might have gone thither (that is to a point on the neighboring mainland opposite the island) by rail; but we have decided to go by water. Our steamer (her name is the "City of Richmond ") leaves Portland about midnight, upon the arrival of the train which started from Boston at seven in the morning, and is due at Bar Harbor, on Mount Desert, at noon the next day. As morning breaks we find ourselves thridding the islets which stud Penobscot Bay, which, says Mr. Noah Brooks, "are covered, for the most part, with fir, spruce, and larch. The shores are bold and rocky, and rich tones of brown, gray, and purple are reflected in the silvery tide." As the sun begins to approach mid-heaven we see ahead of us the summits of a cluster of hills. These are the precipices of Bar Harbor Head, the southernmost point of the island of Mount Desert, surmounted by a lighthouse.

The island is about fifteen miles long with an extreme breadth of twelve miles, and has a resident population of about 4,000. It embraces seven parallel ranges of granite mountains, with deep and narrow valleys between. The loftiest point attains an altitude of nearly 1,800 feet above its base, against which break the long Atlantic swells. This is the highest point of land along the entire Atlantic coast. One of these valleys, which is cut down clear to the water's edge, almost divides the island, "giving it the shape of a pair of well-stuffed saddle-bags." The northern extremity of the island consists mainly of irregular foot-hills, with an area of arable land along the shore, which here approaches the mainland so closely that the interval is crossed by a bridge. At the southwestern extremity of the island is an almost level plateau. Upon the southern and eastern shores the mountains come sheer down to the ocean, often without a yard of beach. Mount Desert is growing year by year more and more a place of summer resort. At present, if one wants to pass a few weeks in a manner different from that to which he has been accustomed, this is the place for him. How long this will continue to be the case no man can say: most likely not for any very long time.

Even now one, if he so pleases, can live at Mount Desert very much as he might have done at Newport or Coney Island, at Saratoga or Cape May, or anywhere else; for we are told, upon authority of a little Handbook put forth a year ago by the "Passenger Department of the Grand Trunk Railway," that the island has a prosperous community engaged in cod and mackerel fishing, and has some twenty excellent hotels." We may rest assured that the Bar Harbor Bonifaces catch fatter fish on shore than do their neighbors who fling their hooks for cod and mackerel into the briny deep. Not very

long ago Mr. Charles Dudley Warner gave a lively picture of society life on Mount Desert.

He says:

"Except in some of the cottages at Bar Harbor, it might be said that society was on a 'lark.' The young ladies liked to appear in nautical and lawn-tennis toilets. As to the young gentlemen, if there were any dress-coats on the island, they took pains not to display them, but delighted in appearing in the evening promenade in the nondescript suits that made them so conspicuous in the morning-the favorite being a dress of stripes, with a striped jockey-cap to match.

"But the principal occupation at Bar Harbor was out-door exercise: incessant activity in driving, walking, boating, rowing and sailing, bowling, tennis, and flirtation. There was always an excursion somewhere, by land or sea; watermelon parties; races in the harbor, in which the girls took part; drives on buckboards, which they organized. Indeed, the canoe and the buckboard were in constant demand. This activity, this desire to row and walk and drive, and to become acquainted, was all due to the air. It has a peculiar quality. It composes the nerves to sleep; it stimulates to unwonted exertion. The fanatics of the place say that the fogs are not damp as at other resorts on the coast. Fashion can make even a fog dry. But the air is delicious. In this latitude, and by reason of the hills, the atmosphere is pure and elastic and stimulating, and it is softened by the presence of the sea.”

Commenting upon the foregoing passage, Mr. Ernest Ingersoll says: "We came to know (and hereby testify to) the solemn truth of all that, excepting perhaps the dry fogs,' of which we heard much, but saw nothing, though it was a good year for fogs."

Let us admit, causa argumenti, that Mount Desert may be an Arcadia for those who carry such a thing about with them; if otherwise, they will not find it on the New England Coast, or anywhere else.

For a few sentences more we must stand indebted to Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, although we quote with very much condensation:

Nowhere in America are lovelier summer houses. The island is almost engirdled with a row of cottages, great and small. But the word 'cottage' here is as expansive as at Newport or Saratoga. The rise in the value of real estate has been most extraordinary. A lot of forty acres was bought in 1880 for $2,500, which has since paid its owner $46,000. Land at Bar Harbor is now cheap at $25,000 an acre, and for some $125,000 has been paid. Desirable cottages have appreciated in proportion; one small one was pointed out

as having gone from $3,000 to $11,000 between 1882 and 1885. The people of the island are thriving greatly under this new state of things, so that Mount Desert, from being one of the most forsaken, hardest-working and poorestliving corners of Yankee-land, has become one of the most prosperous and easy."

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

HIS remarkable range, called by enthusiastic travellers "The Switzerland of America," and known to the Indians as Agiocochook, "The Mountain of the Snowy Forehead and Home of the Great Spirit," is situated in Coos and Grafton Counties, N. H., and consists of a plateau 1,600 feet above sea level and having the general form of a parallelogram, from which rise several clusters of peaks, a number of which are among the highest in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. It is believed that the first white man who visited them was Walter Neal, who left sufficient records to establish the fact that he was at least partially familiar with the region as early as 1632. Shortly before the Revolutionary war an attempt was made to explore it, with the result of the discovery of the Notch, and after the war considerable attention was turned toward it. That the wonders of the locality had become somewhat known and appreciated at this period, seems evidenced by the fact that a shelter, where warmth, food, and liquors could be obtained, was erected in 1803. The summit of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the eastern cluster, having an altitude of 6,285 feet, was rendered accessible by a bridle path in 1819, and by 1852 travel had grown. to an extent that warranted the erection of a hotel. The region then attained a popularity as a summer mountain resort that has never since flagged in the least. As there are two periods in the year when the grandeur of the scenery is presented in its most perfect wealth of tinge and cloud-effects: the latter half of June and the first half of October; it has become a favorite custom with tourists and summer travellers to precede or supplement a season at the popular springs or seaside resorts with a trip to the White Mountains. The location of the principal attractions is such that they may be reached by any one of half a dozen or more routes and from as many starting points. But the course most generally pursued is to begin the ascent at North Conway, N. H., near Mount Kearsarge, which belongs to the southeastern cluster. The village

overlooks the intervals of the Saco River, and is surrounded on all sides by mountains. East of it is the Rattlesnake Ridge of hills, Middle Mountain topping them all, and but a short distance northward is Mount Kearsarge or Pequawket, rising to a height of 3,367 feet. To the westward is seen the cluster called the Moat Mountains, with the peak of Chocorua, "The Old Bear," a mass of granite with but little vegetation, 3,358 feet high, in the distance. The chief attraction of the place is the magnificent view of the valley of the Saco, where the great dome of Mount Washington, changing almost hourly in appearance, forms an impenetrable curtain across the vista. In the immediate neighborhood of North Conway are the Artist's Falls, a pretty descent of

water in the midst of a patch of forest; Echo Lake, a beautiful sheet of water lying at the foot of Moat Mountains, and on the opposite side of the river; the Cathedral, a cavity in the granite, with a wall eighty feet high, which, inclining outward, forms a magnificent arch that is met on the other side by a wall of great trees; the White Horse displayed upon the perpendicular sides of the cliffs that extend a distance of four or five miles and are from 100 to 800 feet high; Diana's Bath, a little to the north of the Cathedral, and Mount Kearsarge, the highest peak south of the mountains in this direction, from which the best view of the entire White Mountain range is obtained.

While the spectacles of natural grandeur that are visible at every turn are thrilling and awe-inspiring, the supreme pleasure of a trip to this region is to