Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/152

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144

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��MOOSILAUKE.

��return to it again and again. Mt. Pig- wacket in Conway, its neighbor, always seems gray in the hazy distance, Chocor- ua rises farther south, and Welch mount- ain, Osceola, Whiteface, Ossipee, Aga- menticus, on the sea-coast ; Mt. Prospect, and Red hill fill up the circle.

This view to the north and east is the most magnificent mountain view to be had on this side of the continent. The most indifferent observer cannot look upon it without feeling its grandeur and sublimity.

Forty ponds and lakes are sparkling under the setting sun. Two in Wood- stock, the little tarn in the meadow where the Asquamchumauke rises ; Stin- son pond in Romney, Lake Winnepisse- ogee, Winnesquam, Long bay. Smith's pond, Squam lake, Mascoma lake, two ponds in Dorchester, Baker ponds in Or- ford, Indian pond, Fairlee pond, and nu- merous others in Vermont; Tarleton lakes, Wachipauka pond, by which Rog- ers and his rangers camped, Kelley, and Horse-shoe ponds ; two others in Haver- hill, Beaver meadow ponds in Benton, and many more with names unknown ; how they all gleam and glisten, and look like silver sheens.

The Pemigewassett, the Asquamchu- mauke, the Ammonoosuc, and the Con- necticut, from their wooded valleys are flashing in the setting sun.

The villages with their church spires are gleaming. See Bradford, Haverhill Corner, East and North Haverhill, New- bury, Woodsville and Wells River, down there in the Connecticut valley. A hun-

��dred spires are shining on the hills of Vermont. Landaff and Bath are lighted up, and Warren, Wentworth, Campton, Franconia, Lake Village, and Laconia all come distinctly out as the sun goes down.

Now see the sun just touching the Ad- irondacks beyond Lake Champlain in the west. There is a rosy blush on the White mountains, the Green mountains are golden, while all the peaks behind which the sun is going down are bathed in a sea of glorious light. How it chan- ges ! Darkness creeps over the eastern peaks, the Green mountains are going into shadows, the vermillion, pink, ruby, and gold of the Adirondacks, is fading away, and the stars are coming out.

But look! there is a silver line on the eastern horizon. 'Tis the moon rising. But Luna don't come from behind the hills. Her upper limb as she creeps up is distant twice her diameter from the land horizon. That bright band twixt moon and earth is the ocean. It is a sight seldom seen from New Hampshire's mountains.

As we come down from the roof, the mountain whistler, well called the north- ern nightingale, chants its sweet notes in the hackmetacks, an owl hoots over by the old camp at the Cold spring, the wind is soughing mournfully on the mosses of the rocks, and the deep voice of the tor- rents comes up from the dark ravines be- low. Let us go in, get supper, listen to Uncle Jim's yarns for a while, go to bed and sleep till the sunrise, which is scarce- ly less glorious than the sunset.

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