CHAPTER XXVI. Has nature this rough naked piece designed SAVAGE. And from the hideous crash distracted flies Like one who hears his dying infant's cries, Ibid. THE year was now so fast so fast upon the wane, the days shortening, and the weather so intensely cold, that it required no small stock of resolution to enable one to desert a warm bed at a quarter to three in the morning, and encounter a keen north-wester. In four hours we arrived at Bartlett, sixteen miles from Conway, when I walked out with my sketch-book while breakfast was preparing, for the purpose of attempting an outline of the fine mountain scenery, but could not command my pencil, and soon found my way back shivering to the house, where I esconced myself in a corner by the bright kitchen fire until the coach was once more ready to start. We were now hemmed in by lofty mountains, between which the road wound, preserving a level along the right bank of the Saco, a strong mountain torrent, which, notwithstanding the encroachments made upon it with strong embankments, only allowed sufficient space for a single carriage to pass in many places between the rocky barrier on the one hand and its impetuous waters, a considerable depth beneath, on the other. Numerous broad water-courses, which bore the marks of great periodical inundations when they are swollen to gigantic rivers, descend to it from the mountains' tops, being, as a gentleman who was by chance my fellow-passenger with great pathos expressed it, "as the veins and sinews to the human constitution." All vestiges of cultivation ceased from Bartlett until the seventh mile, when we arrived at a small farm in a solitary but pretty spot, which had been nearly carried away by the floods six years previously, with a loss of land of the value of 2000 dollars to the proprietor. Another hour's drive brought us to the Notch of the White Mountains, when I alighted from the coach with a request that my baggage should be left at an inn eight miles farther, and sat down by the road side to admire the awfully grand and sublime spectacle which the Notch presents. The day which had been so cloudy and cold in the early part became more favourable, and the sun darted its invigorating rays through the clouds, resting on the summit of the bleak and precipitous rocks with which the valley is bounded. By degrees the light vapours arose, melting into air, or floating away gracefully and majestically, and laid open a scene which would defy the pencil of any artist to delineate faithfully. The Notch, as the term implies, is a narrow pass, six miles in length, at the southern end of the White Mountains, the loftiest of which, Mount Washington, is 6234 feet above the level of the sea; but on each side of the pass they rise only from 1800 to 2000, at an angle of about 45°, forming a valley less than half a mile in width between their bases, and down which the roaring Saco takes its course. The whole extent of their front is furrowed and scarred by the tremendous storm of July, 1826; and the valley, choked up with trees uptorn by the roots, remnants of bridges, buildings, and huge masses of rock piled upon each other in the greatest disorder, presents what might be almost imagined as the wreck of nature. A melancholy and interesting story is connected with this storm, which will for years to come be the cause of thousands making a pilgrimage to the White Mountains. I give it as related to me by one who, though not an eye-witness, was in the immediate vicinity at the time it occurred; it was as follows:-A farmer of the name of Willey, with his wife, five children, and two labourers, occupied a house with a small farm at the upper end of the valley. They were much esteemed for their hospitable attentions to travellers, who, overtaken by night, sought shelter at their hearth, which was the only one in the Notch, their nearest neighbours being at the farm aforementioned, six miles distant. The hills at that time were thickly overgrown with forest-trees and shrubs; nor had any thing ever occurred to make them suspicious of the safety of their position, until the descent of a small avalanche, or slide of earth, near the house in the month of June, 1826, so terrified them by the havoc it caused, that they erected a small camp in what they deemed a more secure place, half a mile lower down the Saco. The summer had been unusually dry until the beginning of July, when the clouds collecting about the mountains poured forth their waters as though the floodgates of the heavens were opened, the wind blew in most terrific hurricanes, and continued with unabated violence for several days. On the night of the |