LETTER III.

ASCENT OF MOUNT TAHAWUS-DIFFICULTIES OF THE WAY-GLORIOUS PROSPECT FROM THE TOP.

I HAD finally resolved to ascend this mountain, the highest in the Empire State, and the highest in the Union with the exception of Mount Washington. The hunter Cheney told me that not a human foot had pressed its lordly summit for six years, and that it would require three days to ascend it and return. It was fifteen miles to the top, through a pathless wilderness, across rivers and amid tangled thickets, and over swamps that would task the powers of the strongest man. As he looked at my pale visage and slender frame, he intimated that I could not accomplish the ascent. I told him I could, and what was more, I could do it all in a day and a half, passing only one night in the woods instead of two. He said it was impossible; that it had never been done but once in that time, and then it was performed by himself and another man from necessity, and that he did not get over it for a week after.

Notwithstanding these discouragements, our little party concluded to start; and so, on Friday morning, before the leaves had shaken the dew from their fin

gers, we stretched off in Indian file, Cheney the hunter leading. With a hatchet in his hand, and a pack filled with pork and venison and bread on his back, he appeared a fit leader for such a vagabond-looking company as we were. Next came B-n, carrying a tea-kettle in his hand, while I followed close after, with a long stick in my hand to steady me in leaping chasms and climbing precipices, and a green Scotch blanket, rolled up and fastened by a rope around my shoulders, to cover me with at night. The rest came straggling along, each with something in his hand. necessary for our dinner or night's lodging in the woods. After moving in this way about six miles, we came to some burnt logs and a rude bier, on which a dead man had lain all night. Mr. Henderson, a wealthy gentleman of Jersey City, and who owned a portion of the Adirondac Iron Works, had shot himself accidentally with a pistol a short way from this spot, and here he had been brought, to wait for daylight to guide those who bore him through the woods. His little boy, eleven years old, was with him, and "There," said the hunter, pointing to a log, "I sat all night, and held the poor fellow in my arms, until at length he sobbed himself to sleep." A little farther on, we came to a small pond beside which stood a rock where the accident happened. "I stood there," said Cheney, pointing across the pond, "with the little boy by my side, and was busy in preparing a raft on which we might take some trout for supper, when I heard a shot. I looked across, and saw Mr. Henderson flinging his arms rapidly towards heaven, and then

across his breast, exclaiming, 'I am shot!' His little son fainted, and fell at my feet. As soon as I could, I hurried to the spot, and found Mr. Henderson sitting on the ground, supported by his friend, and going fast." He committed his soul to his Maker, told his son to be a good boy and give his love to his mother, and in a few minutes more passed the mystery of mysteries, and entered on the scenes of the boundless hereafter. He was a man of noble character and generous disposition, and loved by all who knew him. It is singular to observe how often men fall victims to that which they most dread and most guard against. Mr. Henderson was nervously afraid of firearms; so much so that he could not see a man passing along the street with a gun on his shoulder, without going out to inquire if it was loaded. He carried the pistol solely as a means of defence in the woods, and in laying it down on a rock, struck the lock while the muzzle was pointed directly towards him. Poor Cheney stood and sighed over the spot, and shook his head mournfully, exclaiming, "Oh, he was a noble man!" It was affecting to witness such deep and lasting feeling in a man who had spent half his life in the woods. You can well imagine that it was with silent and thoughtful steps, and some sad forebodings, we again entered the bosom of the forest.

But I will not enter into the details of this tedious tramp. I cannot make you see the dark spruce forest, with its carpet of moss, and paths of wild deer and bears trodden hard by their frequent passage from the mountains to the streams; nor induce you

to follow with your eye that crooked river that seems, since we last crossed it, to have stolen round and lain in ambush in our path, so suddenly and unexpectedly does it again appear before us. But, after wading it half a dozen times, just stand here a moment on the bank of a new stream, and look through those huge hemlocks into that awful mountain gorge. That lonely sheet of water, spreading there so dark and yet so still, is Lake Colden, and looks, amid those savage and broken hills, like Innocence sleeping on the lap of Wrath. How peaceful and how lonely it seems in its solitude!—and it shall linger in the memory like some half-sad, half-pleasant dream.

From this we struck across to the Opalescent River -so called from the opalescent stones, some of which are very beautiful, that are found in its channel-and followed its rocky bed five miles into the mountains. Now wading across, and now leaping from rock to rock, and again striking out into the thick forest, to get around a deep gulf or cataract, we pressed on till one o'clock, when we hallooed each other together, and began to prepare for dinner. Some old and shivered trees, which the floods of spring had brought down and lodged against the rocks, served us for fuel. Over the crackling fire we hung our tea-kettle, which we filled from the limpid stream that crept in rivulets around our feet, and, placing some large slices of pork on the ends of sticks which we held in the blaze, soon had our dinner under full headway.

Amid the laughter and freedom inseparable from a life in the woods, we whiled away an hour, then

shouldered again our knapsacks and pressed on. The sky, which was clear and beautiful in the morning, had drawn a veil over its face, and the clouds, thickening every moment, gave omen of a stormy night and gloomy day to come. When we set out, we expected to encamp at the base of the main peak over night, and ascend next morning, but I told Cheney we must be on the top before sunset, for in the morning impenetrable clouds might rest upon it, and all our labor be lost. We were weary enough to halt, and a more forlorn-looking company you never saw than we were, as we straggled like a flock of sheep up the bed of the stream. At length it began to climb the mountain in cataracts, and we after it. It was now nearly three o'clock, and we had been walking since seven in the morning. Wearied and completely fagged out, it seemed almost impossible to make the ascent. Up, up, at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees-flogged and torn at every step by the long, thorn-like branches of the spruce trees-leaping from rock to rock, or crawling from some cavity into which we had fallen through the treacherous moss, we panted on, striving in vain to get even a sight of the summit that mocked our hard endeavors. One hunter with us several times gave out completely, and we were compelled to stop and wait for him. Crossing now a bear-track, and now coming to a bed where a moose had rested the night before, we at length saw the naked cone, forming the extremest summit of the mountain. There it stood, round, gray, cold, a naked, in the silent heavens. A deep gully lay be

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