All winter I had been promising myself the pleasure of watching the flowers unfold in the Bogs of Etchowog. On May 25th I reached the old farm on Mount Œta, having departed from New York on May 14th, fully equipped as a bog-trotter, with hunting-boots, rubber gloves, short skirts and vasculum.

My route was through New Haven and Hartford, across the States of Connecticut and Massachusetts. On my way I stopped for a brief visit at the home of a friend in New Haven. In her garden, I found a corner of the Taconic woodlands awakening. Here, in line and on time, stood five modest Yellow Lady’s Slippers (Cypripedium hirsutum), members of the Orchid Family; while along the same border clusters of the Showy Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium reginæ) were pushing their dewy-tipped beaks into light and sunshine. Although rather late in their blossoming, compared with the other sisters of this genus in New England, this species usually reaches its prime about June 20th.

On the east side of the garden towered an ambitious row of ferns, some twenty root clusters or more, including many rare species. Here was an especially queer little strap-like leaf, which one would scarcely call a fern unless one were a professed fern-hunter. It is the rare Walking Leaf (Camptosorus rhizophyllus), the scientific name meaning a bent heap, and the appearance of the plant indeed is suggestive of the name. The frond is from four to twelve inches long, springing from a heart-shaped base and reaching out a long, narrow runner, which readily roots at the end again, and thence takes a step onward, and so on, until three or four steps are taken, often in this way forming a beautiful carpet for the cold gray lime rocks, which it prefers in its native haunts.

The Walking Fern is shy in its habitat, seeking the most hidden crevices in ledges along our mountain sides. I have collected it in many dark ravines, as well as along dry, rocky ridges in the Hoosac Highlands. It takes kindly to cultivation for a season or two, and then dies out for want of its natural soil of limestone.

A short walk toward West Rock, New Haven, showed me how far advanced the season really was. Here were crowds of children playing in fields covered with violets and bluets, and farther down in the damp meadows were long, serpentine lines of gold, where the Marsh Marigolds (Caltha palustris), known commonly as Cowslips, were already fading. On the edges of the swamp, the Marsh Buttercups of the Crowfoot Family (Ranunculaceæ), were lifting their shallow yellow cups to catch the sunshine. We wandered on through a pretty, wild bit of young woodland until we reached the border of a murmuring stream, creeping onward through the vale and meadow, touching the blossoming orchards here and there, and freshening the sweet white violets on its brink.

North Adams, Massachusetts, was to be my next station. This city is about two hundred miles from New York, among the Hoosac Highlands. I almost expected to see reluctant snowdrifts still lingering in the fence corners and shaded pine glens of this part of “Beautiful Berkshire,” and I half hoped to find a few late clusters of the Trailing Arbutus (Epigæa repens) creeping through the cold, mossy ravines.

Upon my arrival in North Adams, I looked through the bogs under the brow of Hoosac Mountain near Aurora’s Lake, and I could perceive scarcely any difference in the progress of flowers or foliage here from that of the region from which I had just departed. Dogwood, apple trees, violets, anemones and wake-robins were in blossom, while in the deeper bogland I found one lone, pale Pink Moccasin-Flower (Cypripedium acaule).

American White Hellebore, so commonly known as Indian Poke or Itch Weed (Veratrum viride), had already sent out a luxuriant growth of green leaves, which for a moment deceived me—as it had done many times before—by its resemblance to the foliage of the Showy Lady’s Slipper. The leaves of both these plants are plicate, and have ever been confused even by the earliest herbalists. Unrolling a spike of leaves one day, I found I had actually disturbed the buds of the queen of the Lady’s Slippers instead of the Hellebore, although they proved to be blasted. No doubt some warm day had started them prematurely, frost and cold rains later proving their ruin.

Here on a sheltered damp hillside, I found my first clusters of the season of the Pink Azalea (Azalea nudiflora), which is commonly known hereabout as Swamp-Apple, and which is very similar to Rhodora Canadensis. These species belong to the Heath Family, one of the largest among the flora of Hoosac Valley. The beautiful pink flowers of the Great Rhododendron, which measure from one to two inches in diameter, render it the most charming species of this group. It is cultivated extensively, but grows in its natural wild state, in this region, only along the margins of ponds near Montpelier and Wells River, in Vermont.

The American Mountain Laurel (Kalmia), which becomes so gorgeous later in the season, the Lambkill, Labrador Tea, Andromeda and the Cassandra are closely allied species of this group, common to this region. Other familiar members of it are the Trailing Arbutus, Gaultheria, and the Creeping Snowberry. They may be found in Aurora’s Swamp.

North Adams is not far from the sources of the south and north branches of the Hoosac River, in a wild and rugged portion of Berkshire. The Hoosac proper is formed at the junction of these two streams, in the vicinity of the Print Works near Marshall Street in the city, and flows on gently in a northwesterly course to join the Hudson, near Lansingburg. Mountain streams in this region are numerous, and flow musically down through deep chasms and over great marble precipices, to swell the Hoosac as it glides slowly out through the deep-cut valley.

“We Hold the Western Gateway,” is part of the inscription on the seal of the city of North Adams, which is known as the “Tunnel City.” This is practically true, for the sole gateway of the trade from the Western States passes though the flinty wall of the Hoosac Mountain, in order to reach Boston direct. The idea of opening a path for transit through the “Forbidden Mountain,” as the Indians called it, was conceived six years after the first mail-coach and four-in-hand rattled through the street of this town to Greenfield, in 1814. It was found impossible to build the projected canal from Boston to Albany. The estimated cost of building the tunnel was less than two million dollars, but when it was completed in 1875, the total financial outlay had amounted to over twenty millions. Until January 1, 1887, this tunnel was owned by the State of Massachusetts, when it was purchased by the Fitchburg Railroad. It is four and three fourths miles long, and twenty-six feet wide, permitting of double tracks. The arch is from twenty-two to twenty-six feet high, and at each portal there is a massive granite façade.

Whenever I come to the Hoosac Valley, I enter, if possible, by way of this tunnel. I seem thus to close away the outer world, and to penetrate a new realm hidden here in the seclusion of the marble highlands. This triumph of man over the power of Nature needs no further introduction here. I can never forget, however, the weary years of hardships endured by those who toiled in its construction, entombed within the heart of the mountain, subject to the dangers of quicksands, falling rocks, damp and gases, explosives, fire and starvation, before the great work was accomplished.

I enjoyed the ridges in the pastures along the foothills of the grim-faced Tunnel Mountain, and about Aurora’s Lake, which reflects like a pretty little mirror the rugged beauty of the hills. This lake is partly natural, but now dammed artificially. Every line of its terraced shores bears the scars of antiquity, which would indicate that ten thousand years ago a larger lake slept in this hollow vale which geologists have estimated at a depth of six hundred feet. Here are rich deposits of glacial drift, and northeast of Aurora’s Lake are sphagnous swamps, where I find many rare orchids and early spring blossoms. Here both the pink and yellow Moccasin-Flowers bloom in May, while in June the queen of the tribe unfolds her white-petaled purity.

This bogland is very similar to that of the Swamp of Oracles in Pownal, in District Fourteen, save for the openness of the former’s shores. Aurora’s Swamp is located in a deep flinty basin, surrounded only by low tangled bushes and open pasture-land beyond, without forests to shield the bogs from the sweep of winds.

The hills are strewn with great boulders left here in the Glacial Age, which rest, poised as monuments of that mystical period. Especially interesting are the dimpled erosions upon one boulder, which rests just northeast of the lakelet, upon the ridges sloping eastward toward the sphagnous swamp. There are visible deep scratches, hollows, arches and miniature pillars, which the whirling eddies of the perilous waves have eroded during the ages unknown. Higher on the summit of the Hoosac rests another immense rock known to students of geology as the “Great Vermonter.” It is said to have been brought from the marble and granite heights of Vermont, imbedded in the ice-drift. Through the melting of the glacial sheet, one of the drifting bergs left this hero of the ages as we may see it now, moored and balanced high on old Hoosac’s brow.

The geological surveys of northern Massachusetts, by President Hitchcock of Amherst in 1838, early identified all of the low, round hills to be seen southward from Aurora’s Lake as the result of glacial action. Mount Greylock’s Brotherhood is a group of giant glacial hills, as it were, and is the highest pile of Taconic formation in this State. The erosions of the great ice-sheet are plainly seen on the rocky summits of these mountains, and only time and the decay of the rock itself will do away with these scars of that mystical age. The name of “Greylock” appears to be derived from the lowering cloud-mist so often capping the whole Brotherhood at early dawn or before a storm.

Vermonters who, from the hills at a great distance to the north, view this group of mountains, depend upon this capping of clouds as a forecast of the weather. Among the old folk, it is known and designated as “Greylock’s Nightcap,” a portent of a coming storm.

Mount Greylock, the highest swell of this range, is 3600 feet above sea level, and commands a variable and extensive view from its bald summit, on which was early erected that first wooden observatory, during President Griffin’s term at Williams College. Here the poet and the philosopher, Hawthorne and Thoreau, have climbed to meditate.

Many a message has gone forth from these heights to bless the busy world. Scarcely is there a son of old Williams who does not recall the mountain-day excursions led by Professor Albert Hopkins, and the glory of old Greylock at dawn and at the sunset hour.

Thoreau writes of it: “It would be no small advantage if every college were thus located at the base of a mountain, as good at least as one well-endowed professorship. It were as well to be educated in the shadow of a mountain as in more classical shades. Some will remember, no doubt, not only that they went to college, but that they went to the mountain. Every visit to its summit would, as it were, generalize the particular information gained below, and subject it to more catholic tests.”[1]

The peak especially designated as Saddleback Mountain is at the junction of the eastern abutments of that huge wall of Taconic Brotherhood which appears south of the old battle-ground where formerly stood the early border Fort Massachusetts, on the Harrison flats, near the flag station of Greylock. The union of Mount Williams, sloping to the east, and Prospect Mountain to the west forms the seat of the saddle.

Mount Hopkins—so named in honor of Professor Albert Hopkins of Williams, the first nature-student of our land, making excursions afield in 1833—lies south of these. Old Greylock, proper, lifts its lofty brow still farther south, being situated about in the centre of this great range as it extends from east to west.

Beyond Greylock stretches a long, misty line of blue peaks against the sky, which if observed from Mount Œta at the north, in Bennington County, Vermont, may be traced to the southwest to Symond’s Peak, the lowest of the group, named in memory of Captain Symond, who led the volunteer forces from our hills and vales to the memorable Battle of Bennington in 1777. Bald Mountain is also in the vicinity, and the closing in of these several peaks has conspired to form what is known as the “Hopper,” and the “Heart of Greylock.” The hollow vale amid these heights has the appearance of the hoppers used by millers years ago.

Surely in the heart of the Taconics we are in one of the oldest rock formations of the earth, and the green terraced stairs lead us slowly down to the deep-set valley of the Hoosac, where once slept that ancient lake. All that now remains of that Lake of Dawn is pocketed in the basin under the Hoosac. The shores of Aurora’s Lake are lonely and still, save for the marsh thrushes which skim low over the waves and whistle shrilly. The groves of pine to the southeast are the haunts of solitude, and those who wander here can well imagine that the Æolian harps among the whispering trees are repeating a music of ages past, when only wind and waves were known to these hills.

Amid these damp and reedy shores and swampy woods are tall brakes and delicate Maiden-Hair Ferns. Here, too, the tall and stately Royal-Fern (Osmunda regalis) flourishes in deep seclusion, sheltered by the low-branching pines along the shore. It grows from two to four feet high in this locality, and is of a deep rich crimson-green tone against the grasses and bushes near. Mounds of moss, marking one of the trees of a primitive forest rotting below the soil, are thickly carpeted with the leaves of the Dog’s-Tooth Lily. Indeed, the picturesque paths which lead through these woods wind through a veritable fairy-land of flowers and ferns. One of these trails runs southward through rocky pastures, swamps and thickets, toward the Tunnel’s western gate.

Along these slopes, among the limestone rocks, I found rows of the Ebony Spleenwort Fern, rather rare in this much-travelled way; and on the brow of this ridge were many species of common fern. The pastures are barren and dry, with few bushes to break the dreary horizon, as one approaches the western portal of the Tunnel.

I came upon one lone Apple-Thorn bush, of genus Cratægus of the Apple Family. Nearly opposite, across the valley of the south branch of the Hoosac, which the Indians named the Ashuilticook, may be distinguished the smoking Limekilns; while still farther southward, the white-spired village of Adams nestles at the base of Greylock, which towers serenely above the shaggy shoulders of Ragged Mountain. I wandered about the edges of the Tunnel cliffs where, in years gone by, had stood the impoverished cabins which sheltered the laborers who tunnelled the Hoosac. I descended into the chasm and seated myself upon the wall of rocks, waiting for the trains to appear and disappear at the portal in the side of the hill. Presently one from the West crept ponderously into the cavern. The echoing roar was smothered, and died slowly away until it became an indistinct murmur. Not long afterward I felt, as well as heard, the low breathings and rumblings of a locomotive coming in the opposite direction. I heard its subterranean groans as of a great spirit, while the smoke poured forth, pushed in volumes before the engine, wreathing and curling about it as it emerged, and partially concealing its grim outlines.

The faithful watchman, a modern Eckhart, sits before the entrance of the Western Gateway of Hoosac Mountain, and warns the people against entering through this portal to the greater world that lies beyond. It is as if he wished to guard these children of the marble highlands from the risks attendant upon the wild whirl of life beyond these quiet hills.

The sun was setting as I left him, calm but alert, at his post of duty, trimming and lighting his colored lanterns for signals of danger or safety to the approaching trains. Climbing up by the path which passes the little red cottage on the crest of the hill on the north bank of the chasm, I returned leisurely homeward, winding over the hillsides, far above Aurora’s Lake, then down along the borders of the swamp-lands. In the crevices of rock were creeping colonies of the Common Polypody (Polypodium vulgare). Along the edges of this bog are still seen the primeval stumps of the pine and hemlock forests, which clothed these hillsides when only the Redmen dwelt and hunted among these wildernesses.

In May and early June these decaying stumps are usually draped with Painted Trillium and the delicate vines of Gaultheria and the Creeping Snowberry, while the Arbutus trails about luxuriantly, covering up the ruins of years.