BANCROFT. THE HE Indians called the finest of New England rivers, Connecticut, River of Pines. The summer tourist to the White Mountains, ascending or descending its valley, finds little reason for the name remaining, until he reaches its upper shores, where occasional groves of pines remind him of the name and its significance. A broad, tranquil stream, it flows through much of the most characteristic scenery of the Northern States, from out the " crystal hills," — from the shadow of Agiocochook, "throne of the Great Spirit," as the Indians called Mount Washington, dividing New Hampshire from Vermont, the granite from the green, beneath graceful Ascutney Mountain at Windsor, through wide-waving grain-fields, foaming over the rocks in its sole important cascade at Bellows Falls, then into a broader and more open landscape as it crosses Massachusetts, making at Northampton its famous bendthe Great Ox-bow. At Springfield the railways from every quarter meet upon its banks, and its calm breadth here, with the low clustering foliage of its shores, and the bold cliff of Mount Tom glimmering in the hazy noon, which is the hour of arrival at Springfield, gives the tone to the day's impression. The traveller southward follows the stream toward Hartford and New Haven; the northern traveller clings to its shore until he reaches Northampton. Lying in the heart of Massachusetts, Northampton is one of the most beautiful of country towns. Looking over a quiet and richly cultivated landscape, the view from Mount Holyoke is of the same quality as that from Richmond Hill, in England. Gentle green hills, fair and fertile meadows, watered by the River of Pines. That river is not classic Thames, and no grotesque Strawberry Hill nor historic Hampden Court, no Pope's Villa at Twickenham nor stately Bushy Park, tell tales to the musing eye of the singularly artificial and amusing life which is so strangely and intimately associated with the graceful English scene. The River of Pines laves its peaceful shores with Indian lore. Terrible traditions of the fights of the early settlers of New England haunt the stream. Historic life in its neighborhood is not old enough to be artificial. Like much of our pastoral scenery, which seems the natural theatre of tranquil life and a long Arcadian antiquity, the landscape of the Connecticut, so far as it is suggestive, reminds the observer only of the dull monotony of savage existence; but,-irresistibly as the stream flows to the sea, bears imagination forward to the history that shall be. Alone of all scenery in the world, the American landscape points to the future. The best charm of the |