As we beheld it, we knew that it was the height
of land between the two rivers, on this side the valley of the Merrimack,
or that of the Connecticut, fluctuating with their blue seas of
air,--these rival vales, already teeming with Yankee men along their
respective streams, born to what destiny who shall tell? Watatic, and the
neighboring hills in this State and in New Hampshire, are a continuation
of the same elevated range on which we were standing. But that New
Hampshire bluff,--that promontory of a State,--lowering day and night on
this our State of Massachusetts, will longest haunt our dreams.
We could, at length, realize the place mountains occupy on the land, and
how they come into the general scheme of the universe. When first we climb
their summits and observe their lesser irregularities, we do not give
credit to the comprehensive intelligence which shaped them; but when
afterward we behold their outlines in the horizon, we confess that the
hand which moulded their opposite slopes, making one to balance the other,
worked round a deep centre, and was privy to the plan of the universe. So
is the least part of nature in its bearings referred to all space. These
lesser mountain ranges, as well as the Alleghanies, run from northeast to
southwest, and parallel with these mountain streams are the more fluent
rivers, answering to the general direction of the coast, the bank of the
great ocean stream itself. Even the clouds, with their thin bars, fall
into the same direction by preference, and such even is the course of the
prevailing winds, and the migration of men and birds. A mountain-chain
determines many things for the statesman and philosopher. The improvements
of civilization rather creep along its sides than cross its summit. How
often is it a barrier to prejudice and fanaticism? In passing over these
heights of land, through their thin atmosphere, the follies of the plain
are refined and purified; and as many species of plants do not scale their
summits, so many species of folly no doubt do not cross the Alleghanies;
it is only the hardy mountain plant that creeps quite over the ridge, and
descends into the valley beyond.
We get a dim notion of the flight of birds, especially of such as fly high
in the air, by having ascended a mountain. We can now see what landmarks
mountains are to their migrations; how the Catskills and Highlands have
hardly sunk to them, when Wachusett and Monadnock open a passage to the
northeast; how they are guided, too, in their course by the rivers and
valleys; and who knows but by the stars, as well as the mountain ranges,
and not by the petty landmarks which we use. The bird whose eye takes in
the Green Mountains on the one side, and the ocean on the other, need not
be at a loss to find its way.
At noon we descended the mountain, and having returned to the abodes of
men, turned our faces to the east again; measuring our progress, from time
to time, by the more ethereal hues which the mountain assumed. Passing
swiftly through Stillwater and Sterling, as with a downward impetus, we
found ourselves almost at home again in the green meadows of Lancaster, so
like our own Concord, for both are watered by two streams which unite near
their centres, and have many other features in common. There is an
unexpected refinement about this scenery; level prairies of great extent,
interspersed with elms and hop-fields and groves of trees, give it almost
a classic appearance. This, it will be remembered, was the scene of Mrs.
Kowlandson's capture, and of other events in the Indian wars, but from
this July afternoon, and under that mild exterior, those times seemed as
remote as the irruption of the Goths. They were the dark age of New
England.
