enough to justify the trial. A lawyer of Boston, who proved himself a thoroughly furnished wood-man, a clergyman, an artist, and your correspondent, were the quartette of novices, and with our admirable guide formed a harmonious, and as it turned out, a competent quintette club' for the excursion. 66 Tuesday, the eleventh, in the afternoon, was the time for starting. It had rained in the morning. The clouds were heavy and dark after dinner, and blanketed the mountains. But the wind was favorable, and, according to Mr. Gordon's barometrical instinct, the signs were auspicious for the succeeding day. Some friends were kind enough to escort us from the Alpine House to the base of Adams, two miles beyond the farther side of Randolph Hill, where we were to strike into the forest. Just as we arrived opposite Madison, the cloak and cap of mist were thrown off, and the symmetrical mountain saluted us in an aristocratic suit of blue-black velvet. And as we reached the point where we were to leave the wagon, the fog lifted from the ravine also. Both its sides, its upper plateau, and its far-retreating wall looked full upon us in shadow so gloomy, as if the old mountain was making one last and crowning effort to frighten us from our enterprise, and save his savage chasm from desecration by human feet. The prospect was not very enticing, especially as the rain began to fall again when the horses stopped. But we put faith in the northwest wind for the weather of the morrow, bade good-bye to our friends in the wagon, and at four o'clock started on the ascent, along a brook that flows out of the ravine, and is one of the feeders of Moose River, which swells the Androscoggin. "We had supposed that this brook would furnish delight enough to relieve the fatigue of the first part of the ascent, and we were not disappointed. Gayest pictures rose to win me, What can be more charming and refreshing than the exploration of a mountain stream? One minute your feet are in the deep, soft mosses-springy ottomans for the naiads-that cushion the fallen. trunks along the banks. Next, you are pushing through the luxuriant growths of fern, and bush, and vine, that choke the way between the bordering birches and pines. Soon you are stopping to gaze at the rich weather-stains on the occasional smooth walls of stone; or you pause before some scooped basin, a rod broad and five feet deep, in which the crystal water is stored to show off the dolphin hues of stones on the bottom, that have been polished by their toil of centuries at wearing out the immense granite bowl. And then the infinite caprice, and sport, and joy of the stream itself in its leaps all along the pathway from its far-up cradle, and its growth from a baby rill to a boyish brook! Now it pours in a thin sheet of liquid glass over a broad and even rock. Now it slides in a tiny cataract along a slanting sluice-way. Now it streams in scattered fringes of pearly raggedness down a slope of rock that is striped with emerald moss. Now it strands all its silvery threads into a runnel, and pours with concentrated voice through the groove of a sharp-edged shelf, into a still pool below. "But what folly to attempt to draw in words the curves and colors, the coyness and the hoyden frolic, the flashes and the moodiness, the laughter and the plaints of these daughters of the clouds! What can make the time pass quicker, or the fatigue of climbing seem so slight, as the Protean beauty and ever-changing music of a mountain. rill, which nature keeps sacred to poetry before it mingles with the more vulgar water of the valley, to begin a life of use? Three hours slipped away quickly, while we were mounting the stony stairs of this unvisited rivulet that drains the sides of the ravine,-although we had stumbled, and tested the coldness of its tide in other ways than by drinking, and, for a great portion of the way, carried our boots full of its liquid ice. "It was just sunset when we reached the proper point to pitch our camp for the night. The easterly cliff of the gorge, dimly seen through the trees, glowed with vivid gold-the promise of a bright day to succeed-as we stretched ourselves under the slanted birchbark canopy, supported on four poles, that was to guard us from dews and rains. We could not but look with admiration at the quiet and business-like air and movements of Mr. Gordon, as he went to work with his axe upon a great tree, felled it, chopped the trunk into two huge logs, stretched them out before our rude tent, and kindled between them a noble fire. It was my first experience of camping out.' I hope it will not be the last. "It was pleasant to think, as we were drying our feet at that cheerful blaze, whose heat drove the mosquitos also from our wigwam, that it was the first time a fire had been lighted-except, possibly, by a thunderbolt-under those solemn precipices; the first time that the hiss and crackle of the logs had ever chimed in there with the buzz of human voices, and the purr of the busy brook; the first time that the gray cliffs had ever been looked up to, through flicker and smoke, from a tent at twilight; or that sparks had been scattered aloft among the thick leaves, to mock for a moment the perennial sparkles from the camp-fires of the night. We were at liberty to enjoy the sensations of pioneers in the gorge, searching for a new path to the summit of Mount Washington. "How refreshing was the kettle of tea which was steeped and 'drawn' for us by that beneficent blaze! Was it because it was made of water tapped in its granite service-pipe, half-way between the clouds and the lower earth, that it yielded a flavor more exquisite than the cream of the Alpine House had ever imparted before? Some six or eight dippers of it stimulated the memory of the lawyer of our group so that he gave us the most reviving stories, until we begged to be allowed to sleep. My little girl, five years old, was sadly disturbed, when I started, by the fear that bears would devour me. Indeed, while I was absent she became so anxious that a benevolent lady in the Alpine House comforted her with the assurance that all the bears in the Adams Ravine had mittens on their teeth.' They must also have had velvet on their paws, and cotton in their throats; for we heard no motion or sound of any wild creature through the night-watch. The Great Bear' alone, prowling all night around the fold of the North Star,' looked down upon our slumber. Twice I awaked, and saw the tall and faithful Gordon moving stealthily to replenish the fire, and heard the tired monotone of the brook, murmuring at its perpetual toil. But how well we rested, on our bed of spruce boughs, in the Gordon Hotel;' and how we needed all the strength which the night could inspire for the next day's task; and how we were rewarded for all our fatigue, let me try to tell you in another letter." "Shall we continue our conversation with your readers, Mr. Editor, about the excursion through the ravine of Adams to Mount Washington? When I parted from you, our party were just going to sleep on our spruce couches, under our birch roof, with our feet to the fire, while the drowsy serenade of the brook served as a soporific to counteract the stimulus of Gordon's tea. "After early ablutions in the stream, and a breakfast which a camp-appetite made sumptuous, we started for the day's toil. Our first excitement was kindled by the gorgeousness of the morning sunlight on the sheer gray rocks of the curving wall of the ravine, far up under the pinnacle of the mountain. The glowing gold which the wet mosses intermixed with the russet and purple of the precipice, very nearly took the soul of our artist companion out of his body. (If it had succeeded in severing the balloon from its bodily basket, Gorham would have been robbed of the poet for whom it has been |