MOUNT HOLYOKE.
Here we are in the middle of the month of August. The “world” have long since fled the hot walls and blazing pavements of old Gotham, and even the very school-boys are let loose from their pale-faced pedagogues, to frolic like young colts in the country. Come, let us not alone remain in the sweltering city. Throw a few things in your carpet-bag—ay, that is sufficient. Make me the guide. We will leave Saratoga and Rockaway to their flirtations—another field is before us. Now, Eastward ho! shall lie our course. Distance and time are left behind us—already we are ensconced at the Mansion House in this most lovely of villages, “Northampton the beautiful.”
Well does it deserve the name. Come one moment to the corner of this piazza. Look down the long avenues. See the symmetrical verdant arches, formed by the boughs of the antique elms, bending toward each other in loving fraternity; and see the snow-white houses at their feet, their court-yards smiling with flowers; and see the still more smiling faces that glance behind their transparent windows. That will do—you have stared long enough at the demure beauty behind the green blinds. Look this way, and witnessthe refined taste exhibited in the graceful cottages, as they stand in relief against the dark back-ground of the forest,—the Grecian column, the Gothic arch, the Italian verandah, cottage and temple, all spread around you like the city of your dreams. Truly it seems, as it mostly is, the abode of retired gentlemen—a very Decameron sort of a place in this working-day world of ours. But, allons! Are we not Americans?Whyshould we rest? To breakfast—behold a regular Yankee feast. Snow-white bread, and golden butter,—chickens that one short hour since dreamed of bins of corn and acres of oats on their roosts in the lofty barn,—steaks, pies, tea, preserves, the well-browned cakes, and last, not least, the sparkling amber cider. Blessings on the heart of the nice looking damsel at the coffee urn, with her red cheeks and neat check apron. But, egad! my dear friend—prudence! hold up—we have to ascend the mountain, and you will not find the feast that you are stowing away with such Dalgetty industry, likely to improve your wind. That last hot roll lengthens our ascent just one quarter of an hour. There! the horses are neighing, and impatiently champing the bit at the door. Are you ready? Come then. Look out, lest that fiery devil throw you on the bosom of our common mother, earth!—your bones would find her a step-dame—those flaming nostrils are sworn enemies to your long spur gaffs. But here we go! How balmy and delightful the cool airof the morning!—the verdant grass rises gracefully—the wild flower shakes its tiny bells, and drinks the dewy diamond glittering on its lips, as it waves gently o’er them. The rich yellow sun mocks the trees, as it rolls out their broad shadows on the velvet turf beneath—while from knoll and waving mullen stalk, the meadow-lark, with outstretched neck and piercing eye, utters his sweet notes in almost delirious rapture. We clear the broad meadows. Our very horses, with ears erect, gather speed with every bound, and seem ready to cry ha! ha! We are the fabled centaurs of old.
See! see!—the heavy morning mist, rising in huge volumes, reluctantly bares the forest on the mountain side,—it curls and breaks in vast masses,—it slowly rolls off to the eastward. Aye! there he stands—there stands oldHolyoke, with his cragged coronal of rocks, a gigantic Titan, bidding defiance to time and tempest. Gallop—gallop! we are within two hundred feet of the summit. This precipice, its dark sides frowning and grim, the velvet moss, and little clustres of scarlet and yellow flowers peeping from its crevices, where the ripling brooklet scatters its mimic showers over them, wreathed fantastically with vines and gnarled branches from its clefts,—we must climb on foot. Rest a moment. How perfectly still the dense forest extends around us. Nought breaks the silence, save the querulous cry of the cat-bird, as it hops from branchto branch,—the mimic bark of the squirrel, or the distant hollow tap of the woodpecker. Now, a little more climbing—take care of those loose stones—a few steps additional ascent—give me your hand—spring!—here we are on the rocky platform of its summit. Is not the scene magnificent? We stand in the centre of an amphitheatre two hundred miles in diameter. See! at the base of the mountain curls, like a huge serpent, the Connecticut, its sinuosities cutting the smooth plains with all sorts of grotesque figures,—now making a circuit around a peninsula of miles, across whose neck a child might throw a stone,—here stretching straight as an arrow for a like distance,—and there again returning like a hare upon its course. See the verdant valleys extending around us, rich with the labour of good old New England’s sons, and far in the distance—the blue smoky distance—rising in majesty, God’s land-marks, the mountains. See the beautiful plains, the prairies beneath us, one great carpet of cultivation,—the fields of grain, the yellow wheat, the verdant maize, the flocks, the herds, the meadow, the woodland, forming beautiful and defined figures in its texture, while the villages in glistening whiteness, are scattered, like patches of snow, in every part of the landscape; and hark! in that indistinct and mellow music we hear the bell slowly tolling from yonder slender spire. Oh! for a Ruysdael, or a Rubens, to do justice to the picture.
Surely God did not intend that we should sweat and pant in cities when he places such scenes before us. How like the fierce giants of old the lofty mountains encircle it, as a land of enchantment. See! see! the clouds, as they scud along in the heavens, how they throw their broad shadows, chasing each other on the plains below. Imagine them squadrons, charging in desperate and bloody battle. But no—widows and orphans’ tears follow nottheirencounters—rather the smiles of the honest, hard-handed yeoman, as he foresees his wains groaning with the anticipated harvests—his swelling stacks—his crowded granaries. Here, for the present, let us recline on the broad and moss-covered rocks, while with the untutored Indian, its rightful owner, in silent admiration, we worship the Great Spirit, whose finger moves not, save in beauty, in harmony and majesty.