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HARPER’S CYCLOPEDIA
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We commend it highly. It contains so many of the notable poems of our language, and so much that is sound poetry, if not notable, that it will make itself a pleasure wherever it is found.—N.Y. Herald.
The selections are made with a good deal of taste and judgment, and without prejudice against any school or individual. An index of first lines adds to the usefulness of the volume.—N.Y. Sun.
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He seems to have culled the choicest and the best from the broad field. * * * Mr. Sargent had the fine ear to detect the pure, true music of the heart and imagination wherever it was voiced. * * * The elegant volume is a household treasure which will be highly prized.—Evangelist, N.Y.
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DRAKE’S NEW ENGLAND COAST.
NOOKS AND CORNERS OF THE NEW ENGLAND COAST. By Samuel Adams Drake. With numerous Illustrations. Square 8vo, Cloth, $3 50; Half Calf, $5 75.
#/ My dear Sir,—I laid out your new and beautiful book to take with me to-day to my summer home, but before I go I wish to thank you for preparing a volume which is every way so delightful. All summer I shall have it at hand, and many a pleasant hour I anticipate in the enjoyment of it. I have read far enough in it already to feel how admirably you have done your part of it, and I have seen, in turning over the delectable pages, what a panorama of lovely nooks and rocky coast your artist has prepared for the pleasure of your readers. May they be a good many thousand this year, and continue to increase time onward. If I am not greatly out in my judgment, edition after edition will be called for. Truly yours,
James T. Fields.
Thy “Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast” is a delightful book, and one of most frequent reference in my library. Thy friend,
John G. Whittier.
I take this opportunity of acknowledging the pleasure I have received from your interesting book on our New England coast. It was my companion last summer on the coast of Maine. Yours truly,
F. Parkman.
Mr. Samuel Adams Drake does for the New England coast such service as Mr. Nordhoff has done for the Pacific. His “Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast”—a volume of 459 pages—is an admirable guide both to the lover of the picturesque and the searcher for historic lore, as well as to stay-at-home travellers. The “Preface” tells the story of the book; it is a sketch-map of the coast, with the motto, “On this line, if it takes all summer.” “Summer” began with Mr. Drake one Christmas-day at Mount Desert, whence he went South, touching at Castine, Pemaquid, and Monhegan; Wells and “Agamenticus, the ancient city” of York; Kittery Point; “The Shoals;” Newcastle; Salem and Marblehead; Plymouth and Duxbury; Nantucket; Newport; Mount Hope; New London, Norwich, and Saybrook. What nature has to show and history to tell at each of these places, who were the heroes and worthies—all this Mr. Drake gives in pleasant talk—N.Y Tribune.
My dear Mr. Drake,—I have given your beautiful book, “Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast,” a pretty general perusal. It is one “after my own heart,” and I thank you very much for it. Your Preface is an admirable “hit” in more ways than one. Like Grant, whom you have quoted, it took you, I imagine, all winter as well as all summer to accomplish your victory, for you speak of experiences with snow and sleet.
You have gathered into your volume, in the most attractive form, a vast amount of historical and descriptive matter that is exceedingly useful. I hope your pen will not be stayed. Your friend and brother of the pen,
Benson J. Lossing.
To-morrow I leave home for a week or two in Maine, and shall take your beautiful volume, “Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast,” with me to read and enjoy at leisure. I am sure it cannot fail to be very interesting.
Yours faithfully,
Henry W. Longfellow.
I need not tell you with how much interest both my husband and myself—lovers of the valley—look forward to your work, nor how much pleasure your “Nooks and Corners” has already afforded us.
With most cordial regards,
Harriet P. Spofford.
His style is at once simple and graphic, and his work as conscientious and faithful to fact as if he were the dullest of annalists instead of one of the liveliest of essayists and historians. The legitimate charm of variety—characteristic of a work of this kind—makes the book more entertaining than any volume of similar size devoted exclusively to chronology, biography, essays, or anecdotes.—John G. Saxe, in the Brooklyn Argus.
Mr. Drake’s “Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast” ought to be in the hands of every one who visits our sea-side resorts. The artistic features serve to embellish a very interesting description of our New England watering-places, enlivened with anecdotes, bits of history connected with the various places, and pleasant gossip about people and things in general.—Saturday Evening Gazette, Boston.
Published By HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.
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GLOWING TRIBUTES TO AMERICAN ART.
WHAT LEADING ENGLISH PAPERS
SAY OF
“PASTORAL DAYS;
OR,
MEMORIES OF A NEW ENGLAND YEAR.”
By W. HAMILTON GIBSON.
4to, Illuminated Cloth, Gilt Edges, $7 50.
FROM “THE TIMES,” LONDON.
The title of this very beautifully illustrated book conveys but a very faint idea of its merits, which lie, not in the descriptions of the varied beauties of the fields and fens of New England, but in the admirable wood-engravings, which on every page picture far more than could be given in words. The author has the rare gift of feeling for the exquisitely graceful forms of plant life and the fine touch of an expert draughtsman, which enables him both to select and to draw with a refinement which few artists in this direction have ever shown. Besides these essential qualities in a painter from nature, Mr. Gibson has a fine sense of the poetic and picturesque in landscape, of which there are many charming pieces in this volume, interesting in themselves as pictures, and singularly so in their resemblance to the scenery of Old England. Most of the little vignette-like views might be mistaken for Birket Foster’s thoroughly English pictures, and some are like Old Crome’s vigorous idyls. One of the most striking—a wild forest scene with a storm passing, called “The Line Storm”—is quite remarkable in the excellent drawing of the trees swept by the gale and in the general composition of the picture, which is full of the true poetic conception of grandeur in landscape beauty. But all Mr. Gibsons’s good drawing would have been nothing unless he had been so ably aided by the artist engravers, who have throughout worked with such sympathy with his taste, and so much regard for the native grace of wild flowers, grasses, ferns, insects, and all the infinite beauties of the fields, down to the mysterious spider and his silky net spread over the brambles. These cuts are exceptional examples of beautiful work. Nothing in the whole round of wood-engraving can surpass, if it has even equalled, these in delicacy as well as breadth of effect. Much as our English cutters pride themselves on belonging to the school which Bewick and Jackson founded, they must certainly come to these American artists to learn the something more which is to be found in their works. In point of printing, too, there is much to be learned in the extremely fine ink and paper, which, although subjected to “hot-pressing,” are evidently adapted in some special condition for wood-printing. The printing is obviously by hand-press,[46] and in the arrangement of the type with the cuts on each page the greatest ingenuity and invention are displayed. This, too, has been designed with a sort of a Japanesque fancy; here is a tangled mass of grasses and weeds, with a party of ants stealing out of the shade, and there the dragon-flies flit across among the blossoms of the reeds, or the feathery seeds of the dandelion float on the page. Each section of the seasons has its suggestive picture: Springtime, with a flight of birds under a may-flower branch that hangs across the brook: Summer, a host of butterflies sporting round the wild rose: Autumn, with the swallows flying south and falling leaves that strew the page; while for Winter the chrysalis hangs in the leafless bough, and the snow-clad graves in the village church-yard tell the same story of sleep and awakening. As many as thirty different artists, besides the author and designer, have assisted in producing this very tastefully illustrated volume, which commends itself by its genuine artistic merits to all lovers of the picturesque and the natural.
FROM “THE SATURDAY REVIEW,” LONDON.
This pleasant American book has brought to our remembrance, though without any sense of imitation, two old-fashioned favorites. In the first place, its descriptions of rural humanity, its rustic sweetness and humor, have a certain analogy with the delicately pencilled studies of life in Miss Mitford’s “Our Village;” but the relation it bears to the second book is much closer. It is more than forty years since Mr. P. H. Gosse published the first of those delightful sketches of animal life at home which have led so many of us with a wholesome purpose into the woods and lanes. It was in the Canadian Naturalist that he broke this new ground; and though we do not think this has ever been one of his best-known books, we cannot but believe that there are still many readers who will be reminded of it as they glance down Mr. Gibson’s pages.
People must be strangely constituted who do not enjoy such pages as Mr. Gibson has presented to us here. It is not merely that he writes well, but the subject itself is irresistibly fascinating. We plunge with him into the silence of a New England village in a clearing of the woods. The spring is awakening in a flush of tender green, in a fever of warm days and shivering nights, and we hasten with our companion through all the bustle and stir of the few busy hours of light so swiftly that the darkness is on us before we are aware. Then falls on the ear a pathetic, an intolerable silence; a deep mist covers the ground, a few lights twinkle in scattered farms and cottages, and all seems brooding, melting, in the deep and throbbing hush of the darkness. * * * The wailing of the great owl upon the maple-tree takes our author back in memory to the scenes of his youth, where the owl was looked upon as a creature of most sinister omen, and his own partiality to it, as a proof that there was something uncanny or even “fey” about him. All this is described with great sympathy and delicacy; but perhaps Mr. Gibson is most felicitous in his little touches of floral painting. He has a few words about the earthy, spicy fragrance of the arbutus that might have been said in verse by the late Mr. Bryant; his description of the effect of biting the bulbs of the Indian turnip, or “Jack-in-the-pulpit,” is inimitable in its quiet way; while the phrase about the fading dandelions—“the golden stars upon the lawn are nearly all burned out; we see their downy ashes in the grass”—is perhaps the best thing ever said about a humble flower, whose vulgarity, in the literal sense, blinds us to the beauty of its evolution and decay.
In his studies of life and country manners Mr. Gibson is a very agreeable and amusing, if not quite so novel, a companion. Not seldom he reminds us not merely of Miss Mitford, but sometimes of Thoreau and of Hawthorne. The story of Aunt Huldy, the village crone who sustained herself upon simples to the age of a hundred and three, is one of those little vignettes, half humorous, half pathetic, and altogether picturesque, in which the Americans excel. Aunt Huldy was an old witch in a scarlet hood, whose long white hair flowing behind her was wont to frighten the village children who came upon her in the woods; but she was absolutely harmless, a crazy old valetudinarian, who was always searching for the elixir of life in strange herbs and decoctions. At last she thought she had found it in sweet-fern, and she spent her last years in grubbing up every specimen she could find, smoking it, chewing it, drinking it, and sleeping with a little bag of it tied round her neck.
But although Mr. Gibson writes so well, he modestly disclaims all pretension as a writer, and lets us know that he is an artist by profession. His book is illustrated by more than seventy designs from his pencil, engraved in that beautiful American manner to which we have often called attention. The scenes designed are closely analogous to those described in the text. We have an apple-orchard in full blossom, with a group of idlers lounging underneath the boughs; scenes in the fields so full of mystery and stillness that we are reminded of Millet, or of our own Mason; clusters of flowers drawn with all the knowledge of a botanist and the sympathy of a poet. It is hard to define the peculiar pleasure that such illustrations give to the eye. It is something that includes and yet transcends the mere enjoyment of whatever artistic excellence the designs may possess. We are directly reminded by them of such similar scenes as have been either the rule or the still more fascinating exception of every childish life, and at their suggestion the past comes back; in the familiar Wordsworthian phrase, “a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.”
We know so little over here of the best American art that it may chance that Mr. Gibson is very well known in New York. We confess, however, that we never heard of him before; but his drawings are so full of delicate fancy and feeling, and his writing so skilful and graceful, that, in calling attention to his book, we cannot but express the hope that we soon may hear of him again, in either function, or in both.
==>“PASTORAL DAYS” is published by Harper & Brothers, New York, who will send the work, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of $7 50.
HARPER’S GUIDE TO EUROPE.
HARPER’S HAND-BOOK FOR TRAVELLERS IN EUROPE AND THE EAST: being a Guide through Great Britain and Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Switzerland, Tyrol, Spain, Russia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, United States, and Canada. By W. Pembroke Fetridge. With Maps and Plans of Cities. In Three Volumes. 12mo, Leather, Pocket-Book Form, $3 00 per vol. The volumes sold separately.
Vol. I. Great Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland.
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It has stood the test of trying experience, and has proved the traveller’s friend in all emergencies. Each year has added to its attractions and value, until it is about as near perfect as it is possible to make it.—Boston Post.
Personal use of this Guide during several visits to various portions of Europe enables us to attest its merits. No American is fully equipped for travel in Europe without this Hand-Book.—Philadelphia North American.
Take “Harper’s Hand-Book,” and read it carefully through; then return to the parts relating to the places you have resolved to visit; follow the route on the maps, and particularly study the plans of cities. So you will start with sound pre-knowledge, which will smoothen the entire course of travel.—Philadelphia Press.
The book is not only unrivalled as a guide-book, for which it is primarily intended, but it is a complete cyclopædia of all that relates to the countries, towns, and cities which are described in it—their curiosities, most notable scenes, their most celebrated historical, commercial, literary, and artistic centres. Besides general descriptions of great value, there are minute and detailed accounts of everything that is worth seeing or knowing relative to the countries of the Old World. The great value of the book consists in the fact that it covers all the ground that any traveller may pass through—being exhaustive not only of one country or two, but comprising in its ample pages exact and full information respecting every country in Europe and the East.—Christian Intelligencer, N. Y.
It is a marvellous compendium of information, and the author has labored hard to make his book keep pace with the progress of events. * * * It forms a really valuable work of reference on all the topics which it treats, and in that way is as useful to the reader who stays at home as to the traveller who carries it with him abroad.—N. Y. Times.
I have received and examined with lively interest the new and extended edition of your extremely valuable “Hand-Book for Travellers in Europe and the East.” You have evidently spared no time or pains in consolidating the results of your wide travel, your great experience. You succeed in presenting to the traveller the most valuable guide and friend with which I have the good fortune to be acquainted. With the warmest thanks, I beg you to receive the most cordial congratulations of yours, very faithfully, John Meredith Read. Jr., United States Minister of Greece.
From having travelled somewhat extensively in former years in Europe and the East. I can say with entire truth that you have succeeded in combining more that is instructive and valuable for the traveller than is contained in any one or series of hand-books that I have ever met with.—T. Bigelow Lawrence.
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ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS.
EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.
The following volumes are now ready:
| JOHNSON, | Leslie Stephen. |
| GIBBON, | J. C. Morison. |
| SCOTT, | R. H. Hutton. |
| SHELLEY, | J. A. Symonds. |
| HUME, Professor | Huxley. |
| GOLDSMITH, | William Black. |
| DEFOE, | William Minto. |
| BURNS, Principal | Shairp. |
| SPENSER, The | Dean of St. Paul’s. |
| THACKERAY, | Anthony Trollope. |
| BURKE, | John Morley. |
| MILTON, | Mark Pattison. |
| SOUTHEY, Professor | Dowden. |
| CHAUCER, Professor | A. W. Ward. |
| BUNYAN, | J. A. Froude. |
| COWPER, | Goldwin Smith. |
| POPE, | Leslie Stephen. |
| BYRON, | John Nichol. |
| LOCKE, | Thomas Fowler. |
| WORDSWORTH, | F. W. H. Myers. |
| DRYDEN, | G. Saintsbury. |
| LANDOR, Professor | Sidney Colvin. |
| DE QUINCEY, Professor | D. Masson. |
| LAMB, The Rev. | Alfred Ainger. |
| BENTLEY, Professor | Jebb. |
| 12mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume. | |
| HAWTHORNE. By | Henry James, Jr 12mo, Cloth, $1 00. |
| VOLUMES IN PREPARATION: | |
| SWIFT, | John Morley. |
| GRAY, | E. W. Gosse. |
| ADAM SMITH, | Leonard H. Courtney. |
| DICKENS, Professor | A. W. Ward. |
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ENGLISH CLASSICS.
EDITED, WITH NOTES,
By WM. J. ROLFE, A.M.
SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS.
- The Merchant of Venice.
- The Tempest.
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- All’s Well that Ends Well.
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- Comedy of Errors.
- Cymbeline.
- Merry Wives of Windsor.
- Measure for Measure.
- Two Gentlemen of Verona.
- Love’s Labour’s Lost.
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SELECT POEMS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
SELECT POEMS OF THOMAS GRAY.
ILLUSTRATED.
16mo, Cloth, 50 Cents per Volume; Paper, 40 Cents per Volume.
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Each of Shakespeare’s plays is complete in one volume, and is preceded by an introduction containing the “History of the Play,” the “Sources of the Plot,” and “Critical Comments on the Play.”
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| Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: |
|---|
| griping his arm=> gripping his arm {pg 103} |
| more and more drouth=> more and more drought {pg 173} |
| turned to looked back=> turned to look back {pg 243} |
| Moosilauk 4881=> Moosilauke 4881 {pg 330} |
FOOTNOTES:
[1] So called from the fishing-weirs of the Indians. The Indian name was Aquedahtan. Here is the Endicott Rock, with an inscription made by Massachusetts surveyors in 1652.
[2] No tradition attaches to the last three peaks. Passaconnaway was a great chieftain and conjurer of the Pennacooks. It is of him the poet Whittier writes:
Bade through ice fresh lilies blow,
And the leaves of summer glow
Over winter’s wood.
This noted patriarch and necromancer, in whose arts not only the Indians but the English seemed to have put entire faith, after living to a great age, was, according to the tradition, translated to heaven from the summit of Mount Washington, after the manner of Elias, in a chariot of fire, surrounded by a tempest of flame. Wonnalancet was the son and successor of Passaconnaway. Paugus, an under chief of the Pigwackets, or Sokokis, killed in the battle with Lovewell, related in the next chapter.
[3] Something has since been done by the Appalachian Club to render this part of the ascent less hazardous than it formerly was.
[4] The Saco has since been bridged, and is traversed with all ease.
[5] The sequel to this strange but true story is in keeping with the rest of its horrible details. Perpetually haunted by the ghost of his victim, the murderer became a prey to remorse. Life became insupportable. He felt that he was both shunned and abhorred. Gradually he fell into a decline, and within a few years from the time the deed was committed he died.
[6] Dr. Jeremy Belknap relates that, on his journey through this region in 1784, he was besought by the superstitious villagers to lay the spirits which were still believed to haunt the fastnesses of the mountains.
[7] This house stood just within the entrance to the Notch, from the north, or Fabyan side. It was for some time kept by Thomas J., one of the famous Crawfords. Travellers who are a good deal puzzled by the frequent recurrence of the name “Crawford’s” will recollect that the present hotel is now the only one in this valley bearing the name.
[8] A portion of the slide touching the house, even moved it a little from its foundations before being stopped by the resistance it opposed to the progress of the débris.
[9] I have since passed over the same route without finding those sensations to which our inexperience, and the tempest which surrounded us, rendered us peculiarly liable. In reality, the ridge connecting Mount Pleasant with Mount Franklin is passed without hesitation, in good weather, by the most timid; but when a rod of the way cannot be seen the case is different, and caution necessary. The view of this natural bridge from the summit of Mount Franklin is one of the imposing sights of the day’s march.
[10] The remains of this ill-fated climber have since been found at the foot of the pinnacle. See chapter on Mount Washington.
[11] This analogy of belief may be carried farther still, to the populations of Asia, which surround the great “Abode of Snow”—the Himalayas. It would be interesting to see in this similarity of religious worship a link between the Asiatic, the primitive man, and the American—the most recent, and the most unfortunate. Our province is simply to recount a fact to which the brothers Schlaginweit (“Exploration de la Haute Asie”) bear witness:
“It is in spite of himself, under the enticement of a great reward, that the superstitious Hindoo decides to accompany the traveller into the mountains, which he dreads less for the unknown dangers of the ascent than for the sacrilege he believes he is committing in approaching the holy asylum, the inviolable sanctuary of the gods he reveres; his trouble becomes extreme when he sees in the peak to be climbed not the mountain, but the god whose name it bears. Henceforth it is by sacrifice and prayer alone that he may appease the profoundly offended deity.”
[12] Sullivan: “History of Maine.”
[13] Field’s second ascension (July, 1642) was followed in the same year by that of Vines and Gorges, two magistrates of Sir F. Gorges’s province of Maine, within which the mountains were believed to lie. Their visit contributed little to the knowledge of the region, as they erroneously reported the high plateau of the great chain to be the source of the Kennebec, as well as of the Androscoggin and Connecticut rivers.
[14] It also occurs, reduced to Agiochook, in the ballad, of unknown origin, on the death of Captain Lovewell. One of these was, doubtless, the authority of Belknap. Touching the signification of Agiochook, it is the opinion of Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull that the word which Captain Gyles imperfectly translated from sound into English syllables is Algonquin for “at the mountains on that side,” or “over yonder.” “As to the generally received interpretations of Agiockochook, such as ‘the abode of the Great Spirit,’ ‘the place of the Spirit of the Great Forest,’ or, as one writer prefers, ‘the place of the Storm Spirit,’” says Dr. Trumbull, “it is enough to say that no element of any Algonkin word meaning ‘great,’ ‘spirit,’ ‘forest,’ ‘storm,’ or ‘abode,’ or combining the meaning of any two of these words, occurs in ‘Agiockochook.’ The only Indian name for the White Hills that bears internal evidence of genuineness is one given on the authority of President Alden, as used ‘by one of the eastern tribes,’ that is, Waumbekketmethna, which easily resolves itself into the Kennebec-Abnaki waubeghiket-amadinar, ‘white greatest mountain.’ It is very probable, however, that this synthesis is a mere translation, by an Indian, of the English ‘White Mountains.’ I have never, myself, succeeded in obtaining this name from the modern Abnakis.”
[15] Here is what Douglass says in his “Summary” (1748-’53): “The White Hills, or rather mountains, inland about seventy miles north from the mouth of Piscataqua Harbor, about seven miles west by north from the head of the Pigwoket branch of Saco River; they are called white not from their being continually covered with snow, but because they are bald atop, producing no trees or brush, and covered with a whitish stone or shingle: these hills may be observed at a great distance, and are a considerable guide or direction to the Indians in travelling that country.”
And Robert Rogers (“Account of America,” London, 1765) remarks that the White Mountains were “so called from that appearance which is like snow, consisting, as is generally supposed, of a white flint, from which the reflection is very brilliant and dazzling.”
[16] Captivity of Elizabeth Hanson, taken at Dover, New Hampshire, 1724.
[17] No Yankee girl need be told for what purpose spruce gum is procured; but it will doubtless be news to many that the best quality is worth a dollar the pound. Davis told me he had gathered enough in a single season to fetch ninety dollars.
[18] I use the name, as usually applied, to the whole mountain. In point of fact, the Dome is not visible from the Notch.
[19] The guide knew no other name for the larger bird than meat-hawk; but its size, plumage, and utter fearlessness are characteristic of the Canada jay, occasionally encountered in these high latitudes. I cannot refrain from reminding the reader that the cross-bill is the subject of a beautiful German legend, translated by Longfellow. The dying and forsaken Saviour sees a little bird striving to draw the nail from his bleeding palm with his beak:
‘Blest be thou of all the good!
Bear, as token of this moment,
Marks of blood and holy rood!”
Covered all with blood so clear.
In the groves of pine it singeth
Songs like legends, strange to hear.”
[20] Peabody River is said to have originated in the same manner, and in a single night. It is probable, however, that as long as there has been a valley there has also been a stream.
[21] Since the above was written, a deplorable accident has given melancholy emphasis to these words of warning. I leave them as they are, because they were employed by the very person to whom the disaster was due: “The first accident by which any passengers were ever injured on the carriage-road, from the Glen House to the summit of Mount Washington, occurred July 3d, 1880, about a mile below the Half-Way House. One of the six-horse mountain wagons, containing a party of nine persons—the last load of the excursionists from Michigan to make the descent of the mountain—was tipped over, and one lady was killed and five others injured. Soon after starting from the summit the passengers discovered that the driver had been drinking while waiting for the party to descend. They left this wagon a short distance from the summit and walked to the Half-Way House, four miles below, where one of the employés of the Carriage-road Company assured them that there was no bad place below that, and that he thought it would be safe for them to resume their seats with the driver, who was with them. Soon after passing the Half-Way House, in driving around a curve too rapidly, the carriage was overset, throwing the occupants into the woods and on the rocks. Mrs. Ira Chichester, of Allegan, Michigan, was instantly killed, her husband, who was sitting at her side, being only slightly bruised. Of the other occupants, several were more or less injured. The injured were brought at once to the Glen House, and received every possible care and attention. Lindsey, the driver, was taken up insensible. He had been on the road ten years, and was considered one of the safest and most reliable drivers in the mountains.”
[22] A stone bench, known as Willis’s Seat, has been fixed in the parapet wall at the extreme southern angle of the road, between the sixth and seventh miles. It is a fine lookout, but will need to be carefully searched for.
[23] Benjamin Chandler, of Delaware, in August, 1856.
[24] Dr. B. L. Ball’s “Three Days on the White Mountains,” in October, 1855.
[25] Considering the pinnacle of Mount Washington as the centre of a circle of vision, the greatest distance I have been able to see with the naked eye, in nine ascensions, did not probably much exceed one hundred miles. This being half the diameter, the circumference would surpass six hundred miles. It is now considered settled that Katahdin, one hundred and sixty miles distant, is not visible from Mount Washington.
[26] The highest point, formerly indicated by a cairn and a beacon, is now occupied by an observatory, built of planks, and, of course, commanding the whole horizon. It is desirable to examine this vast landscape in detail, or so much of it as the eye embraces at once, and no more.
[27] One poor fellow (Private Stevens) did die here in 1872. His comrade remained one day and two nights alone with the dead body before help could be summoned from below.
[28] It was for a long time believed that the summit of Mount Washington bore no marks of the great Glacial Period, which the lamented Agassiz was the first to present in his great work on the glaciers of the Alps. Such was the opinion of Dr. C. T. Jackson, State Geologist of New Hampshire. It is now announced that Professor C. H. Hitchcock has detected the presence of transported bowlders not identical with the rocks in place.
[29] In going to and returning from the ravine, I must have walked over the very spot which has since derived a tragical interest from the discovery, in July, 1880, of a human skeleton among the rocks. Three students, who had climbed up through the ravine on the way to the summit, stumbled upon the remains. Some fragments of clothing remained, and in a pocket were articles identifying the lost man as Harry W. Hunter, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. This was the same person whom I had seen placarded as missing, in 1875, and who is referred to in the chapter on the ascent from Crawford’s. A cairn and tablet, similar to those erected on the spot where Miss Bourne perished, had already been placed here when I last visited the locality, where the remains had so long lain undiscovered in their solitary tomb. An inscription upon the tablet gives the following details: “Henry W. Hunter, aged twenty-two years, perished in a storm, September 3d, 1874, while walking from the Willey House to the summit. Remains found July 14th, 1880, by a party of Amherst students.” The place is conspicuous from the plain, and is between the Crawford Path and Tuckerman’s. By going a few rods to the left, the Summit House, one mile distant, is in full view. This makes the third person known to have perished on or near the summit of Mount Washington. Young Hunter died without a witness to the agony of his last moments. No search was made until nearly a year had elapsed. It proved ineffectual, and was abandoned. Thus, strangely and by chance, was brought to light the fact that he sunk exhausted and lifeless at the foot of the cone itself. I can fully appreciate the nature of the situation in which this too adventurous but truly unfortunate climber was placed.
[30] A log-hut has been built near the summit of Mount Clinton since this was written. It is a good deed. But the long miles over the summits remain as yet neglected. Had one existed at the base of Monroe, it is probable that one life, at least, might have been saved. It is on the plain that danger and difficulties thicken.
[31] Kancamagus, the Pennacook sachem, led the Indian assault on Dover, in 1689.
[32] This name was given to his picture of the great range, in possession of the Prince of Wales, by Mr. George L. Brown, the eminent landscape-painter. The canvas represents the summits in the sumptuous garb of autumn.
[33] The true source of the Connecticut remained so long in doubt that it passed into a by-word. Cotton Mather, speaking of an ecclesiastical quarrel in Hartford, says that it was almost as obscure as the rise of the Connecticut River.
[34] This orthography is of recent adoption. By recent I mean within thirty years. Before that time it was always Moosehillock. Nothing is easier than to unsettle a name. So far as known, I believe there is not a single summit of the White Mountain group having a name given to it by the Indians. On the contrary, the Indian names have all come from the white people. That these are sometimes far-fetched is seen in Osceola and Tecumseh; that they are often puerile, it is needless to point out. Moosehillock is probably no exception. It is not unlikely to be an English nickname. The result of these changes is that the people inhabiting the region contiguous to the mountain do not know how to spell the name on their guide-boards.
[35] Speaking of legends, that of Rubenzal, of the Silesian mountains, is not unlike Irving’s legend of Rip Van Winkle and the Catskills. Both were Dutch legends. The Indian legends of Moosehillock are very like to those of high mountains, everywhere.
[36] In the valley of the Aar, at the head of the Aar glacier, in Switzerland, is a peak named for Agassiz, who thus has two enduring monuments, one in his native, the other in his adopted land. The eminent Swiss scientist spent much time among the White Mountains.
[37] Such, for example, as the Hon. J. G. Sinclair, Isaac Cruft, Esq., and ex-Governor Howard of Rhode Island.
[38] The twin Percy Peaks, which we saw in the north, rise in the south-east corner of Stratford. Their name was probably derived from the township now called Stark, and formerly Percy. The township was named by Governor Wentworth in honor of Hugh, Earl of Northumberland, who figured in the early days of the American Revolution. The adjoining township of Northumberland is also commemorative of the same princely house.
[39] The greater part of the ascent so nearly coincides, in its main features, with that into Tuckerman’s, that a description would be, in effect, a repetition. To my mind Tuckerman’s is the grander of the two; it is only when the upper section of King’s is reached that it begins to be either grand or interesting by comparison.
[40] The road up the Rigi, in Switzerland, was modelled upon the plans of Mr. Marsh.
[41] Dr. Timothy Dwight.
[42] Rev. Benjamin G. Willey.
[43] The greatest angle of inclination is twelve feet in one hundred.
[44] Samuel Adams at the feet of John Adams is not the exact order that we have been accustomed to seeing these men. Better leave Samuel Adams where he stands in history—alone.
[45] It is only forty years since Agassiz advanced his now generally adopted theory of the Glacial Period. The Indians believed that the world was originally covered with water, and that their god created the dry land from a grain of sand.
[46] The English reviewer is in error here. The letterpress and illustrations were printed together on an Adams press.