We lingered around the Falls until nearly sunset, exploring every cavity to which we could find an entrance, above or below, when our guide summoned us to depart. On our way home we took a different path, and winding, for a time, through the thick underwood and over the decayed logs and upturned roots of a former age, came at length to a rugged promontory, which was like a spur from the mountain range to the lake. Before us lay the whole expanse of the lake, calm as a surface of glass, and reflecting the western clouds so clearly from its bosom, that its hundreds of islands seemed hung in mid air. On the opposite side, the mountain outlines were marked distinctly on the sky, and their tops were glowing in the rich light of an October sunset. Below us, the stream was winding its way toward the lake, through meadows and intervales, and dark copses of fir, while the whole landscape was suffused in the most harmonious and beautiful colors. More beautiful than all else, however, let me add, were bright eyes gazing beside my own, and a soft voice whispering magic words.

That day has long since gone,-a day of poetry, which, like the small pox, every man must have once in the course of his life. That I had it lightly, the following lines, sent the next morning to my fair companion, will fully testify :

A streamlet came down from the brow of a hill,

All dancing in mirth at the test of its skill,

Like a dream were its ripples, like a dream it sped on,

And away to the far lake in haste it has gone.

It flowed in its mirth by a soft, grassy bank,

And the glad sounds of childhood it joyfully drank,
The whispers of lovers, when no ear was nigh,

And the tear as it fell from the bright maiden's eye.

The in-running brooks told it many a tale

Of secrets they heard, by the green-wood and dale,—
And oft as it stole by the mountain's dark brow,
There were dread scenes of horror it never might show.

The warm sunshine cheered it throughout the long day,
The breezes they fanned it, to see the waves play,-
And in the calm midnight, though never so far,
It mirror'd the beams of full moon and star.

It passed on its way by a low, lonely tomb,
Where flowers were shedding their richest perfume,—
It heard in the evening in bye-path and lane,
That sweetest of songs, the nightingale's strain.

But the sights which it saw, and the tales which it heard,
The whispers of starlight, the song of the bird,
The kiss of the flower, the dance of the wave,-
It sped with them all to their watery grave.

Thus life, my fair cousin, is but the swift stream—
Its spring-tide, and summer, and autumn, a dream;
Its bright hues of gladness, its dark hours of woe,
To that ocean before us all rapidly go.

THE NOTCH.

An iron race the mountain cliffs maintain,

Foes to the gentler genius of the plain.-GRAY.

THIRTY miles north of Lake Winnepiseoga-a wretched misnomer, by the way, of the old Indian Winneepissaukee-is the nice little village of Conway. From here the views of the White Hills are exceedingly grand, their huge bodies embracing the whole horizon from the west around to the northeast, and their tops wreathed in clouds and snow. As you advance north, they fill up more of the space on every side, until at last you find yourself completely begirt with them, their rough sides hemming you in every where. As you approach them, population becomes more sparse, the land more rough and sterile, and every thing begins to assume an appearance of unformed, chaotic matter. We went on our way very cheerfully, over glade, and brook, and dingle, now threading the thickening forest, and now slowly passing the frail and tremulous bridges. " Speak well of the bridge that carries you safe over," says the adage, and I am sure that I never felt so much disposition to do a series of bridges justice; for while they always discharged their duty,

they always left one wondering how they were able to do it. Here and there a log-house appeared in the midst of a clearing, its wood chimney, and mud-plastered sides, and windowless holes, looking cheerless enough. Generally speaking, there is too little neatness around log-houses to give the picturesque cottage air, so attractive to the traveller; and the squalid children crowding out of the door to gaze at the passer-by, or rolling with the pigs in the mud and sand, make the tout ensemble of a new settler's habitation very repulsive.

The valley, which is traversed by all travellers visiting the White Hills, is intersected by the Saco river. A most delicious valley it is, shut in all around by mountains, fertile in the greenest grasses, and the loftiest trees, and most lovely, because it is the only level spot the eye rests upon in its reach over the huge elevations around. In the midst of this valley is the house of the elder Crawford. His sons, whom we shall have occasion to mention hereafter, all of them mountain men, descendants, in height and strength of limb, from Anak, live farther on. They pass a strange life of it, these Crawfords-three months in the year receiving and entertaining visitors from all parts of the world, and the other nine living in utter solitude. Still they are well content with their lot; hale, hearty, jovial fellows, all; ready to oblige the visitors to the hills in every possible way, and intimately associated in the traveller's mind with the curiosities of the place. It is here that you

begin first to take in the greatness of these mountains. All around you, overtopping each other, they rise, and their immense size contrasts strangely with the house, the trees, everything indeed near you. Your ideas are enlarged by taking in objects so much greater than you have ever seen before; and for a time there is a painful sensation in bringing the mind up to all this greatness and grandeur. As you get accustomed to them, the gratification is increased; and you are never tired of looking at the variety of prospects presented to you as you pass along. Now there is the deep and scarred indentation which the avalanche has left; then the dense, dark forest, into which no intruder has ever been, and on the trees of which no axe has ever fallen. Here is the deep precipice, and over it leaps the silvery streamlet; while there is some narrow and winding pathway, past rock, and moor, and hillock. Sometimes you find the solid body rock torn all in fragments, and the huge boulders scattered in thick profusion over the ground, making whole miles the very " abomination of desolation." Farther on, the dwarf-oak and the clustered hazles cover acres of ground, contrasting strangely with the high towering forests around. The summits of the mountains are generally bare of all vegetation, and, except for one summer month, are covered with snow. The hot days of the last of July and the first of August usually melt away most of the old snow, although many of the crevices hold it, unmelted, from year to year, while the first of September, and of