He Will Land At
Boston, And, Staying A Day Or Two There, Will Visit Cambridge,
Lowell, And Bunker Hill, And,
If he be that way given, will
remember that here live, and occasionally are to be seen alive, men
such
As Longfellow, Emerson, Hawthorne, and a host of others, whose
names and fames have made Boston the throne of Western literature.
He will then, if he take my advice and follow my track, go by
Portland up into the White Mountains. At Gorham, a station on the
Grand Trunk Line, he will find a hotel as good as any of its kind,
and from thence he will take a light wagon, so called in these
countries. And here let me presume that the traveler is not alone:
he has his wife or friend, or perhaps a pair of sisters, and in his
wagon he will go up through primeval forests to the Glen House.
When there, he will ascend Mount Washington on a pony. That is de
rigueur, and I do not therefore dare to recommend him to omit the
ascent. I did not gain much myself by my labor. He will not stay
at the Glen House, but will go on to - Jackson's I think they call
the next hotel, at which he will sleep. From thence he will take
his wagon on through the Notch to the Crawford house, sleeping
there again; and when here, let him, of all things, remember to go
up Mount Willard. It is but a walk of two hours up and down, if so
much. When reaching the top, he will be startled to find that he
looks down into the ravine without an inch of foreground. He will
come out suddenly on a ledge of rock, from whence, as it seems, he
might leap down at once into the valley below. Then, going on from
the Crawford House, he will be driven through the woods of Cherry
Mount, passing, I fear without toll of custom, the house of my
excellent friend Mr. Plaistead, who keeps a hotel at Jefferson.
"Sir," said Mr. Plaistead, "I have everything here that a man ought
to want: air, sir, that aint to be got better nowhere; trout,
chickens, beef, mutton, milk - and all for a dollar a day! A-top of
that hill, sir, there's a view that aint to be beaten this side of
the Atlantic, or I believe the other. And an echo, sir! - we've an
echo that comes back to us six times, sir; floating on the light
wind, and wafted about from rock to rock, till you would think the
angels were talking to you. If I could raise that echo, sir, every
day at command, I'd give a thousand dollars for it. It would be
worth all the money to a house like this." And he waved his hand
about from hill to hill, pointing out in graceful curves the lines
which the sounds would take. Had destiny not called on Mr.
Plaistead to keep an American hotel, he might have been a poet.
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