs. Dodge's fire after such a passive
ascension as that just described? After a two hours' combat with the
instinct of self-preservation, did you dream of such comforts, luxuries
even, awaiting you on the bleak mountain-top, where nothing grows, and
where water even congeals and refuses to run? Could you, in the highest
flights of fancy, imagine that you would one day sit in the courts of
heaven, or feast sumptuously amid the stars? All this you either have
done or may do. And now, while the smartly-dressed waiter-girl, who
seems to have donned her white apron as a personal favor, brings you the
best the larder affords, pinch yourself to see if you are awake.
In several ascensions by the railway I have always remarked the same
symptoms of uneasiness among the passengers, betrayed by pale faces,
compressed lips, hands tightening their grasp of the chairs, or subdued
and startled exclamations, quickly repressed. To escape the influence of
such weird surroundings one should be absolutely stolid--a stock or a
stone. So for all it is an experience more or less acute, according to
his sensibility, strength of nerve, and power of self-control. However
well it may be disguised, the strong equally with the weak, and more
deeply than the weak, feel the strain which ninety minutes' combat with
gravitation, attraction, ponderosity, engenders. The mind does not for a
single instant quit its hold of this defiance of Nature's laws. As long
as iron and steel hold fast, there is no danger; but you think iron and
steel are iron and steel, and no more. An anecdote will illustrate this
feeling.
After pointing out to a lady-passenger the skilful devices for stopping
the engine--the pawl, the steam, and the atmospheric brakes--and after
patiently explaining their mechanism and uses, the listener asked the
conductor, with much interest,
"Then, if the pawl breaks while we are going up?"
"The engine will be stopped by means of these powerful brakes, applied
directly to the axles, which will, of course, render the train
motionless. As the locomotive has two driving-wheels, the engineer can
bring a double power to bear, as you see. Each is independent of the
other, so that if one gives way the other is still more than sufficient
to keep the engine stationary."
"Thank you; but the car?"
"Oh, the car is not attached to the engine at all; and should the
engineer lose the control of his machine, which is not at all likely,
the car can be brought to a stand-still by independent brakes of its
own. You see the engine goes up behind, and in front, down; and the car
is simply pushed forward, or follows it."
"So that you consider it--."
"Perfectly safe, madam, perfectly safe."
"Thank you. One question more. Suppose all these things break at once.
What then? Where would we go?"
"That, madam, would depend on what sort of a life you had led."
I have still a consolation for the timid. Ten years' trial has confirmed
the declaration of its projectors, that they would make the road as safe
or safer than the ordinary railway. No life has been lost by an injury
to a passenger during that time. Besides, what is the difference? After
its day, the railway will pass like the stage-coach--that is, unless you
believe, as you do not, that the world and all progress are to stop with
ourselves.
[Illustration: ASCENT BY THE RAILWAY.]
The affable lady hostess told me that she paid an annual rental of ten
thousand dollars for her palace of ice; nominally for a year, but really
for a term of only seventy-six days, this being the limit of the season
upon the summit. During the remaining two hundred and eighty-nine
days the house is closed. During four or five months it is buried, or
half-buried, in a snow-drift. Of this large sum, three thousand dollars
go to the Pingree heirs. These facts may tend to modify the views of
those who think the charges exorbitant, if such there are.
Raising my eyes to look out of the window, the light from within
fell upon a bank of snow. A man was stooping over it as if in search
of something. Going out, I found him feeling it with his hands, and
examining it with childish wonder and curiosity. I approached this
eccentric person very softly; but he, seeing my shadow on the snow
beside him, looked up.
"Can I assist you in recovering what you have lost?" I inquired.