GOING DOWN EAST.

"'Such water do the gods distil,And pour down every hill,For their New England men.A draught of this will nectar bring,And I'll not taste the springOf Helicon again.'

"'Such water do the gods distil,

And pour down every hill,

For their New England men.

A draught of this will nectar bring,

And I'll not taste the spring

Of Helicon again.'

"Where it meets the sea is Plum Island, its sand ridges scalloping along the horizon like the sea-serpent, and its distant outline broken by many a tall ship, leaning, still, against the sky. Standing at its mouth, looking up its sparkling stream to its source,—a silver cascade which falls all the way from the White Mountains to the sea,—and behold a city on each successive plateau, a busy colony of human beavers around every fall. Not to mention Newburyport and Haverhill, see Lawrence and Lowell, and Nashua and Manchester and Concord, gleaming one above the other."

THE WHITE MOUNTAIN NOTCH.

The most remarkable pass in this attractive mountain district is the great White Mountain Notch,through the heart of the range. The valley of the Ammonoosuc, farther ascended from Bethlehem Junction, soon becomes an enormous chasm, cut deeply down, and sweeping grandly around from the south towards the east, disclosing in magnificent array the splendid galaxy of Presidential Peaks as it is carved along their western bases. This Notch is formed by the headwaters of the Ammonoosuc rising among the foothills of Mount Washington, flowing out towards the west, and by the Saco River, flowing southeast to the Atlantic. The Maine Central Railway avails of this remarkable pass to get through the White Mountains, and bring the traffic of northwestern New England and Canada down to the sea. To the northward arises the Owl's Head, around which this railway circles after emerging from the western portal of the Notch, and on the northern flanks of this mountain are the head-streams of Israel River, over beyond which is Mount Starr King. Here is Jefferson, another gathering of hotels and cottages, enjoying one of the finest views of the White Mountain range, a popular resort, from which there are grand drives around the northern side of the Presidential range, seventeen miles eastward to Gorham on the Androscoggin. It was on this route that the famous view of these mountains was painted by George L. Brown—the "Crown of New England," owned by the Prince of Wales. Jefferson Hill has been described by Starr King as "theultima thuleof grandeur in an artist's pilgrimage among the New Hampshire mountains." Seven miles northwest, down the Israel River, is Lancaster, with nearly four thousand people, another favorite resort, though with more distant mountain views.

Where the Ammonoosuc, now become so small, curves around from the east towards the south at the western portal of the Notch, is Fabyan's, and here are located some of the great hotels of the district, right in front of Mount Washington. Between Fabyan's and Crawford's, four miles southward, the Presidential Range is the eastern border of the Notch and is passed in grand review. The headspring of the Ammonoosuc is on the slope of the mountain alongside Crawford's, where the floor of the valley is at its highest elevation, nineteen hundred feet above the sea and three hundred and thirty feet above Fabyan's. Higher than this the massive walls of the Notch rise some two thousand feet farther, and then slope backward up to the mountain summits, which are much higher, but invisible from the bottom of the valley. In front of Crawford's, where there is a rather broader space, one looks southward at the little oval lake which is the source of Saco River. Just beyond is the "Gate of the Notch," where the rocky projections of the huge mountains on either hand come out and almost close the passage, leaving an opening of only a few feet width for the diminutive Saco, here a mere rill, to start on itscareer, soon becoming a vigorous mountain torrent, leaping and bounding down the canyon. Upon the left hand of the stream the rocks have been cut out to give the wagon-road room, and on the right hand the railroad has hewn its route through the granite, the three being closely compressed between the high cliffs towering above. The Elephant's Head, formed of dark rocks, with trunk and eye well fashioned, looks down upon this "Gate," and just beyond, another cliff presents the semblance of an Indian papoose clinging to its mother's back. The little Saco soon cuts the Notch deeply down, such is its steep descent, so that in a short distance it becomes a vast ravine. Thus, with the railway high up on a gallery upon the mountain side, and the road deep down by the Saco, the ravine is cleft between Mounts Webster and Willard, the latter, as the chasm bends, falling sharply off, a tremendous precipice of steep and bare rock, when Mount Willey appears beyond. Thus the Notch deepens and broadens, becoming an enormous chasm, with the rapid river down in the bottom, constantly increasing in volume. The Saco is said to have been thus named by the Indians because of the mass of water it brings down, the word meaning "pouring out."

About three miles below the "Gate," the Notch broadens into a sort of basin enclosed by the bare walls of Mount Willard to the westward and Mount Willey to the south, curving around the longcrescent-shaped slope of Mount Webster, which makes the northern border. Here is the Willey House, the scene of the Willey Slide, the great tragedy of the Notch, a small and antiquated inn, now adjoined by a modern hotel. In August, 1826, there was a terrific landslide down the slope of Mount Willey behind the old house, then kept by Samuel Willey, from whom the mountain was afterwards named. A heavy storm after a long drouth had made a flood in the Saco, and Willey, fearing an overflow, deserted his house in the night, with his family of nine persons, to seek higher ground. Suddenly the slide came down the mountain and the flight was fatal, the avalanche of rocks and dirt overwhelming them all, while a convenient boulder behind the house so deviated it that, although almost covered with rubbish, the building was uninjured. A traveller who afterwards came through the Notch found the half-buried inn deserted, with the doors open, the supper-table spread, and a Bible lying open upon it, with a pair of spectacles on the page, evidently just as they had been left in the sudden flight. Owing to the bend in the Notch there is an unrivalled view down it from the summit of Mount Willard, which thus stands practically at the head of the deep pass. The southern face of this mountain is a vast and almost perpendicular precipice, out on the brow of which the observer stands to look down the deep valley stretching far away, and enclosedbetween mountains rising nearly two thousand feet above him on either hand, so that the view has a singular individuality, as if one were looking at it through a camera. The depth of the gorge and the precipitous front of the mountain make the Notch a tremendous gulf. The deeply concave chasm is scooped out like an immense cylinder, having the inside covered with dense green foliage, and grandly bending around to the left until lost afar off behind the distant projecting slope of Mount Webster. The railroad stretches, a streak of brown, along the right-hand wall of the valley, twisting in and out about the promontories. Down in the bottom the thick forest hides the wagon-road and the bed of the Saco until they come out in a flat cleared green spot in front of the Willey House. The towering mountain slopes are scratched and scarred where slides have come down, and two or three bright little ribbons of white water are suspended on their sides, making cascades that help fill the river beneath. Beyond the outlet of the Notch, the eastern background is a vast sea of mountain ranges and billowy peaks, having the bold, white, pyramidal crown of proud Chocorua rising behind them. This splendid scene, regarded by many as the finest in the White Mountains, had a peculiar charm for Anthony Trollope on his American visit. He did not usually view America with favor, but he emphatically wrote: "Much of this scenery, I say, is superior to the famed and classic lands of Europe,"adding "I know nothing, for instance, on the Rhine equal to the view from Mount Willard and the mountain Pass called the Notch." Most experienced observers are convinced that as an impressive exhibition of a deep mountain canyon with an enchanting background, this is not surpassed in Switzerland.

MOUNT WASHINGTON.

The Fabyan House, in front of Mount Washington, stands upon the location of the "Giant's Grave," which was an elongated mound of sand and gravel formed by the waves of an ancient lake, reacting from the adjacent mountain slopes, and rising about fifty feet. Being high, long and wide, it was just the place for a house. The tradition is that once a fierce-looking Indian stood upon this mound at night, waving a flaming torch and shouting "No paleface shall take root here; this the Great Spirit whispered in my ear." The successive burnings of hotels on this site would seem to indicate this as prophetic, and in fact no hotel did stand there any length of time until the projectors of the present large building, after the last one was burnt, as if to avoid fate, had the mound making the "Giant's Grave" levelled and obliterated. Here was built the earliest inn of the White Mountains in 1803 by a sawmill owner on the Ammonoosuc River, named Crawford. His grandson, Ethan Allen Crawford, the famous "White Mountain Giant," was the noted guide who made thefirst path to ascend Mount Washington and built the first house on its summit. Now, the mountain is ascended from this western side by an inclined-plane railway, reached by an ordinary railway extending from Fabyan's five miles across to the base of the mountain. The railway to the summit is about three miles long, with an average gradient of thirteen hundred feet to the mile, the maximum being thirteen and one-half inches in the yard. It is worked by a cog-wheel locomotive acting upon a central cogged rail, and the ascent is accomplished in about ninety minutes. It is an exhilarating ride up the slope, for, as the car is elevated, the horizon of view widens decidedly to the west and northwest, while the trees of the forest get smaller and smaller, and their character changes. The sugar-maples, yellow birches and mossy-trunked beeches, with an occasional aspen or mountain ash, are gradually left behind in the valley, being replaced on the higher slope by white pine and hemlock, white birch, and dark spruces and firs hung with gray moss. These gradually becoming smaller, soon the only trees left are a sort of dwarf fir intertangled with moss. Then, rising above the limit of trees, there is only a stunted arctic vegetation, and this permits a grand and unobstructed view all around the western horizon.

The route of the railway goes over and up various steep trestles, the most startling of all being "Jacob's Ladder," elevated about thirty feet and having thesteepest gradient. Here is a perfect arctic desolation, the surface being broken blocks and rough stones of schist and granite, cracked, honeycombed and moss-grown, having endured the storms and frosts of centuries. There is a little vegetation where it may get root, the reindeer-moss, saxifrage clumps and sandwort of dreary Labrador or Greenland. The view covers a wide expanse far away westward to the Green Mountains, the landscape being everywhere dark forests and peaks, with the massive slopes of Mount Clay nearer to the northward, and the whole Presidential range, Mounts Jefferson, Adams and Madison, stretching beyond. As one looks over the vast, dark, undulating wilderness of peaks, it can be realized how the flood of emotion made an entranced observer exclaim, in the hearing of Mr. Starr King, "See the tumultuous bombast of the landscape." Nearing the summit, the railway gradient is less steep, and here an opportunity is given to peer over the edge of the "Great Gulf," a profound abyss on the eastern mountain slope between Washington, Clay and Jefferson. This hollow gulf, its sides and bottom covered with dark trees, relieved by a little glistening pond at the bottom, stretches out to the narrow valley along the eastern base of the range, known as the Glen, down into which one can look at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Rounding the mountain summit, the train halts at a broad platform in front of the Summit Hotel.

The top of Mount Washington is the highest elevation in the United States east of the Rockies and north of the Carolinas. It is what may be described as an arctic island, elevated sixty-two hundred and ninety feet, in the temperate zone, and displaying both arctic vegetation and temperature, the flora and climate being alike that of Greenland. An observatory gives a higher view over the tops of the buildings, and the first great impression of it is that the view seems to be all around the world, limited only by the horizon. In every direction are oceans of billowy peaks, the whole enormous circuit of almost a thousand miles, embracing New England, New York, Canada and the sea. The grand scene is at the same time gloomy. The almost universal forests overspread everything with a mournful pall of sombre green. The summit is spacious, and the contour of the mountain can on all sides be plainly seen. Its slope to the westward, like all of the Presidential range, is steeper than to the eastward, down which a wagon-road zigzags into the Glen. Upon the eastern side, two long spurs seem to brace the mountain, though profound ravines are there cut into it. The southern slope of the summit pitches off suddenly, while to the north there is a more gradual descent, both the railway and wagon-road approaching that way. The original Tip-Top House, the first inn erected, is preserved as a curiosity, a low and damp structure built of the rough stones gathered on themountain. The newer hotel is of wood, with a steep roof, and is chained down to the rocks to prevent the gales from blowing it over. There is a weather-signal station at the summit, one of the most important posts in the country.

THE GRAND MOUNTAIN VIEW.

The Indians always held the White Mountains in reverent awe. They were the religious shrine of the Pennacooks, who roamed over the region between the mountains and the sea. The early historian Josselyn in the seventeenth century recorded, of these Indians: "Ask them whither they go when they dye; they will tell you, pointing with their finger, to Heaven, beyond the White Mountains." Passaconaway, the great wizard-chief of the Pennacooks, who was finally converted to Christianity by the Apostle Eliot, is said to have lived to the great age of one hundred and twenty years, and then to have been translated. The Pennacook tradition was that in the cold of mid-winter he was carried away from them in a weird sleigh drawn by wolves, that took him to the summit of Mount Washington, whence he was straightway received into Heaven:

"Far o'er Winnepiseogee's ice,With brindled wolves all harnessed then and there,High seated on a sledge made in a triceOn Mount Agiochook of hickory,He lashed and reeled and sang right jollily,And once upon a car of flaming fire,The dreadful Indian shook with fear to seeThe King of Pennacook, his chief, his sire,Ride flaming up to Heaven, than any mountain higher."

"Far o'er Winnepiseogee's ice,With brindled wolves all harnessed then and there,High seated on a sledge made in a triceOn Mount Agiochook of hickory,He lashed and reeled and sang right jollily,

"Far o'er Winnepiseogee's ice,

With brindled wolves all harnessed then and there,

High seated on a sledge made in a trice

On Mount Agiochook of hickory,

He lashed and reeled and sang right jollily,

And once upon a car of flaming fire,The dreadful Indian shook with fear to seeThe King of Pennacook, his chief, his sire,Ride flaming up to Heaven, than any mountain higher."

And once upon a car of flaming fire,

The dreadful Indian shook with fear to see

The King of Pennacook, his chief, his sire,

Ride flaming up to Heaven, than any mountain higher."

The first house on the mountain, built by Ethan Allen Crawford in 1821, was a small stone cabin having the floor covered with moss for bedding, the only furniture being a chest to contain blankets, and a stove; a roll of sheet-lead serving as the "register," on which the guests scratched their names and the date of visit. This cabin was swept away by a terrific storm in August, 1826. Some time later an eccentric individual took possession of the summit, naming it "Trinity Height," and called himself the modern "Israel of Jerusalem," proposing to inaugurate in this exalted place a new Order, styled "The Christian or Purple and Royal Democracy." With an eye to business, he put toll-gates on the bridlepaths and taxed each visitor a dollar. There were bitter quarrels about the ownership for years afterwards, and the first winter ascent was made by a sheriff, who went up to serve a writ in 1858, and found frost over a foot thick enveloping everything. The lawsuits, however, were ultimately fought out and settled, and the present owners have been undisturbed for years.

The view from the summit is widespread. The most distant objects that have been recognized are Mount Beloeil, northwest in Canada, and MountEbeeme, northeast beyond the Moosehead Lake in Maine, each one hundred and thirty-five miles away. These distant mountain tops are said to be brought into view only by the aid of atmospheric refraction, in raising them, as they are actually below the horizon. Also northeast is Mount Abraham, sixty-eight miles away; and were it not for this, Maine's greatest mountain, Katahdin, in the wilderness of the upper Penobscot, might be seen, but Abraham obstructs the view. Katahdin, rising nearly fifty-four hundred feet, is one hundred and sixty-five miles northeast. Saddleback, at the head of the Rangeley Lakes, is seen sixty miles away, and Bald Mountain, to the right, one hundred miles off in Maine. To the eastward is seen Mount Megunticook, in the Camden range, on Penobscot Bay, one hundred and fifteen miles off. To the east and southeast for many miles is the ocean between Casco Bay and Cape Ann. The sea, however, is never well viewed from Mount Washington, because it is so nearly the color of the sky at the horizon as to be difficult of acute discernment. The moving vessels, however, can be readily seen by the aid of a glass. The bright waters of Sebago Lake are to the southeast, and beyond are the shores of Casco Bay and the city of Portland, sixty-seven miles off. The low round swell of Mount Agamenticus shows faintly above the horizon, seventy-nine miles south-southeast, and to the right there is also a faint trace of the Isles of Shoals,ninety-six miles off. To the southeast, twenty-two miles, is the sharpest and noblest peak of all in the galaxy of view, the high, white, pyramidal top of Chocorua, having the broad island-studded Lake Winnepesaukee to the right, with the distant double peak of Mount Belknap seen over its clear waters. Just to the west of south, and one hundred and four miles distant, is the faint rounded summit of Mount Monadnock, near the southwest corner of New Hampshire, and nearer is Mount Kearsarge, seventy miles off, and appearing much similar. The Nelson Pinnacle, farther away, is to the right of Kearsarge. The most distant mountain discernible in that direction is Mount Wachusett, one hundred and twenty-six miles off. To the southwest are seen Ascutney and the twin Killington Peaks, near Rutland, Vermont, eighty-eight miles away. To the west are seen plainly the two Green Mountain peaks of Mansfield and the Camel's Hump, seventy-eight miles off, and over the northern slope of the latter can be faintly detected the great Adirondack Mount Whiteface, one hundred and thirty miles distant. Such is the splendid circuit of mountains forming the horizon for Mount Washington. Among the striking objects in the view are the deep river valleys as they go out from the Presidential range. The Peabody flows through the Glen north to the Androscoggin, which can be traced far northeast. The Ellis flows south to the Saco, which goes out through the Notch andaway southeast. The valley of the Ammonoosuc runs off westward, where along the horizon is the great trough of the Connecticut Valley stretching all across the scene. Lakes and ponds are studded among the dark summits, and at the observer's feet are the springs feeding many great rivers of New England, the Merrimack, to the southward, also having its sources in this great wilderness of mountains, which on all sides sends out babbling brooks and silvery cataracts to bear their waters down to old ocean.

THE GLEN AND NORTH CONWAY.

The wagon-road from Mount Washington summit down to the base, is on the eastern side, and is a little more than eight miles long, with an average gradient of one to eight, descending into the Glen and displaying magnificent views. The descent occupies about one hour, and the ascent five hours. On the southeastern side of the mountain is Tuckerman's Ravine, a huge gorge enclosed by rocky walls a thousand feet high. This ravine usually displays the "Snow Arch" until late in August, formed by a stream flowing out from under the huge masses of snow piled up in winter, until it gradually melts away and collapses. The main Glen is formed by the deep and thickly-wooded Pinkham Notch at the eastern base of Mount Washington, its floor being at two thousand feet elevation, and this Notch continues north and south in deeply-carved stream beds, thePeabody River flowing northward to the Androscoggin at Gorham and the Ellis River southward to the Saco. The Peabody descends rapidly to the Androscoggin, entering it at about eight hundred feet elevation, the active town of Gorham being located here in a beautiful situation, and having two thousand people, at the northern gateway to the White Mountains. The Androscoggin, having drained the eastern mountain slopes, flows away into the State of Maine to seek the Kennebec, and thence the sea. In the Glen, in the coaching days, the old Glen House was the headquarters at the foot of the road down Mount Washington, but it was burnt in 1894, and has not been rebuilt. To the eastward, bounding the Glen, rise the Wild Cat Ridge and the impressive Carter Dome, which would be a grand mountain elsewhere, but here is dwarfed by the overshadowing Presidential range on the western side. From the Pinkham Notch the little Ellis River goes southward, and below the outlet of Tuckerman's Ravine is the beautiful Crystal Cascade, where it pours down eighty feet over successive step-like terraces. Another lovely cataract it makes is the Glen Ellis Fall, which is considered the finest in the White Mountains, on the slope of the Wild Cat Ridge. The stream slides down an inclined plane of twenty feet over ledges, and then falls seventy feet through a deep groove, twisted by bulges in the rocks and making almost a complete turn. Thus sliding, foamingand falling, the stream leaps nearly a hundred feet into a dark green pool beneath. The Glen broadens as it progresses southward, and soon becomes a widened intervale, having many houses for summer boarders.

Log Bridge over the Wild Cat, near Jackson, N. H.

Here is the pleasant village of Jackson in a broad basin, surrounded by low mountains, making splendid views in all directions. There are the Tin, Iron, Thorn and Moat Mountains, with others, the intervale being almost covered with hotels, boarding-houses, and the accessories of a popular summer resort, and having pretty cottages perched on the hill-slopes all about. This pleasant resting-place was originally called New Madbury, but at the opening of the nineteenth century it was named in honor of President John Adams. It continued contentedly as Adams until his son John Quincy became President, and in 1828, when politics ran high and John Quincy Adams was again a candidate, it happened that all the votes in the town of Adams but one were given to his competitor, Andrew Jackson, who was elected, whereupon the town changed its name to Jackson. Since then it has had a quiet history excepting once, when, in 1875, they were building the railroad through the White Mountain Notch, and the bears, scared by the powder-blasts of the builders, came in droves to Jackson and almost captured the town from the frightened inhabitants. Just beyond Jackson, in Lower Bartlett, the Ellis flows into the Saco in amagnificent environment, the Ellis and the Eastern Branch from the Carter range coming in together, and making the Saco a great river. This is another paradise for the seeker after the picturesque. From the little church of the village, looking down over the Saco intervales, when flooded with sunset light, gives a most fascinating view. An enraptured visitor has written of this landscape seen from the church door: "One might believe that he was looking through an air that had never enwrapped any sin, upon a floor of some nook of the primitive Eden." Bartlett was named in honor of Josiah Bartlett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and its pioneer settler, John Poindexter, came eighty miles on foot through the wilderness from Portsmouth, dragging his few household effects on a hand-sled, his wife riding an old horse, with the feather-bed for a saddle, and carrying the baby in her arms.

The Saco Valley broadens below, and Intervale, another summer village, is passed, and then North Conway, one of the most popular of the White Mountain resorts. It spreads along a low sloping terrace on the eastern verge of the widening valley, and looks out upon the river with the elongated and massive ridge of Moat Mountain grandly rising beyond. The town is largely built along a pleasant tree-bordered street, having the Presidential range spread in magnificent array to the northwest, sixteen miles away. To the southward the valley opens overlong stretches of fertile lowlands until the Saco turns sharply to the eastward, seeking the sea. To the northward, the immediate guardian of the valley is Mount Kearsarge, sometimes called Pequawket, rising thirty-three hundred feet. Kearsarge means the "pointed pine mountain," and its name was given the famous warship which fought and sunk the privateer "Alabama." It is the beauty of the surroundings which gives North Conway its charm, and the valley is called the "Arcadia of the White Hills," where the harshness of the granite ramparts beyond are in strange contrast with the genial repose of these meadows, and the delicate curves of the long, swelling hills. The restfulness of the scene is its attraction, everything contributing to its serenity; even distant Mount Washington is said to "not seem so much to stand up as to lie out at ease across the north; the leonine grandeur is there, but it is the lion, not erect, but couchant, a little sleepy, stretching out his paws and enjoying the sun." Proud Chocorua, which is not far away, is also said to even appear "a little tired," as seen from North Conway, and as if looking wistfully down into

"A landIn which it seemed always afternoon."

"A land

In which it seemed always afternoon."

These Conway intervales of the Saco were the Indian valley of Pequawket, and its people have long been known as the Pigwackets. An Indian village first occupied the site of North Conway, gradually givingplace to the rude huts of the colonists. It progressed greatly by the trade through the mountain district, before the advent of the railway, and was the chief stage-coach headquarters in those days. Now it is quiet and restful, the excitements of the coaching times being gone. Three miles below, the magnificent valley makes its grand bend to the eastward, and the swelling Saco flows out through the State of Maine and to the sea at the twin towns of Saco and Biddeford.

LAKE WINNEPESAUKEE.

The southern verge of the White Mountains has many lower peaks and ridges, including the Ossipee and Sandwich ranges, and finally they all run off into the serrated shores of the extensive and beautiful Lake Winnepesaukee, cut by long, sloping promontories and abounding in islands. Thirteen miles southward from North Conway, near Madison, is the largest erratic boulder of granite known to exist, which was brought down and dropped there by the great glacier and is estimated to weigh eight thousand tons. It is seventy-five feet long, forty wide, and from thirty to thirty-seven feet high. Lake Winnepesaukee washes all the southeastern flanks of the mountain region, and has many peaks in grand array around its northern borders. The Indians were so impressed with the attractive scenery of the lake that they gave it the poetical name, meaning "the Smile of the Great Spirit." The Sandwich Mountains are spread acrossits northern horizon, showing the rocky summit of Mount Tecumseh, rising over four thousand feet; Tripyramid and its great "Slide," marked along its face, where a vast mass of rocks and forest went down the slope in the rainy season of 1869, moving over a distance of two miles and falling twenty-one hundred feet; the broad, rounded summit of the Sandwich "Dome;" the sharp peak of Whiteface, also scratched by a wide landslide on its southern slope; the lofty top of Passaconaway, rising forty-two hundred feet; and the proud apex of Chocorua, regarded as the most picturesque of all these mountains. Its much-admired peaks do not rise as high as some of the others, thirty-five hundred feet, but are built of a brilliant crystalline labradorite, called Chocorua granite, presenting a striking appearance, and being entirely denuded of trees. Chocorua was an Indian prophet of the Pequawkets, whose family was slain by the whites, and he took a terrible revenge. A reward was offered for his scalp, and his pursuers followed him to the mountain top and shot him down. When dying, he invoked the curses of the Great Spirit upon them, and the mountain now bears his sonorous name. For years afterwards the curses came true; pestilence raged in the adjacent valleys, cattle could not be kept, for they all died, and the people submitted humbly to the affliction, believing it to be the realization of the Indian's imprecation. But one day a scientific fellow wandered that way,and being of an investigating turn, he soon found the sickness was due to muriate of lime in the water. After that discovery the Indian's curse went for naught. Now the whole country roundabout is healthy, and filled with the balsamic atmosphere which invigorates the admiring thousands who come to see the noble mountain. Thus sings Whittier of it inAmong the Hills, after a storm:

"Through Sandwich Notch the west wind sangGood morrow to the cotter;And once again Chocorua's hornOf shadow pierced the water."Above his broad Lake Ossipee,Once more the sunshine wearing,Stooped, tracing on that silver shieldHis grim armorial bearing."For health comes sparkling in the streamsFrom cool Chocorua stealing:There's iron in our northern winds;Our pines are trees of healing."

"Through Sandwich Notch the west wind sangGood morrow to the cotter;And once again Chocorua's hornOf shadow pierced the water.

"Through Sandwich Notch the west wind sang

Good morrow to the cotter;

And once again Chocorua's horn

Of shadow pierced the water.

"Above his broad Lake Ossipee,Once more the sunshine wearing,Stooped, tracing on that silver shieldHis grim armorial bearing.

"Above his broad Lake Ossipee,

Once more the sunshine wearing,

Stooped, tracing on that silver shield

His grim armorial bearing.

"For health comes sparkling in the streamsFrom cool Chocorua stealing:There's iron in our northern winds;Our pines are trees of healing."

"For health comes sparkling in the streams

From cool Chocorua stealing:

There's iron in our northern winds;

Our pines are trees of healing."

Lake Winnepesaukee, thus magnificently outstretched in front of these lofty hills, is twenty-five miles long and in the centre about seven miles wide, covering a surface, exclusive of its many islands, of seventy square miles. It has wonderfully transparent water, being fed by springs, and its outline is very irregular, pierced by deep, elongated bays, and having broad peninsulas or necks of land stretching far out from the mainland. The shores are composedmostly of rocks, myriads of boulders being piled up along the water's edge as if for a wall, making an attractive rocky border with the foliage growing out of it. An archipelago of islands of all sizes and characters is dotted over the lake, there being two hundred and seventy-four of them, several having inhabitants. These are what Starr King calls "the fleet of islands that ride at anchor on its bosom—from little shallops to grand three-deckers." This attractive lake is the storage-reservoir for the many mills on the Merrimack, keeping their water-supply equable throughout the year by a dam at the Weirs, the western outlet, raising the surface six feet and making its level about five hundred feet above the sea. The railroads approach the lake both at the Weirs and at Wolfboro' on the eastern verge, and steamboats take the people over the lake to the various settlements on its shores. Wolfboro' was named after the British General Wolfe who fell on the Plains of Abraham, and is the largest town on the lake, having three thousand people. It has a beautiful outlook over the water from the adjacent high hills of Copple Crown and Tumble-Down Dick, the latter getting its name from an unfortunate blind horse "Dick," who once fell over a cliff on its side.

The steamboat journey upon the lake discloses its beauties, the gentle tree-clad shores with higher hills and mountains behind them, the many pleasant cottages,and the wonderfully clear green waters. It is a curious place, all arms and bays and great protruding necks of land, the open spaces dotted with islands, so that everywhere there are long vista views across the water and far up into the inlets of the shores, while the large double peak of Mount Belknap stands up massive and impressive at the southwestern border, and opposite in the northeast is the proud white summit of Chocorua. Edward Everett, speaking of his extensive travels in Europe, says, "My eye has yet to rest on a lovelier scene than that which smiles around you as you sail from Weirs Landing to Centre Harbor." The Weirs Landing is at the head of a deep bay made by the outlet stream, and is a popular summer camping-ground, the edge of the water fringed with cottages and the adjacent groves used by the camps. Many fish ascended the outlet stream in the early times seeking the clear waters, and the shallows at the outlet were availed of by the Indians to set their nets, so that it naturally got the name of the Weirs. Here, adjoining the shore, is the ancient "Endicott Rock," which was marked by the first surveyors sent up by Governor Endicott of Massachusetts to find the source of the Merrimack. The outlet stream goes through a region of many ponds and lakes bordered by large icehouses, the chief of these waters being Lake Winnisquam, and all these extensive reservoirs help to supply the great river of mill-wheels. The longestfiord indented in the southern shore of Winnepesaukee is narrow and five miles long, called Alton Bay, and it has a most attractive environment, with Mount Belknap rising to the westward twenty-four hundred feet high.

Upon the northern shore, grandly encircled by the Sandwich Mountains, the most extensive bay running up into the land is Centre Harbor, and here is a popular place of summer sojourn. Its background is a grand mountain amphitheatre from Red Hill to the westward around to the dark Ossipee range to the east, while in front, over the lake, is one of the most charming views in nature, with its many islands, long arms, deep bays, and strangely protruding elongated necks of wooded land. Thus the delicious water scene stretches for over twenty miles away, having in the distance the twin peaks of Belknap and the long and wavy summits of the attendant ridges nestling low and blue at the southern horizon. Climbing to the top of Red Hill, rising over two thousand feet, this magnificent view is got in a way which one charmed observer says "defies competition, as it transcends description; it is the perfection of earthly prospects." Whittier, who was passionately fond of this whole region, after admiring it from Red Hill, wrote the noble invocation:

"O, watched by silence and the night,And folded in the strong embraceOf the great mountains, with the lightOf the sweet heavens upon thy face—"Lake of the Northland! keep thy dowerOf beauty still, and while aboveThy silent mountains speak of power,Be thou the mirror of God's love."

"O, watched by silence and the night,And folded in the strong embraceOf the great mountains, with the lightOf the sweet heavens upon thy face—

"O, watched by silence and the night,

And folded in the strong embrace

Of the great mountains, with the light

Of the sweet heavens upon thy face—

"Lake of the Northland! keep thy dowerOf beauty still, and while aboveThy silent mountains speak of power,Be thou the mirror of God's love."

"Lake of the Northland! keep thy dower

Of beauty still, and while above

Thy silent mountains speak of power,

Be thou the mirror of God's love."

Far over to the westward can be traced the outlet stream, flowing past many lakes and seeking the great river where these pellucid waters do such useful work. Thus has Whittier, from this mountain outlook, sung of the Merrimack:

"O child of that white-crested mountain whose springsGush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings,Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy cold waters shine,Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dwarf pine."From that cloud-curtained cradle, so cold and so lone,From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of stone,By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and free,Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the sea."

"O child of that white-crested mountain whose springs

Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings,

Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy cold waters shine,

Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dwarf pine.

"From that cloud-curtained cradle, so cold and so lone,From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of stone,By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and free,Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the sea."

"From that cloud-curtained cradle, so cold and so lone,

From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of stone,

By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and free,

Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the sea."

XVIII.

GOING DOWN EAST.

Salisbury, Hampton and Rye Beaches—Portsmouth—Kittery—Newcastle Island—Wentworth House—Isles of Shoals—Appledore—Star Island—Pirates' Haunts—Boon Island—Nottingham Wreck—Agamenticus—York Beach—Cape Neddick—Wells—Kennebunk River—Saco River—Biddeford and Saco—Old Orchard—Scarborough—Casco Bay—Portland—Cape Elizabeth—"Enterprise" and "Boxer" Fight—Sebago Lake—Poland Springs—Androscoggin River—Rumford Falls—Livermore Falls—Lewiston Falls—Brunswick—Bowdoin College—Merry Meeting Bay—Kennebec River—Moosehead Lake—Mount Kineo—Norridgewock—Mogg Megone—Father Rale—Skowhegan Falls—Taconic Falls—Waterville—Augusta—Lumber and Ice—Bath—Sheepscott Bay—Monhegan—Pemaquid—Fort Frederick—Wiscasset—Penobscot River—Norumbega—Sieur de Monts—Acadia—Pentagoet—Baron de Castine—The Tarratines—Muscongus—Camden Mountains—Rockland—Islesboro'—Penobscot Archipelago—Belfast—Bucksport—Bangor—Mount Desert Island—Bar Harbor—Somes' Sound—Fogs—Mount Desert Rock—Passamaquoddy Bay—Grand Manan—Quoddy Head—Lubec—Campobello—Eastport—St. Croix River—Calais and St. Stephen—New Brunswick—Bay of Fundy—High Tides—St. John City—Madame La Tour—River St. John—The Reversible Cataract—Grand Falls—Tobique River—Pokiok River—Frederickton—Maugerville—Gagetown—Kennebecasis Bay—Digby Gut—Annapolis Basin—Digby Wharf—Yarmouth—Annapolis Royal—Basin of Minas—Land of Evangeline—Grand Pré—Cape Blomidon—The Acadian Removal—Cape Split—Glooscap—Chignecto Ship Railway—Windsor—Sam Slick—The Flying Bluenose—Halifax—Chebucto—Seal Island—Tusket River—Guysborough—Cape Canso—Sable Island—Truro—Pictou—PrinceEdward Island—Charlottetown—Summerside—Canso Strait—Cape Breton Island—The Arm of Gold—Isle Madame—St. Peter's Inlet—The Bras d'Or Lakes—Baddeck—Sydney—Spanish Bay—Cape Breton—English Port—Louisbourg—The Great Acadian Fortress—Its Two Surrenders—Its Destruction—Magdalen Islands—Gannet Rock—Deadman's Isle—Tom Moore's Poem.

NEWBURYPORT TO PORTSMOUTH.

We will start on a journey towards the rising sun, searching for the elusive region known as "Down East." Most people recognize this as the country beyond New York, but when they inquire for it among the Connecticut Yankees they are always pointed onward. Likewise in Boston, the true "Down East" is said to be farther along the coast. Pass the granite headland of Cape Ann, and it is still beyond. Samuel Adams Drake tells of asking the momentous question of a Maine fisherman getting up his sail on the Penobscot: "Whither bound?" Promptly came the reply: "Sir, to you—Down East." Thus the mythical land is ever elusive, and finally gets away off among the "Blue Noses" of the Canadian maritime provinces. We cross the Merrimack from Newburyport in searching for it, and enter the New Hampshire coast border town of Seabrook, where the people are known as the "Algerines," and where salt-marshes, winding streams, forests and rocks vary the view with long, sandy beaches out on the ocean front, having hotels and cottages scattered along them. Here are notedresorts—Salisbury Beach, Hampton Beach and Rye Beach—all crowded with summer visitors. For over two centuries on a certain day in August, the New Hampshire people have visited Salisbury Beach by thousands, to keep up an ancient custom. Here Whittier pitched hisTent on the Beachhe has so graphically described. It was at Hampton village in 1737, that occurred the parley which resulted in giving the infant colony of New Hampshire its narrow border of seacoast. Massachusetts had settled this region, and that powerful province was bound to possess it, though the King had made an adverse grant. Into Hampton rode in great state the Governor of Massachusetts at the head of his Legislature, and escorted by five troops of horse, formally demanding possession of the maritime townships. He met the Governor of New Hampshire in the George Tavern, and the demand was refused. The latter sent a plaintive appeal to the King, declaring that "the vast, opulent and overgrown province of Massachusetts was devouring the poor, little, loyal, distressed province of New Hampshire." The royal heart was touched and the King commanded Massachusetts to surrender her claim to two tiers of townships, twenty-eight in number, thus giving New Hampshire her present scant eighteen miles of coast-line. Rye Beach is the most popular of these seashore resorts, and not far beyond is Piscataqua River, the New Hampshire eastern boundary.

Here is the quaint and quiet old town of Portsmouth, three miles from the sea, and having about ten thousand people. Opposite, on Continental Island, adjoining the Maine shore, is the Kittery Navy Yard, where the warship "Kearsarge" was built. Commerce has about surrendered to the superior attractions of a summer resort at Portsmouth, and the comfortable old dwellings in their extensive gardens show the wealth accumulated by bygone generations. To this place originally came the "founder of New Hampshire," Captain Mason, who had been the Governor of the Southsea Castle in Portsmouth harbor, England, and at his suggestion, the settlement, originally called Strawberry Bank, from the abundance of wild strawberries, was named Portsmouth. The Piscataqua is formed above by the union of the Salmon Falls and Cocheco Rivers, both admirable water-powers, serving large factories, and the whole region adjacent to Portsmouth harbor is bordered by islands and interlaced with waterways, some of them yet displaying the remains of the colonial defensive forts. At Kittery Point, near the Navy Yard, was born and is buried the greatest man of colonial fame in that region, Sir William Pepperell, the famous leader of the Puritan expedition that captured Louisbourg from the French in 1745. The noted "Mrs. Partington," B. P. Shillaber, was born in Portsmouth in 1814.

Adjoining the harbor, and with a broad beach facingthe sea, is Newcastle Island, incorporated for the annual fee of three peppercorns, by King William III. and Queen Mary in the seventeenth century. Here lived in semi-regal state the Wentworths, who were the colonial governors, their memory now preserved by the vast modern Wentworth Hotel, whose colossal proportions are visible far over land and sea. The old Wentworth House at Little Harbor, wherein was held the provincial court, still remains—an irregular, quaint but picturesque building—its most noted occupant having been the courtly and gouty old Governor Benning Wentworth, who named Bennington in Vermont, and whose wedding on his sixtieth birthday has given Longfellow one of his most striking themes, the "Poet's Tale" atThe Wayside Inn. The poet tells of the appearance one day in Queen Street, Portsmouth, of Martha Hilton,

"A little girl,Barefooted, ragged, with neglected hair,Eyes full of laughter, neck and shoulders bare,A thin slip of a girl, like a new moon,Sure to be rounded into beauty soon,A creature men would worship and adore,Though now, in mean habiliments, she boreA pail of water, dripping, through the street,And bathing, as she went, her naked feet."

"A little girl,

Barefooted, ragged, with neglected hair,

Eyes full of laughter, neck and shoulders bare,

A thin slip of a girl, like a new moon,

Sure to be rounded into beauty soon,

A creature men would worship and adore,

Though now, in mean habiliments, she bore

A pail of water, dripping, through the street,

And bathing, as she went, her naked feet."

The buxom landlady at the inn, "Mistress Stavers in her furbelows," felt called upon to give her sharp reproof:

"'O Martha Hilton! Fie! how dare you goAbout the town half-dressed, and looking so!'At which the gypsy laughed, and straight replied:'No matter how I look; I yet shall rideIn my own chariot, ma'am.'"

"'O Martha Hilton! Fie! how dare you go

About the town half-dressed, and looking so!'

At which the gypsy laughed, and straight replied:

'No matter how I look; I yet shall ride

In my own chariot, ma'am.'"

The old Governor was a widower and childless, and in course of time Martha came to be employed at Wentworth House as maid-of-all-work, not wholly unobserved by him, as the sequel proved. He arranged a feast for his sixtieth birthday, and all the great people of the colony were at his table.

"When they had drunk the King, with many a cheer,The Governor whispered in a servant's ear,Who disappeared, and presently there stoodWithin the room, in perfect womanhood,A maiden, modest and yet self possessed,Youthful and beautiful, and simply dressed.Can this be Martha Hilton? It must be!Yes, Martha Hilton, and no other she!Dowered with the beauty of her twenty years,How lady-like, how queen-like she appears;The pale, thin crescent of the days gone byIs Dian now in all her majesty!Yet scarce a guest perceived that she was thereUntil the Governor, rising from his chair,Played slightly with his ruffles, then looked down,And said unto the Reverend Arthur Brown:'This is my birthday; it shall likewise beMy wedding day; and you shall marry me!'"The listening guests were greatly mystified,None more so than the rector, who replied:'Marry you? Yes, that were a pleasant task,Your Excellency; but to whom? I ask.'The Governor answered: 'To this lady here;'And beckoned Martha Hilton to draw near.She came, and stood, all blushes, at his side.The rector paused. The impatient Governor cried:'This is the lady; do you hesitate?Then I command you as chief magistrate.'The rector read the service loud and clear:'Dearly beloved, we are gathered here,'And so on to the end. At his command,On the fourth finger of her fair left handThe Governor placed the ring; and that was all:Martha was Lady Wentworth of the Hall!"

"When they had drunk the King, with many a cheer,

The Governor whispered in a servant's ear,

Who disappeared, and presently there stood

Within the room, in perfect womanhood,

A maiden, modest and yet self possessed,

Youthful and beautiful, and simply dressed.

Can this be Martha Hilton? It must be!

Yes, Martha Hilton, and no other she!

Dowered with the beauty of her twenty years,

How lady-like, how queen-like she appears;

The pale, thin crescent of the days gone by

Is Dian now in all her majesty!

Yet scarce a guest perceived that she was there

Until the Governor, rising from his chair,

Played slightly with his ruffles, then looked down,

And said unto the Reverend Arthur Brown:

'This is my birthday; it shall likewise be

My wedding day; and you shall marry me!'

"The listening guests were greatly mystified,None more so than the rector, who replied:'Marry you? Yes, that were a pleasant task,Your Excellency; but to whom? I ask.'The Governor answered: 'To this lady here;'And beckoned Martha Hilton to draw near.She came, and stood, all blushes, at his side.The rector paused. The impatient Governor cried:'This is the lady; do you hesitate?Then I command you as chief magistrate.'The rector read the service loud and clear:'Dearly beloved, we are gathered here,'And so on to the end. At his command,On the fourth finger of her fair left handThe Governor placed the ring; and that was all:Martha was Lady Wentworth of the Hall!"

"The listening guests were greatly mystified,

None more so than the rector, who replied:

'Marry you? Yes, that were a pleasant task,

Your Excellency; but to whom? I ask.'

The Governor answered: 'To this lady here;'

And beckoned Martha Hilton to draw near.

She came, and stood, all blushes, at his side.

The rector paused. The impatient Governor cried:

'This is the lady; do you hesitate?

Then I command you as chief magistrate.'

The rector read the service loud and clear:

'Dearly beloved, we are gathered here,'

And so on to the end. At his command,

On the fourth finger of her fair left hand

The Governor placed the ring; and that was all:

Martha was Lady Wentworth of the Hall!"

THE ISLES OF SHOALS.

Out in the Atlantic Ocean, six miles off the harbor entrance, and ten miles from Portsmouth, is one of the strangest places existing, the collection of crags and reefs known as the Isles of Shoals, their dim and shadowy outline lying like a cloud along the edge of the horizon. There are nine islands in the group, the chief being Appledore, rising from the sea much like a hog's back, and hence the original name of Hog Island. It covers about four hundred acres, and the whole group does not have much over six hundred acres. Star Island is smaller; Haley's or Smutty Nose, with Malaga and Cedar, are connected by a sort of breakwater; and there are four little islets—Duck, White's, Seavey's and Londoner's—and upon White Island is the lighthouse for the group, with a revolving light of alternating red and white flashes, elevated eighty-seven feet and visible fifteen miles at sea. A covered way leadsback over the crags from the tower to the keeper's cottage. To this light there come answering signals from the Whale's Back Light at the Piscataqua entrance, from solitary Boon Island out at sea to the northward, and from the twin beacons of Thatcher's Island off Cape Ann to the south. As darkness falls, one after another these beacons blaze out as so many guiding stars across the waters. One of the noted sayings of John Quincy Adams was that he never saw these coast lights in the evening without recalling the welcoming light which Columbus said he saw flashing from the shore, when he discovered the New World.

Back to Index Next