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Page 3
On all sides are seen the tokens of ancient industry. As stone abounds
throughout these mountains, that material was, for fences, as ready to
the hand as wood, besides being much more durable. Consequently the
landscape is intersected in all directions with walls of uncommon
neatness and strength.
The number and length of these walls is not more surprising than the
size of some of the blocks comprising them. The very Titans seemed to
have been at work. That so small an army as the first settlers must
needs have been, should have taken such wonderful pains to enclose so
ungrateful a soil; that they should have accomplished such herculean
undertakings with so slight prospect of reward; this is a consideration
which gives us a significant hint of the temper of the men of the
Revolutionary era.
Nor could a fitter country be found for the birthplace of the devoted
patriot, Israel Potter.
To this day the best stone-wall builders, as the best wood-choppers,
come from those solitary mountain towns; a tall, athletic, and hardy
race, unerring with the axe as the Indian with the tomahawk; at
stone-rolling, patient as Sisyphus, powerful as Samson.
In fine clear June days, the bloom of these mountains is beyond
expression delightful. Last visiting these heights ere she vanishes,
Spring, like the sunset, flings her sweetest charms upon them. Each tuft
of upland grass is musked like a bouquet with perfume. The balmy breeze
swings to and fro like a censer. On one side the eye follows for the
space of an eagle's flight, the serpentine mountain chains, southwards
from the great purple dome of Taconic--the St. Peter's of these
hills--northwards to the twin summits of Saddleback, which is the
two-steepled natural cathedral of Berkshire; while low down to the west
the Housatonie winds on in her watery labyrinth, through charming
meadows basking in the reflected rays from the hill-sides. At this
season the beauty of every thing around you populates the loneliness of
your way. You would not have the country more settled if you could.
Content to drink in such loveliness at all your senses, the heart
desires no company but Nature.
With what rapture you behold, hovering over some vast hollow of the
hills, or slowly drifting at an immense height over the far sunken
Housatonie valley, some lordly eagle, who in unshared exaltation looks
down equally upon plain and mountain. Or you behold a hawk sallying from
some crag, like a Rhenish baron of old from his pinnacled castle, and
darting down towards the river for his prey. Or perhaps, lazily gliding
about in the zenith, this ruffian fowl is suddenly beset by a crow, who
with stubborn audacity pecks at him, and, spite of all his bravery,
finally persecutes him back to his stronghold. The otherwise dauntless
bandit, soaring at his topmost height, must needs succumb to this sable
image of death. Nor are there wanting many smaller and less famous fowl,
who without contributing to the grandeur, yet greatly add to the beauty
of the scene. The yellow-bird flits like a winged jonquil here and
there; like knots of violets the blue-birds sport in clusters upon the
grass; while hurrying from the pasture to the grove, the red robin seems
an incendiary putting torch to the trees. Meanwhile the air is vocal
with their hymns, and your own soul joys in the general joy. Like a
stranger in an orchestra, you cannot help singing yourself when all
around you raise such hosannas.
But in autumn, those gay northerners, the birds, return to their
southern plantations. The mountains are left bleak and sere. Solitude
settles down upon them in drizzling mists. The traveller is beset, at
perilous turns, by dense masses of fog. He emerges for a moment into
more penetrable air; and passing some gray, abandoned house, sees the
lofty vapors plainly eddy by its desolate door; just as from the plain
you may see it eddy by the pinnacles of distant and lonely heights. Or,
dismounting from his frightened horse, he leads him down some scowling
glen, where the road steeply dips among grim rocks, only to rise as
abruptly again; and as he warily picks his way, uneasy at the menacing
scene, he sees some ghost-like object looming through the mist at the
roadside; and wending towards it, beholds a rude white stone, uncouthly
inscribed, marking the spot where, some fifty or sixty years ago, some
farmer was upset in his wood-sled, and perished beneath the load.
In winter this region is blocked up with snow. Inaccessible and
impassable, those wild, unfrequented roads, which in August are
overgrown with high grass, in December are drifted to the arm-pit with
the white fleece from the sky. As if an ocean rolled between man and
man, intercommunication is often suspended for weeks and weeks.
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