scenery.

the bank. The mathematical instruments, and the provisions, and equipage indispensable on our journey, were distributed among the company. From an eminence near by we took the bearing to the foot of an immense slide from the mountain, apparently about ten miles distant. We then, with baggage and utensil, plunged into the woods in Indian file. We soon, in the depth of the forest, lost all view of the mountain, and had to depend wholly on our compass. Our route led over the strangest variety of For some miles we passed over gentle hills with intervening valleys. From these the original forest had wholly disappeared. Some careless lumberman had, some years before, kindled a fire in the dry season, in the pine forest; and when a fire once gets started in summer among the trees of a New England forest, it sweeps every living thing before it. All, therefore, of the noble forest. trees of this region had perished and fallen. There had sprung up thickets of white birch, patches of gigantic ferns, and immense fields of blueberry bushes, loaded with the finest fruit. In one part of our journey we fell into a cedar swamp. This was nearly impassable. The limbs of the cedar grew but a few feet from the ground, and the branching tops were so entwined as to render the direction of Dr. Franklin, "Stoop as you go through the world," of indispensable importance to us. Passing this cedar forest, we came to a clear cold mountain stream. It poured down from the mountain in many a beautiful cascade, and went roaring, and ripping, and tearing away, laughing outright, as it rushed on toward the river. Its bed was strewed with huge bowlders of rock, having evidently tumbled down from the mountain. I had the curiosity to measure one of these granite blocks. Its circumference was seventy-nine, and its hight fifteen feet. Borne down the stream by the rushing waters, it had struck another rock, which had arrested its progress.

The sun was near setting, when we reached the base of the mountain, at the foot of the path left by the great slide. From this point there seemed, to one looking up, a broad, straight, and tolerably smooth road to the very top of the mountain peak. The hand of man, however, has had no part in forming this great highway. It is the pathway of the avalanche. It is a groove in the mountain side, varying from two to ten feet deep, and five hundred feet wide. At some unknown period, a mass of earth, with all its trees and shrubs, was swept down the mountain, far into the plain below, leaving its pathway marked for ages to come. Up this pathway we began our ascent. The inclination was at first but gentle, and the way strewed with pebbly sand and gravel. As we advanced, the ascent became steeper, and the road rougher. Near the top we had to climb up over rocks piled on rocks. Ruin had driven her plowshare over every inch, and turned up prodigious furrows all along the way.

Night came upon us, and we rested, forming the best shelter we could. Morning dawned, and we made a scanty breakfast, and prepared to climb on. We had reached a little area of table-land, commanding a splendid view. Below us and around us the atmosphere was clear. We stopped to look on the magnificent prospect. Toward the south the clear waters of the Penobscot, as they sped away toward the ocean, gleamed like a thread of silver. Toward the west there lay spread out a succession of lakes, beautiful, bright, and innumerable. Some of them we knew to be many leagues distant, yet, from the elevation on which we stood, one might seem able to throw a stone upon their glassy surface. To the east appeared an illimitable forest plain, unbroken, silent, and desolate. On the north, far as the eye could reach, "Hills peeped o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arose,"

rugged, savage, and drear.

But while the lower strata of atmosphere was clear, affording unobstructed view of earth, heaven was shut out from view. Clouds high in air were rapidly sailing over forest, and mountain, and lake. One, blacker than its companions, had stooped from its airy flight, and was resting on the mountain peak before us. It seemed impenetrable; yet we had to climb on into its very embraces. Our way became more difficult. Rocks of Rocks of every fantastic shape lay along the path, many of them so poised, that a false step, or the slightest accident, might start them from their resting-places, and send them thundering down, carrying ruin on such of our party as happened to be behind. Some of our companions got frightened at the scene, and made their escape, while their bones were sound, to a place of safety.

At last, with many a weary step, and many a hairbreadth escape, we reached the cloud-capped summit. Cloudcapped indeed it was, and the cap drawn tightly down. The cloud, which, from below, appeared resting so quiet on its mountain perch, was all in a whirl. The wind blew so violently, that one of the company, with comic gravity, inquired how many men it might take to hold one's hair on. Nor was wind and cloud all. The snow came thick and fast, and the cold was so intense, that out of ten men, protected by overcoats and mittens, not one could unscrew the tube of the barometer, so benumbed were our fingers.

An Indian of the Penobscots, who was one of the party, averred that Pimola, the mythological demon of the mountain, had sent this terrible storm upon us, in punishment of our impiety in visiting his dominions. Pimola is the genius of Katahden, of Herculean strength, occupying a throne of granite, and reigning sole despot over those lofty peaks and dark ravines. No mortal eye has ever seen him; but his voice, as the Indians affirm,

is often heard, and especially in the storm. The Penobscots have the fear of him continually before their eyes, and it is with difficulty that you can urge them to approach the mountain.

After much difficulty, we succeeded in taking the barometrical observations, and obtaining such geological information as the circumstances allowed; and then, finding that longer delay might be dangerous, on account of the intensity of the cold, and the violence of the storm, we started on our return. Starting off in the direction in which I supposed we had come up, I had proceeded but a short distance, when I was arrested by the warning voice of our Indian attendant, and informed that I was on the wrong track. I could hardly believe I was not in the same path by which we had ascended, but returning to the spot from which I had started, he soon convinced me that he was right, and that the way I had been going would have led off among crags, and cliffs, and precipices, and ravines, no one knows where. The sagacity of the Indian had induced him, on going up the mountain, to mark the path, after we left the slide, by setting up stones-a prudent expedient, that never occurred to the rest of us. By this instinctive foresight of a half-wild Indian, our whole company was saved from untold sufferings, and even death. The path by which we had come up is the only known way of access to the mountain; and had we attempted the descent by any other route, we must have become inextricably confused and bewildered, and we might have perished in the storm.

As we were passing down along the brink of one of the ravines, which I had not noticed in our ascent, owing to the dense mist surrounding us, I looked down the dizzy abyss. How wide it was I know not, as I could not in the storm see across; but it was at least a thousand feet deep, and walled up by perpendicular precipices.

The scene was intensely sublime. The emotion was indeed overwhelming. On one side was the naked mountain peak, drear and desolate, its rocks rived by the frosts of six thousand winters; on the other was the deep, dark chasm, whose recesses, formed by jutting crags and overhanging cliffs, no adventurous foot had ever trod; above us, and around us, and below us, was the storm, the wintery winds whirling the fast falling snow into many a fantastic drift. The scene made the blood run chill and the teeth chatter.

PERILOUS ADVENTURE.

About noon we safely arrived at the place which we had left in the morning. Here we found our companions, who, being frightened at the falling rocks, starting from their precarious poise in our ascent, had gone back, leaving to us the danger and the glory of accomplishing the ascent to the summit. They had provided as well as they could for their comfort and for ours. But our situation was by no means desirable. We had but one tent, having left the other on the island. It was entirely too small to afford protection from the storm for all of us.

We

e were drenched with snow and rain; for the cloud which capped the mountain top with snow, poured down torrents of rain on the sides. We had no change of raiment. Little or no fire could be raised, for we were yet too high up the mountain to find much wood, and what little we did find was too wet to burn, and only furnished volumes of smoke to be whirled into our faces

and eyes by the wind. In addition to this, we were nearly out of provision, having scarcely sufficient for half our company. Our island camp, where we had left our clothing and provisions, was nine miles distant, through a tangled, pathless forest. It was deemed impossible to reach it that night. Such, however, were the inconveniences of our position, that I proposed to be one of any