dered by its organ (however unconsciously) to republican morals by that of 1835.

The address was followed by the reading of the poem, whose delivery by its author I have before mentioned as being prevented by his sudden and alarming illness. The whole assembly were deeply moved, and this was the most interesting part of the transactions of the day.

The society marched out of the church to music, and, preceded by the band, to the college, and up the steps of the hall to dinner, in the order of seniority as members.

We hastened home to dress for dinner at the president's, where we met the corporation of the University. My seat was between Dr. Bowditch and one of the professors; and the entertainment to us strangers was so great and so novel, that we were sorry to return home, though it was to meet an evening party no less agreeable.

The ceremonial of commencement-week was now over, but not the bustle and gayety. The remaining two days were spent in drives to Boston and to Bunker Hill, and in dinner and evening visits to Judge Story's, to some of the professors, and to Mr. Everett's, since governor of the state.

The view from Bunker Hill is fine, including the city and harbour of Boston, the long bridges and the Neck which connect the city with the mainland, the village of Medford, where the first American ship was built, and the rising grounds which advantageously limit the prospect. The British could scarcely have had much leisure to admire the view while they were in possession of the hill, for the colonists kept them constantly busy. I saw the remains of the work which was the only foothold they really possessed. They roamed the hills and marched through the villages, but had no opportunity of settling themselves anywhere else. Their defeat of the enemy was more fatal to themselves than to the vanquished, as they lost more officers than the Americans had men engaged.

A monument is in course of erection, but it proceeds very slowly for want of funds. It is characteristic of the people that funds should fall short for this object, while they abound on all occasions when they are required for charitable, religious, or literary uses. The glory of the Bunker Hill struggle is immortal in the hearts of the nation, and the granite obelisk is not felt to be wanted as an expression. When it will be finished no one knows, and few seem to

care, while the interest in the achievement remains as enthusiastic as ever.

While we were surveying the ground a very old man joined us with his plan of the field. It was well worn, almost tattered; but he spread it out once more for us on a block of the monumental granite, and related once again, for our benefit, the thousand times told tale. He was in the battle with his musket, being then fifteen years old. Many were the boys who struck some of the first blows in that war; and of those boys one here and there still lives, and may be known by the air of serene triumph with which he paces the field of his enterprise, once soaked with blood, but now the centre of regions where peace and progress have followed upon the achievement of freedom.

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

"Hast thou entered the storehouses of the snow?"

Book of Job.

ONE of the charms of such travelling as that of the English in the United States is its variety. The stopping to rest for a month at a farmhouse after a few weeks of progress by stage, with irregular hours, great fatigues, and indifferent fare, is a luxury which those only can understand who have experienced it; and it is no less a luxury to hie away from a great city, leaving behind its bustle and formalities, and the fatigues of sightseeing and society, to plunge into the deepest mountain solitude. I have a vivid recollection of the dance of spirits amid which we passed the long bridge at Boston on our way out to New-Hampshire, on the bright morning of the 16th of September. Our party consisted of four, two Americans and two English. We were to employ eight or ten days in visiting the White Mountains of New-Hamphire, returning down the valley of the Connecticut. The weather was brilliant the whole time, and I well remember how gay the hedges looked this first morning, all starred over with purple, lilach, and white asters, and gay with golden rod; with which was intermixed,

The orchards were

here and there, a late pale brier rose. cheerful with their apple-cropping. There was scarcely one which had not its ladder against a laden tree, its array of baskets and troughs beneath, and its company of children picking up the fruit from the grass. What a contrast to the

scenery we were about to enter upon!

Of the earlier part of this trip (our visit to Lake Winnipiseogee and the Red Mountain) I gave an account in my former work,* little supposing that I should ever return to the subject. My narrative must now be taken up from the point where I then dropped it.

From the summit of Red Mountain I had seen what kind of scenery we were to pass through on our road to Conway. It was first mountain and wild little valleys, and then dark pine scenery; barrens, with some autumnal copses, and intervals of lake and stream. Lake Ossippee looked like what I fancy the wildest parts of Norway to be ; a dark blue expanse, slightly ruffled, with pine fringing all its ledges, and promontories, bristling with pines, jutting into it; no dwellings, and no sign of life but a pair of wildfowl, bobbing and ducking, and a hawk perched on the tiptop of a scraggy blighted tree.

In the steamboat on Lake Winnipiseogee there was a party whom we at once concluded to be bride, bridegroom, and bridemaid. They were very young, and the state of the case might not have occurred to us but for the obvious pride of the youth in having a lady to take care of. Our conjectures were confirmed by the peculiar tone in which he spoke of "my wife" to the people of the inn in giving orders. It had a droll mixture of pride and awkwardness; of novelty with an attempt to make the words appear quite familiar. For some days we were perpetually meeting this party, and this afternoon they introduced themselves to me, on the ground of their having expected to see me at Portsmouth on my way to the White Mountains. I imagine they would have been too busy with their wedding arrangements to have cared much about me if I had gone. I was glad we fell in with them, as it added an interest to the trip. We looked at the scenery with their eyes, and pleased ourselves with imagining what a paradise these landscapes must appear to the young people; what a sacred region it will be to them

* Society in America, vol. i., p. 220–225.

when they look back upon it in their old age, and tell the youth of those days what the White Mountains were when they towered in the midst of a wilderness.

We all took up our quarters at the inn at Conway; and the next morning we met again at breakfast, and improved our acquaintance by sympathizing looks about the badness of everything on the table. Eggs were a happy resource, for the bread was not eatable. We did not start till ten, our party having bespoken a private conveyance, and the horses having to be sent for to a distance of eight miles. So the wedding-party had the companionship of our luggage instead of ourselves in the stage; and we four stepped merrily into our little open carriage, while the skirts of the morning mist were drawing off from the hilltops, and the valley was glowing in a brilliant autumn sunshine. This was to be the grand day of the journey; the day when we were to pass the Notch; and we were resolved to have it to ourselves, if we could procure a private conveyance from stage to stage.

We struck across the valley, which is intersected by the Saco river. Never did valley look more delicious; shut in all round by mountains, green as emerald, flat as water, and chumped and fringed with trees tinted with the softest autumnal hues. Every reach of the Saco was thus belted and shaded. We stopped at Pendexter's, the pretty house well known to tourists; having watered the horses, we went on another stage, no less beautiful, and then entered upon the wilderness. For seven miles we did not see a single dwelling; and a head now and then popped out of the stage window, showing that our friends "the weddingers" were making sure of our being near, as if the wilderness of the scene made them relish the idea of society.

The mountains had opened and closed in every direction all the morning; they now completely shut us in, and looked tremendous enough, being exceedingly steep and abrupt, bare, and white where they had been seamed with slides, and in other parts dark with stunted firs. At the end of seven miles of this wilderness we arrived at the elder Crawford's, a lone house invested with the grateful recollections of a multitude of travellers. The Crawfords, who live twelve miles apart, lead a remarkable life, but one which seems to agree well with mind and body. They are hale, lively men, of uncommon simplicity of manners, dearly loving company,

but able to make themselves happy in solitude. Their year is passed in alternations of throngs of guests with entire loneliness.* During the long dreary season of thaw no one comes in sight; or, if a chance visiter should approach, it is in a somewhat questionable shape, being no other than a hungry bear, the last of his clan. During two months, August and September, while the solitaries are trying to get some sort of harvest out of the impracticable soil, while bringing their grain from a distance, a flock of summer tourists take wing through the region. Then the Crawfords lay down beds in every corner of their dwellings, and spread their longest tables, and bustle from morning till night, the hosts acting as guides to every accessible point in the neighbourhood, and the women of the family cooking and waiting from sunrise till midnight. After the 1st of October comes a pause, dead silence again for three months, till the snow is frozen hard, and trains of loaded sleighs appear in the passes. Traders from many distant points come down with their goods, while the roads are in a state which enables one horse to draw the load of five. This is a season of great jollity; and the houses are gay with roaring fires, hot provisions, good liquor, loud songs, and romantic travellers' tales; tales of pranking wild beasts, bold sleigh-drivers, and hardy woodsmen.

The elder Crawford has a pet album, in which he almost insists that his guests shall write. We found in it some of the choicest nonsense and "brag" that can be found in the whole library of albums. We dined well on mutton, eggs, and whortleberries with milk. Tea was prepared at dinner as regularly as bread throughout this excursion. While the

rest of the party were finishing their arrangements for departure, I found a seat on a stone, on a rising ground opposite, whence I could look some way up and down the pass, and wonder at leisure at the intrepidity which could choose such an abode.

We proceeded in an open wagon, the road winding amid tall trees, and the sunshine already beginning to retreat up the mountain sides. We soon entered the secluded valley where stands the dwelling of the Willeys, the unfortunate family who were all swept away in one night by a slide

* The region must, however, be less desolate than it was. The land in the neighbourhood had been worth only twenty-five cents per acre, and was now worth just six times as much.