ries of hotels. This book is devoted to the scenery of the mountain region. We intend to state fairly from what points the noblest views are to be gained, what are the characteristics of each district, and along what routes the richest beauty lies; with no thought in any case of the nearness to or distance from any hotel, or stage line, or railway station. It is assumed that the public houses are all good, and that the stage lines are equally worthy of patronage. And we take it for granted, also, that travellers are moved to spend their money and time, not primarily to study the gastronomy of Coös County in New Hampshire, or to criticize the comparative upholstery of the largest houses there; but to be introduced to the richest feasts of loveliness and grandeur that are spread by the Summer around the valleys, and to be refreshed by the draperies of verdure, shadow, cloud, and color, that are hung by the Creator around and above the hills.

THE ANDROSCOGGIN VALLEY.

The quickest access to the White Mountain range itself is gained by the valley of the Androscoggin. This noble river flows by the extreme easterly base of that range, where the forms are the most noble and imposing. Within a very few miles of the foot of Mount Washington, it receives the Peabody River, which issues from the narrow Pinkham Pass between Mount Carter and the White Mountains. This stream is supplied in part from the southeast slopes of the highest mountains of the chain, and is often swollen into a tremendous torrent by the storms, or the heavy and sudden showers that drench their sides. It is the Androscoggin which has engineered for the Grand Trunk Railway, that connects Portland and Montreal, the St. Lawrence with the Atlantic. That Company are indebted to it for service in their behalf that was patiently discharged centuries before Adam.

Leaving Boston in the morning by the Boston and Maine, or the

Eastern Railroad, for Portland, and thence at noon, by the Grand Trunk Railway, travellers reach the Alpine House in Gorham, N. II., by the cars at about five in the afternoon. They can then proceed by stage, seven or eight miles further, along the bank of the Peabody River, to the large hotel in "The Glen," a most charming opening, where the four highest elevations of the Mount Washington range are in full view from the piazza. If the weather has been dry, and the road is hard, this distance can be travelled in about an hour and a half. The road rises about eight hundred feet from the railroad in Gorham. In very muddy weather more than two hours are needed to reach "The Glen."

Some travellers have but a very few days for the whole tour of the mountain region, and desire, in that time, to see the points of interest that are the most striking, and that will produce the strongest sensation. These will hurry at once by stage to "The Glen," after their day's ride in the cars, that they may reach as quickly as possible the very base of Mount Washington. Their object will then be to make the ascent of it at once, and hurry around to "The Notch," which is thirty-six miles from "The Glen," requiring nine or ten hours by stage. Others, though they have more time at command, hasten from the cars to "The Glen," because they suppose that there is nothing worth staying to see in Gorham.

But in this they strangely mistake. The scenery is not very attractive from the front of the hotel, which was not wisely placed in the valley; but no point in the mountains offers views to be gained by walks of a mile or two, and by drives of five or six miles, that are more noble and memorable. In the latter part of this volume we shall call attention in detail to the attractions with which this whole. valley, including "The Glen," is encompassed. We will simply say here that, for river scenery in connection with impressive mountain forms, the immediate vicinity of Gorham surpasses all the other districts from which the highest peaks are visible. The Androscoggin sweeps through the village with a broader bed, and in larger volume, than the Connecticut shows at Lancaster or Littleton.

Only an hour's ride from the hotel carries one to the Berlin Falls, where the river pours its whole tide through a narrow rocky gateway. It descends a hundred feet in the course of a few hundred yards, and then shoots its rapids directly towards the swelling bulk of Mounts Madison and Adams that tower but a few miles distant, and form the northeastern wall of the Mount Washington chain. It is very seldom that the spectacle is afforded of a large river running towards the highest mountains of the region which it drains. And it is still more rare and rich a privilege to find such a view combined with a grand cataract, as in the case of the Androscoggin at Berlin.

Less than an hour's ride to a point below the hotel in Gorham, discloses another view of the river, where, broken by charming islands, and winding through cultivated meadows, it offers exquisite relief to Mount Washington and the two next highest mountains of the chain, which are installed in a magnificent group above the stream, but a few miles off. No one who sees this picture, at the fitting hour of the afternoon and through a favoring air, will be content with a single introduction to its complex and symmetrical beauty.

Such views are illustrations of the loss which tourists suffer, if they have taste for landscape, by not including a day or two in Gorham, for the sake of drives along the Androscoggin, in their plans of a visit to the eastern side of the great chain. The wildness and majesty of the scenery in "The Glen" we cannot be tempted to disparage. Certainly the impression which the hills make upon the senses here is singularly grand. The spot is a little plateau, rising from the banks of the Peabody stream, and guarded on the southeast by the steep, thin, heavily-wooded wall of Mount Carter, and on the northwest by the curving bulwarks of the great ridge, over which spring the rocky domes or spires of Washington, Clay, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison. The comparative impressiveness of the view cannot easily be overestimated.

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But it is not landscape beauty that is given in "The Glen." To have that, there must be meadow, river, and greater distance from

the hills, so that they can be seen through large intervening depths of air. Going close to a great mountain is like going close to a powerfully painted picture; you see only the roughnesses, the blotches of paint, the coarsely contrasted hues, which at the proper distance alone are grouped into grandeur and mellowed into beauty.

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,

And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

Even the height of a great mountain is not usually appreciated by looking up from its base. If it rose in one wall, and tapered regularly with a smooth surface, like a pyramid, or Bunker Hill monument, the expectations of many persons who rush to the foot of Mount Washington, and suppose that they are to receive an overpowering ocular impression of a mile of vertical height, would be satisfied. But a great mountain is protected by outworks and braced by spurs; its dome retreats modestly by plateaus; and it is only at a distance of some miles that the effect of foreshortening is corrected, and it stands out in full royalty. And from such a point of view alone, by the added effect of atmosphere and shadows, is its real sublimity discerned. The majesty of a mountain is determined by the outlines of its bulk; its expression depends on the distance, and the states of the air through which it is seen.

A visit to New Hampshire supplies the most resources to a traveller, and confers the most benefit on the mind and taste, when it lifts him above mere appetite for wildness, ruggedness, and the feeling of mass and precipitous elevation, into a perception and love of the refined grandeur, the chaste sublimity, the airy majesty overlaid with tender and polished bloom, in which the landscape splendor of a noble mountain lies. The White Mountain region is singularly rich in the varieties of landscape charm which the hills assume. The ridges are so well broken by cones and peaks, the slopes are so diversified, and the valleys wind at such various angles, that a month is insufficient to exhaust the treasures of ever changing beauty which

they hold. This is true even for the tourist who goes to study and enjoy Nature with his eye alone, and with no intention or capacity to use a pencil. Sometimes a distance of ten miles produces a change in the aspects of one ridge, as marked as if we had passed to a different zone. Certainly North Conway and Gorham, Bethlehem and Bartlett, Jefferson and Shelburne, Berlin and Jackson, could not at first be suspected of being set within about equal distance of the same chain of hills.

We should see, then, that by driving as quickly as possible to the very bases of the mountains, and by the general eagerness to get the coarser stimulant of their wildness, travellers lose the opportunity of seeing the deeper landscape loveliness which the mountains wear, and of cultivating the sense to which it is revealed. After the first visit, at any rate, this should be the chief purpose and aim.

And by living several weeks in any valley, and driving frequently over the principal roads, a person is able to learn, not only just where the best pictures are to be seen, but also what a great difference is made in the effect of a landscape by a very slight change of position. on the road. A spy-glass is good for nothing, as a help to the sight, unless you get the exact focus. It is quite remarkable how this law of focus-points holds in studying the mountain region. Sometimes the beauty of scenes depends on the hour when you visit them, sometimes on the nicely calculated distance. We have stayed within a few miles of a mountain wall, upon which the forenoon spectacle in clear weather was worth riding every day to see. But in the afternoon, the westerly light made the forests look rusty; roughened the slopes of the ridge; reduced the height of the massive bastions, and chased away their dusky frown. Some hills need rain, or a thick air, to tone down the raggedness of their foreground, and reveal the beauty of their lines. Others show best under the noon-light; others demand the sunset glow. A prominent charm of North Conway is, that it is one of the proper focal points for Mount Washington. Bethlehem Village is another. And the same distinction must be awarded to portions of the Androscoggin valley near Gorham, in relation to Mount Adams and Mount Madison.