Friday, August 31st.--A drive on Tuesday to Shelburne Falls, twenty-two
miles or thereabouts distant. Started at about eight o'clock in a wagon
with Mr. Leach and Mr. Birch. Our road lay over the Green Mountains, the
long ridge of which was made awful by a dark, heavy, threatening cloud,
apparently rolled and condensed along the whole summit. As we ascended
the zigzag road, we looked behind, at every opening in the forest, and
beheld a wide landscape of mountain-swells and valleys intermixed, and
old Graylock and the whole of Saddleback. Over the wide scene there was
a general gloom; but there was a continual vicissitude of bright sunshine
flitting over it, now resting for a brief space on portions of the
heights, now flooding the valleys with green brightness, now making out
distinctly each dwelling, and the hotels, and then two small brick
churches of the distant village, denoting its prosperity, while all
around seemed under adverse fortunes. But we, who stood so elevated
above mortal things, and saw so wide and far, could see the sunshine of
prosperity departing from one spot and rolling towards another, so that
we could not think it much matter which spot were sunny or gloomy at any
one moment.
The top of this Hoosic Mountain is a long ridge, marked on the county map
as two thousand one hundred and sixty feet above the sea; on this summit
is a valley, not very deep, but one or two miles wide, in which is the
town of L------. Here there are respectable farmers, though it is a
rough, and must be a bleak place. The first house, after reaching the
summit, is a small, homely tavern. We left our horse in the shed, and,
entering the little unpainted bar-room, we heard a voice, in a strange,
outlandish accent, exclaiming "Diorama." It was an old man, with a full,
gray-bearded countenance, and Mr. Leach exclaimed, "Ah, here's the old
Dutchman again!" And he answered, "Yes, Captain, here's the old
Dutchman,"--though, by the way, he is a German, and travels the country
with this diorama in a wagon, and had recently been at South Adams, and
was now returning from Saratoga Springs. We looked through the glass
orifice of his machine, while he exhibited a succession of the very worst
scratches and daubings that can be imagined,--worn out, too, and full of
cracks and wrinkles, dimmed with tobacco-smoke, and every other wise
dilapidated. There were none in a later fashion than thirty years since,
except some figures that had been cut from tailors' show-bills. There
were views of cities and edifices in Europe, of Napoleon's battles and
Nelson's sea-fights, in the midst of which would be seen a gigantic,
brown, hairy hand (the Hand of Destiny) pointing at the principal points
of the conflict, while the old Dutchman explained. He gave a good deal
of dramatic effect to his descriptions, but his accent and intonation
cannot be written. He seemed to take interest and pride in his
exhibition; yet when the utter and ludicrous miserability thereof made us
laugh, he joined in the joke very readily. When the last picture had
been shown, he caused a country boor, who stood gaping beside the
machine, to put his head within it, and thrust out his tongue. The head
becoming gigantic, a singular effect was produced.
The old Dutchman's exhibition being over, a great dog, apparently an
elderly dog, suddenly made himself the object of notice, evidently in
rivalship of the Dutchman. He had seemed to be a good-natured, quiet
kind of dog, offering his head to be patted by those who were kindly
disposed towards him. This great, old dog, unexpectedly, and of his own
motion, began to run round after his not very long tail with the utmost
eagerness; and, catching hold of it, he growled furiously at it, and
still continued to circle round, growling and snarling with increasing
rage, as if one half of his body were at deadly enmity with the other.
Faster and faster went he, round and roundabout, growing still fiercer,
till at last he ceased in a state of utter exhaustion; but no sooner had
his exhibition finished than he became the same mild, quiet, sensible old
dog as before; and no one could have suspected him of such nonsense as
getting enraged with his own tail. He was first taught this trick by
attaching a bell to the end of his tail; but he now commences entirely of
his own accord, and I really believe he feels vain at the attention he
excites.
It was chill and bleak on the mountain-top, and a fire was burning in the
bar-room. The old Dutchman bestowed on everybody the title of "Captain,"
perhaps because such a title has a great chance of suiting an American.
Leaving the tavern, we drove a mile or two farther to the eastern brow of
the mountain, whence we had a view, over the tops of a multitude of
heights, into the intersecting valleys down which we were to plunge,--and
beyond them the blue and indistinctive scene extended to the east and
north for at least sixty miles. Beyond the hills it looked almost as if
the blue ocean might be seen. Monadnock was visible, like a sapphire
cloud against the sky. Descending, we by and by got a view of the
Deerfield River, which makes a bend in its course from about north and
south to about east and west, coming out from one defile among the
mountains, and flowing through another. The scenery on the eastern side
of the Green Mountains is incomparably more striking than on the western,
where the long swells and ridges have a flatness of effect; and even
Graylock heaves itself so gradually that it does not much strike the
beholder. But on the eastern part, peaks one or two thousand feet high
rush up on either bank of the river in ranges, thrusting out their
shoulders side by side. They are almost precipitous, clothed in woods,
through which the naked rock pushes itself forth to view. Sometimes the
peak is bald, while the forest wraps the body of the hill, and the
baldness gives it an indescribably stern effect. Sometimes the precipice
rises with abruptness from the immediate side of the river; sometimes
there is a cultivated valley on either side,--cultivated long, and with
all the smoothness and antique rurality of a farm near cities,--this
gentle picture strongly set off by the wild mountain-frame around it.
Often it would seem a wonder how our road was to continue, the mountains
rose so abruptly on either side, and stood, so direct a wall, across our
onward course; while, looking behind, it would be an equal mystery how we
had gotten thither, through the huge base of the mountain, that seemed to
have reared itself erect after our passage. But, passing onward, a
narrow defile would give us egress into a scene where new mountains would
still appear to bar us. Our road was much of it level; but scooped out
among mountains. The river was a brawling stream, shallow, and roughened
by rocks; now we drove on a plane with it; now there was a sheer descent
down from the roadside upon it, often unguarded by any kind of fence,
except by the trees that contrived to grow on the headlong interval.
Between the mountains there were gorges, that led the imagination away
into new scenes of wildness. I have never driven through such romantic
scenery, where there was such variety and boldness of mountain shapes as
this; and though it was a broad sunny day, the mountains diversified the
view with sunshine and shadow, and glory and gloom.
In Charlemont (I think), after passing a bridge, we saw a very curious
rock on the shore of the river, about twenty feet from the roadside.
Clambering down the bank, we found it a complete arch, hollowed out of
the solid rock, and as high as the arched entrance of an ancient church,
which it might be taken to be, though considerably dilapidated and
weather-worn. The water flows through it, though the rock afforded
standing room, beside the pillars. It was really like the archway of an
enchanted palace, all of which has vanished except the entrance,--now
only into nothingness and empty space. We climbed to the top of the
arch, in which the traces of water having eddied are very perceptible.
This curiosity occurs in a wild part of the river's course, and in a
solitude of mountains.
Farther down, the river becoming deeper, broader, and more placid, little
boats were seen moored along it, for the convenience of crossing.
Sometimes, too, the well-beaten track of wheels and hoofs passed down to
its verge, then vanished, and appeared on the other side, indicating a
ford. We saw one house, pretty, small, with green blinds, and much
quietness in its environments, on the other side of the river, with a
flat-bottomed boat for communication. It was a pleasant idea that the
world was kept off by the river.
Proceeding onward, we reached Shelburne Falls. Here the river, in the
distance of a few hundred yards, makes a descent of about a hundred and
fifty feet over a prodigious bed of rock. Formerly it doubtless flowed
unbroken over the rock, merely creating a rapid; and traces of water
having raged over it are visible in portions of the rock that now lie
high and dry. At present the river roars through a channel which it has
worn in the stone, leaping in two or three distinct falls, and rushing
downward, as from flight to flight of a broken and irregular staircase.
The mist rises from the highest of these cataracts, and forms a pleasant
object in the sunshine. The best view, I think, is to stand on the verge
of the upper and largest fall, and look down through the whole rapid
descent of the river, as it hurries, foaming, through its rock-worn
path,--the rocks seeming to have been hewn away, as when mortals make a
road. These falls are the largest in this State, and have a very
peculiar character. It seems as if water had had more power at some
former period than now, to hew and tear its passage through such an
immense ledge of rock as here withstood it. In this crag, or parts of
it, now far beyond the reach of the water, it has worn what are called
pot-holes,--being circular hollows in the rock, where for ages stones
have been whirled round and round by the eddies of the water; so that the
interior of the pot is as circular and as smooth as it could have been
made by art. Often the mouth of the pot is the narrowest part, the inner
space being deeply scooped out. Water is contained in most of these
pot-holes, sometimes so deep that a man might drown himself therein, and
lie undetected at the bottom. Some of them are of a convenient size for
cooking, which might be practicable by putting in hot stones.
The tavern at Shelburne Falls was about the worst I ever saw,--there
being hardly anything to eat, at least nothing of the meat kind. There
was a party of students from the Rensselaer school at Troy, who had spent
the night there, a set of rough urchins from sixteen to twenty years old,
accompanied by the wagon-driver, a short, stubbed little fellow, who
walked about with great independence, thrusting his hands into his
breeches-pockets, beneath his frock. The queerness was, such a figure
being associated with classic youth. They were on an excursion which is
yearly made from that school in search of minerals. They seemed in
rather better moral habits than students used to be, but wild-spirited,
rude, and unpolished, somewhat like German students, which resemblance
one or two of them increased by smoking pipes. In the morning, my
breakfast being set in a corner of the same room with them, I saw their
breakfast-table, with a huge wash-bowl of milk in the centre, and a basin
and spoon placed for each guest.
In the bar-room of this tavern were posted up written advertisements, the
smoked chimney-piece being thus made to serve for a newspaper: "I have
rye for sale," "I have a fine mare colt," etc. There was one quaintly
expressed advertisement of a horse that had strayed or been stolen from a
pasture.
The students, from year to year, have been in search of a particular
rock, somewhere on the mountains in the vicinity of Shelburne Falls,
which is supposed to contain some valuable ore; but they cannot find it.
One man in the bar-room observed that it must be enchanted; and spoke of
a tinker, during the Revolutionary War, who met with a somewhat similar
instance. Roaming along the Hudson River, he came to a precipice which
had some bunches of singular appearance embossed upon it. He knocked off
one of the hunches, and carrying it home, or to a camp, or wherever he
lived, he put it on the fire, and incited it down into clear lead. He
sought for the spot again and again, but could never find it.
Mr. Leach's brother is a student at Shelburne Falls. He is about
thirty-five years old, and married; and at this mature age he is studying
for the ministry, and will not finish his course for two or three years.
He was bred a farmer, but has sold his farm, and invested the money, and
supports himself and wife by dentistry during his studies. Many of the
academy students are men grown, and some, they say, well towards forty
years old. Methinks this is characteristic of American life,--these
rough, weather-beaten, hard-handed, farmer-bred students. In nine cases
out of ten they are incapable of any effectual cultivation; for men of
ripe years, if they have any pith in them, will have long ago got beyond
academy or even college instruction. I suspect nothing better than a
very wretched smattering is to be obtained in these country academies.
Mr. Jerkins, an instructor at Amherst, speaking of the Western mounds,
expressed an opinion that they were of the same nature and origin as some
small circular hills which are of very frequent occurrence here in North
Adams. The burial-ground is on one of them, and there is another, on the
summit of which appears a single tombstone, as if there were something
natural in making these hills the repositories of the dead. A question
of old H------ led to Mr. Jenkins's dissertation on this subject, to the
great contentment of a large circle round the bar-room fireside on the
last rainy day.
A tailor is detected by Mr. Leach, because his coat had not a single
wrinkle in it. I saw him exhibiting patterns of fashions to Randall, the
village tailor. Mr. Leach has much tact in finding out the professions
of people. He found out a blacksmith, because his right hand was much
larger than the other.
A man getting subscriptions for a religious and abolition newspaper in
New York,--somewhat elderly and gray-haired, quick in his movements,
hasty in his walk, with an eager, earnest stare through his spectacles,
hurrying about with a pocket-book of subscriptions in his hand,--seldom
speaking, and then in brief expressions,--sitting down before the stage
comes, to write a list of subscribers obtained to his employers in New
York. Withal, a city and business air about him, as of one accustomed to
hurry through narrow alleys, and dart across thronged streets, and speak
hastily to one man and another at jostling corners, though now
transacting his affairs in the solitude of mountains.
An old, gray man, seemingly astray and abandoned in this wide world,
sitting in the bar-room, speaking to none, nor addressed by any one. Not
understanding the meaning of the supper-bell till asked to supper by word
of mouth. However, he called for a glass of brandy.
A pedler, with girls' silk neckerchiefs,--or gauze,--men's silk
pocket-handkerchiefs, red bandannas, and a variety of horn combs, trying
to trade with the servant-girls of the house. One of them, Laura,
attempts to exchange a worked vandyke, which she values at two dollars
and a half; Eliza, being reproached by the pedler, "vows that she buys
more of pedlers than any other person in the house."
A drove of pigs passing at dusk. They appeared not so much disposed to
ramble and go astray from the line of march as in daylight, but kept
together in a pretty compact body. There was a general grunting, not
violent at all, but low and quiet, as if they were expressing their
sentiments among themselves in a companionable way. Pigs, on a march, do
not subject themselves to any leader among themselves, but pass on,
higgledy-piggledy, without regard to age or sex.
September 1st.--Last evening, during a walk, Graylock and the whole of
Saddleback were at first imbued with a mild, half-sunshiny tinge, then
grew almost black,--a huge, dark mass lying on the back of the earth and
encumbering it. Stretching up from behind the black mountain, over a
third or more of the sky, there was a heavy, sombre blue heap or ledge of
clouds, looking almost as solid as rocks. The volumes of which it was
composed were perceptible, by translucent lines and fissures; but the
mass, as a whole, seemed as solid, bulky, and ponderous in the
cloud-world as the mountain was on earth. The mountain and cloud
together had an indescribably stern and majestic aspect. Beneath this
heavy cloud, there was a fleet or flock of light, vapory mists, flitting
in middle air; and these were tinted, from the vanished sun, with the
most gorgeous and living purple that can be conceived,--a fringe upon the
stern blue. In the opposite quarter of the heavens, a rose-light was
reflected, whence I know not, which colored the clouds around the moon,
then well above the horizon, so that the nearly round and silver moon
appeared strangely among roseate clouds,--sometimes half obscured by
them.
A man with a smart horse, upon which the landlord makes laudatory
remarks. He replies that he has "a better at home." Dressed in a brown,
bright-buttoned coat, smartly cut. He immediately becomes familiar, and
begins to talk of the license law, and other similar topics,--making
himself at home, as one who, being much of his time upon the road, finds
himself at ease at any tavern. He inquired after a stage agent, named
Brigham, who formerly resided here, but now has gone to the West. He
himself was probably a horse-jockey.
An old lady, stopping here over the Sabbath, waiting for to-morrow's
stage for Greenfield, having been deceived by the idea that she could
proceed on her journey without delay. Quiet, making herself comfortable,
taken into the society of the women of the house.
September 3d.--On the slope of Bald Mountain a clearing, set in the frame
of the forest on all sides,--a growth of clover upon it, which, having
been mowed once this year, is now appropriated to pasturage. Stumps
remaining in the ground; one tall, barkless stem of a tree standing
upright, branchless, and with a shattered summit. One or two other stems
lying prostrate and partly overgrown with bushes and shrubbery, some of
them bearing a yellow flower,--a color which Autumn loves. The stumps
and trunks fire-blackened, yet nothing about them that indicates a recent
clearing, but the roughness of an old clearing, that, being removed from
convenient labor, has none of the polish of the homestead. The field,
with slight undulations, slopes pretty directly down. Near the lower
verge, a rude sort of barn, or rather haystack roofed over, and with hay
protruding and hanging out. An ox feeding, and putting up his muzzle to
pull down a mouthful of hay; but seeing me, a stranger, in the upper part
of the field, he remains long gazing, and finally betakes himself to
feeding again. A solitary butterfly flitting to and fro, blown slightly
on its course by a cool September wind,--the coolness of which begins to
be tempered by a bright, glittering sun. There is dew on the grass. In
front, beyond the lower spread of forest, Saddle Mountain rises, and the
valleys and long, swelling hills sweep away. But the impression of this
clearing is solitude, as of a forgotten land.
It is customary here to toll the bell at the death of a person, at the
hour of his death, whether A. M. or P. M. Not, however, I suppose, if it
happen in deep night.
"There are three times in a man's life when he is talked about,--when he
is born, when he is married, and when he dies." "Yes," said Orrin
S------, "and only one of the times has he to pay anything for it out of
his own pocket." (In reference to a claim by the guests of the bar-room
on the man Amasa Richardson for a treat.)
A wood-chopper, travelling the country in search of jobs at chopping.
His baggage a bundle, a handkerchief, and a pair of coarse boots. His
implement an axe, most keenly ground and sharpened, which I had noticed
standing in a corner, and thought it would almost serve as a razor. I
saw another wood-chopper sitting down on the ascent of Bald Mountain,
with his axe on one side and a jug and provisions on the other, on the
way to his day's toil.
The Revolutionary pensioners come out into the sunshine to make oath that
they are still above ground. One, whom Mr. S------ saluted as "Uncle
John," went into the bar-room, walking pretty stoutly by the aid of a
long, oaken staff,--with an old, creased, broken and ashen bell-crowned
hat on his head, and wearing a brown old-fashioned suit of clothes.
Pretty portly, fleshy in the face, and with somewhat of a paunch,
cheerful, and his senses, bodily and mental, in no very bad order, though
he is now in his ninetieth year. "An old man's withered and wilted
apple," quoth Uncle John, "keeps a good while." Mr. S------ says his
grandfather lived to be a hundred, and that his legs became covered with
moss, like the trunk of an old tree. Uncle John would smile and cackle
at a little jest, and what life there was in him seemed a good-natured
and comfortable one enough. He can walk two or three miles, he says,
"taking it moderate." I suppose his state is that of a drowsy man but
partly conscious of life,--walking as through a dim dream, but brighter
at some seasons than at others. By and by he will fall quite asleep,
without any trouble. Mr. S------, unbidden, gave him a glass of gin,
which the old man imbibed by the warm fireside, and grew the younger
for it.
September 4th.--This day an exhibition of animals in the vicinity of the
village, under a pavilion of sail-cloth,--the floor being the natural
grass, with here and there a rock partially protruding. A pleasant, mild
shade; a strip of sunshine or a spot of glimmering brightness in some
parts. Crowded,--row above row of women, on an amphitheatre of seats, on
one side. In an inner pavilion an exhibition of anacondas,--four,--which
the showman took, one by one, from a large box, under some blankets, and
hung round his shoulders. They seemed almost torpid when first taken
out, but gradually began to assume life, to stretch, to contract, twine
and writhe about his neck and person, thrusting out their tongues and
erecting their heads. Their weight was as much as he could bear, and
they hung down almost to the ground when not contorted,--as big round as
a thigh, almost,--spotted and richly variegated. Then he put them into
the box again, their heads emerging and writhing forth, which the showman
thrust back again. He gave a descriptive and historical account of them,
and a fanciful and poetical one also. A man put his arm and head into
the lion's mouth,--all the spectators looking on so attentively that a
breath could not be heard. That was impressive,--its effect on a
thousand persons,--more so than the thing itself.
In the evening the caravan people were at the tavern, talking of their
troubles in coming over the mountain,--the overturn of a cage containing
two leopards and a hyena. They are a rough, ignorant set of men,
apparently incapable of taking any particular enjoyment from the life of
variety and adventure which they lead. There was the man who put his
head into the lion's mouth, and, I suppose, the man about whom the
anacondas twined, talking about their suppers, and blustering for hot
meat, and calling for something to drink, without anything of the wild
dignity of men familiar with the nobility of nature.
A character of a desperate young man, who employs high courage and strong
faculties in this sort of dangers, and wastes his talents in wild riot,
addressing the audience as a snake-man,--keeping the ring while the
monkey rides the pony,--singing negro and other songs.
The country boors were continually getting within the barriers, and
venturing too near the cages. The great lion lay with his fore paws
extended, and a calm, majestic, but awful countenance. He looked on the
people as if he had seen many such concourses. The hyena was the most
ugly and dangerous looking beast, full of spite, and on ill terms with
all nature, looking a good deal like a hog with the devil in him, the
ridge of hair along his back bristling. He was in the cage with a
leopard and a panther, and the latter seemed continually on the point of
laying his paw on the hyena, who snarled, and showed his teeth. It is
strange, though, to see how these wild beasts acknowledge and practise a
degree of mutual forbearance, and of obedience to man, with their wild
nature yet in them. The great white bear seemed in distress from the
heat, moving his head and body in a peculiar, fantastic way, and eagerly
drinking water when given it. He was thin and lank.
The caravan men were so sleepy, Orrin S------ says, that he could hardly
wake them in the morning. They turned over on their faces to show him.
Coming out of the caravansary, there were the mountains, in the quiet
sunset, and many men drunk, swearing, and fighting. Shanties with liquor
for sale.
The elephant lodged in the barn.
September 5th.--I took a walk of three miles from the village, which
brought me into Vermont. The line runs athwart a bridge,--a rude bridge,
which crosses a mountain stream. The stream runs deep at the bottom of a
gorge, plashing downward, with rapids and pools, and bestrewn with large
rocks, deep and shady, not to be reached by the sun except in its
meridian, as well on account of the depth of the gorge as of the arch of
wilderness trees above it. There was a stumpy clearing beyond the
bridge, where some men were building a house. I went to them, and
inquired if I were in Massachusetts or Vermont, and asked for some water.
Whereupon they showed great hospitality, and the master-workman went to
the spring, and brought delicious water in a tin basin, and produced
another jug containing "new rum, and very good; and rum does nobody any
harm if they make a good use of it," quoth he. I invited them to call on
me at the hotel, if they should cone to the village within two or three
days. Then I took my way back through the forest, for this is a by-road,
and is, much of its course, a sequestrated and wild one, with an unseen
torrent roaring at an unseen depth, along the roadside.
My walk forth had been an almost continued ascent, and, returning, I had
an excellent view of Graylock and the adjacent mountains, at such a
distance that they were all brought into one group, and comprehended at
one view, as belonging to the same company,--all mighty, with a mightier
chief. As I drew nearer home, they separated, and the unity of effect
was lost. The more distant then disappeared behind the nearer ones, and
finally Graylock itself was lost behind the hill which immediately shuts
in the village. There was a warm, autumnal haze, which, I think, seemed
to throw the mountains farther off, and both to enlarge and soften them.
To imagine the gorges and deep hollows in among the group of mountains,--
their huge shoulders and protrusions.
"They were just beginning to pitch over the mountains, as I came along,"
--stage-driver's expression about the caravan.
A fantastic figure of a village coxcomb, striding through the bar-room,
and standing with folded arms to survey the caravan men. There is much
exaggeration and rattle-brain about this fellow.
A mad girl leaped from the top of a tremendous precipice in Pownall,
hundreds of feet high, if the tale be true, and, being buoyed up by her
clothes, came safely to the bottom.
Inquiries about the coming of the caravan, and whether the elephant had
got to town, and reports that he had.
A smart, plump, crimson-faced gentleman, with a travelling-portmanteau of
peculiar neatness and convenience. He criticises the road over the
mountain, having come in the Greenfield stage; perhaps an engineer.
Bears still inhabit Saddleback and the neighboring mountains and forests.
Six were taken in Pownall last year, and two hundred foxes. Sometimes
they appear on the hills, in close proximity to this village.
September 7th.--Mr. Leach and I took a walk by moonlight last evening, on
the road that leads over the mountain. Remote from houses, far up on the
hillside, we found a lime-kiln, burning near the road; and, approaching
it, a watcher started from the ground, where he had been lying at his
length. There are several of these lime-kilns in this vicinity. They
are circular, built with stones, like a round tower, eighteen or twenty
feet high, having a hillock heaped around in a great portion of their
circumference, so that the marble may be brought and thrown in by
cart-loads at the top. At the bottom there is a doorway, large enough to
admit a man in a stooping posture. Thus an edifice of great solidity is
constructed, which will endure for centuries, unless needless pains are
taken to tear it down. There is one on the hillside, close to the
village, wherein weeds grow at the bottom, and grass and shrubs too are
rooted in the interstices of the stones, and its low doorway has a
dungeon-like aspect, and we look down from the top as into a roofless
tower. It apparently has not been used for many years, and the lime and
weather-stained fragments of marble are scattered about.
But in the one we saw last night a hard-wood fire was burning merrily,
beneath the superincumbent marble,--the kiln being heaped full; and
shortly after we came, the man (a dark, black-bearded figure, in
shirt-sleeves) opened the iron door, through the chinks of which the fire
was gleaming, and thrust in huge logs of wood, and stirred the immense
coals with a long pole, and showed us the glowing limestone,--the lower
layer of it. The heat of the fire was powerful, at the distance of
several yards from the open door. He talked very sensibly with us, being
doubtless glad to have two visitors to vary his solitary night-watch; for
it would not do for him to fall asleep, since the fire should be
refreshed as often as every twenty minutes. We ascended the hillock to
the top of the kiln, and the marble was red-hot, and burning with a
bluish, lambent flame, quivering up, sometimes nearly a yard high, and
resembling the flame of anthracite coal, only, the marble being in large
fragments, the flame was higher. The kiln was perhaps six or eight feet
across. Four hundred bushels of marble were then in a state of
combustion. The expense of converting this quantity into lime is about
fifty dollars, and it sells for twenty-five cents per bushel at the kiln.
We asked the man whether he would run across the top of the intensely
burning kiln, barefooted, for a thousand dollars; and he said he would
for ten. He told us that the lime had been burning forty-eight hours,
and would be finished in thirty-six more. He liked the business of
watching it better by night than by day; because the days were often hot,
but such a mild and beautiful night as the last was just right. Here a
poet might make verses with moonlight in them, and a gleam of fierce
firelight flickering through. It is a shame to use this brilliant,
white, almost transparent marble in this way. A man said of it, the
other day, that into some pieces of it, when polished, one could see a
good distance; and he instanced a certain gravestone.
Visited the cave. A large portion of it, where water trickles and falls,
is perfectly white. The walls present a specimen of how Nature packs the
stone, crowding huge masses, as it were, into chinks and fissures, and
here we see it in the perpendicular or horizontal layers, as Nature laid
it.
September 9th.--A walk yesterday forenoon through the Notch, formed
between Saddle Mountain and another adjacent one. This Notch is
otherwise called the Bellowspipe, being a long and narrow valley, with a
steep wall on either side. The walls are very high, and the fallen
timbers lie strewed adown the precipitous descent. The valley gradually
descends from the narrowest part of the Notch, and a stream of water
flows through the midst of it, which, farther onward in its course, turns
a mill. The valley is cultivated, there being two or three farm-houses
towards the northern end, and extensive fields of grass beyond, where
stand the hay-mows of last year, with the hay cut away regularly around
their bases. All the more distant portion of the valley is lonesome
in the extreme; and on the hither side of the narrowest part the
land is uncultivated, partly overgrown with forest, partly used as
sheep-pastures, for which purpose it is not nearly so barren as
sheep-pastures usually are. On the right, facing southward, rises
Graylock, all beshagged with forest, and with headlong precipices of rock
appearing among the black pines. Southward there is a most extensive
view of the valley, in which Saddleback and its companion mountains are
crouched,--wide and far,--a broad, misty valley, fenced in by a mountain
wall, and with villages scattered along it, and miles of forest, which
appear but as patches scattered here and there upon the landscape. The
descent from the Notch southward is much more abrupt than on the other
side. A stream flows down through it; and along much of its course it
has washed away all the earth from a ledge of rock, and then formed a
descending pavement, smooth and regular, which the scanty flow of water
scarcely suffices to moisten at this period, though a heavy rain,
probably, would send down a torrent, raging, roaring, and foaming. I
descended along the course of the stream, and sometimes on the rocky path
of it, and, turning off towards the south village, followed a cattle-path
till I came to a cottage.
A horse was standing saddled near the door, but I did not see the rider.
I knocked, and an elderly woman, of very pleasing and intelligent aspect,
came at the summons, and gave me directions how to get to the south
village through an orchard and "across lots," which would bring me into
the road near the Quaker meeting-house, with gravestones round it. While
she talked, a young woman came into the pantry from the kitchen, with a
dirty little brat, whose squalls I had heard all along; the reason of his
outcry being that his mother was washing him,--a very unusual process, if
I may judge by his looks. I asked the old lady for some water, and she
gave me, I think, the most delicious I ever tasted. These mountaineers
ought certainly to be temperance people; for their mountain springs
supply them with a liquor of which the cities and the low countries can
have no conception. Pure, fresh, almost sparkling, exhilarating,--such
water as Adam and Eve drank.
I passed the south village on a by-road, without entering it, and was
taken up by the stage from Pittsfield a mile or two this side of it.
Platt, the driver, a friend of mine, talked familiarly about many
matters, intermixing his talk with remarks on his team and addresses to
the beasts composing it, who were three mares, and a horse on the near
wheel,--all bays. The horse he pronounced "a dreadful nice horse to go;
but if he could shirk off the work upon the others, he would,"--which
unfairness Platt corrected by timely strokes of the whip whenever the
horse's traces were not tightened. One of the mares wished to go faster,
hearing another horse tramp behind her; "and nothing made her so mad,"
quoth Platt, "as to be held in when she wanted to go." The near leader
started. "O the little devil," said he, "how skittish she is!" Another
stumbled, and Platt bantered her thereupon. Then he told of foundering
through snow-drifts in winter, and carrying the mail on his back--four
miles from Bennington. And thus we jogged on, and got to "mine inn" just
as the dinner-bell was ringing.
Pig-drover, with two hundred pigs. They are much more easily driven on
rainy days than on fair ones. One of his pigs, a large one, particularly
troublesome as to running off the road towards every object, and leading
the drove. Thirteen miles about a day's journey, in the course of which
the drover has to travel about thirty.
They have a dog, who runs to and fro indefatigably, barking at those who
straggle on the flanks of the line of march, then scampering to the other
side and barking there, and sometimes having quite an affair of barking
and surly grunting with some refractory pig, who has found something to
munch, and refuses to quit it. The pigs are fed on corn at their halts.
The drove has some ultimate market, and individuals are peddled out on
the march. Some die.
Merino sheep (which are much raised in Berkshire) are good for hardly
anything to eat,--a fair-sized quarter dwindling down to almost nothing
in the process of roasting.
