Little Rivers [21]
so far away, that it seemed
like the landscape of a dream. One almost feared to speak, lest it
should vanish.
Right below us the Lower Saranac and Lonesome Pond, Round Lake and
the Weller Ponds, were spread out like a map. Every point and
island was clearly marked. We could follow the course of the
Saranac River in all its curves and windings, and see the white
tents of the hay-makers on the wild meadows. Far away to the
northeast stretched the level fields of Bloomingdale. But westward
all was unbroken wilderness, a great sea of woods as far as the eye
could reach. And how far it can reach from a height like this!
What a revelation of the power of sight! That faint blue outline
far in the north was Lyon Mountain, nearly thirty miles away as the
crow flies. Those silver gleams a little nearer were the waters of
St. Regis. The Upper Saranac was displayed in all its length and
breadth, and beyond it the innumerable waters of Fish Creek were
tangled among the dark woods. The long ranges of the hills about
the Jordan bounded the western horizon, and on the southwest Big
Tupper Lake was sleeping at the base of Mount Morris. Looking past
the peak of Stony Creek Mountain, which rose sharp and distinct in
a line with Ampersand, we could trace the path of the Raquette
River from the distant waters of Long Lake down through its far-
stretched valley, and catch here and there a silvery link of its
current.
But when we turned to the south and east, how wonderful and how
different was the view! Here was no widespread and smiling
landscape with gleams of silver scattered through it, and soft blue
haze resting upon its fading verge, but a wild land of mountains,
stern, rugged, tumultuous, rising one beyond another like the waves
of a stormy ocean,--Ossa piled upin Pelion,--Mcintyre's sharp peak,
and the ragged crest of the Gothics, and, above all, Marcy's dome-
like head, raised just far enough above the others to assert his
royal right as monarch of the Adirondacks.
But grandest of all, as seen from this height, was Mount Seward,--a
solemn giant of a mountain, standing apart from the others, and
looking us full in the face. He was clothed from base to summit in
a dark, unbroken robe of forest. Ou-kor-lah, the Indians called
him--the Great Eye; and he seemed almost to frown upon us in
defiance. At his feet, so straight below us that it seemed almost
as if we could cast a stone into it, lay the wildest and most
beautiful of all the Adirondack waters--Ampersand Lake.
On its shore, some five-and-twenty years ago, the now almost
forgotten Adirondack Club had their shanty--the successor of "the
Philosophers' Camp" on Follensbee Pond. Agassiz, Appleton, Norton,
Emerson, Lowell, Hoar, Gray, John Holmes, and Stillman, were among
the company who made their resting-place under the shadow of Mount
Seward. They had bought a tract of forest land completely
encircling the pond, cut a rough road to it through the woods, and
built a comfortable log cabin, to which they purposed to return
summer after summer. But the civil war broke out, with all its
terrible excitement and confusion of hurrying hosts: the club
existed but for two years, and the little house in the wilderness
was abandoned. In 1878, when I spent three weeks at Ampersand, the
cabin was in ruins, and surrounded by an almost impenetrable growth
of bushes. The only philosophers to be seen were a family of what
the guides quaintly call "quill pigs." The roof had fallen to the
ground; raspberry-bushes thrust themselves through the yawning
crevices between the logs; and in front of the sunken door-sill lay
a rusty, broken iron stove, like a dismantled altar on which the
fire had gone out forever.
After we had feasted upon the view as long as we dared, counted the
lakes and streams, and found that we could see without a glass more
than thirty, and recalled the memories of
like the landscape of a dream. One almost feared to speak, lest it
should vanish.
Right below us the Lower Saranac and Lonesome Pond, Round Lake and
the Weller Ponds, were spread out like a map. Every point and
island was clearly marked. We could follow the course of the
Saranac River in all its curves and windings, and see the white
tents of the hay-makers on the wild meadows. Far away to the
northeast stretched the level fields of Bloomingdale. But westward
all was unbroken wilderness, a great sea of woods as far as the eye
could reach. And how far it can reach from a height like this!
What a revelation of the power of sight! That faint blue outline
far in the north was Lyon Mountain, nearly thirty miles away as the
crow flies. Those silver gleams a little nearer were the waters of
St. Regis. The Upper Saranac was displayed in all its length and
breadth, and beyond it the innumerable waters of Fish Creek were
tangled among the dark woods. The long ranges of the hills about
the Jordan bounded the western horizon, and on the southwest Big
Tupper Lake was sleeping at the base of Mount Morris. Looking past
the peak of Stony Creek Mountain, which rose sharp and distinct in
a line with Ampersand, we could trace the path of the Raquette
River from the distant waters of Long Lake down through its far-
stretched valley, and catch here and there a silvery link of its
current.
But when we turned to the south and east, how wonderful and how
different was the view! Here was no widespread and smiling
landscape with gleams of silver scattered through it, and soft blue
haze resting upon its fading verge, but a wild land of mountains,
stern, rugged, tumultuous, rising one beyond another like the waves
of a stormy ocean,--Ossa piled upin Pelion,--Mcintyre's sharp peak,
and the ragged crest of the Gothics, and, above all, Marcy's dome-
like head, raised just far enough above the others to assert his
royal right as monarch of the Adirondacks.
But grandest of all, as seen from this height, was Mount Seward,--a
solemn giant of a mountain, standing apart from the others, and
looking us full in the face. He was clothed from base to summit in
a dark, unbroken robe of forest. Ou-kor-lah, the Indians called
him--the Great Eye; and he seemed almost to frown upon us in
defiance. At his feet, so straight below us that it seemed almost
as if we could cast a stone into it, lay the wildest and most
beautiful of all the Adirondack waters--Ampersand Lake.
On its shore, some five-and-twenty years ago, the now almost
forgotten Adirondack Club had their shanty--the successor of "the
Philosophers' Camp" on Follensbee Pond. Agassiz, Appleton, Norton,
Emerson, Lowell, Hoar, Gray, John Holmes, and Stillman, were among
the company who made their resting-place under the shadow of Mount
Seward. They had bought a tract of forest land completely
encircling the pond, cut a rough road to it through the woods, and
built a comfortable log cabin, to which they purposed to return
summer after summer. But the civil war broke out, with all its
terrible excitement and confusion of hurrying hosts: the club
existed but for two years, and the little house in the wilderness
was abandoned. In 1878, when I spent three weeks at Ampersand, the
cabin was in ruins, and surrounded by an almost impenetrable growth
of bushes. The only philosophers to be seen were a family of what
the guides quaintly call "quill pigs." The roof had fallen to the
ground; raspberry-bushes thrust themselves through the yawning
crevices between the logs; and in front of the sunken door-sill lay
a rusty, broken iron stove, like a dismantled altar on which the
fire had gone out forever.
After we had feasted upon the view as long as we dared, counted the
lakes and streams, and found that we could see without a glass more
than thirty, and recalled the memories of