ver perpendicularly-piled masses of gigantic granite
boulders. Often it seemed the poor tired animals, with their utmost
efforts, would never be able to surmount the prodigious rocks that
obstructed their way. Cold, blustering clouds of mists drove in the
faces of the forlorn little party as they labored up and up the
precipitous steeps, till it seemed to many a despairing heart that the
summit of that tremendous mountain would never, never be gained. So
densely hung the threatening clouds around them, they could not tell
their distance from the wished-for goal. At length the guides halloed to
the foremost rider to halt; and directly Florence felt herself in the
arms of a strong man, who sprang over the craggy rocks with surprising
agility, and soon placed her on the door-stone of a small habitation,
which was not only "founded on a rock," but surrounded on all sides by
huge piles of gray granite boulders.

In a few moments the whole dripping, half-frozen party were landed
safely at the "Summit House," on the brow of Mount Washington. Great was
their joy to find a comfortable shelter where they might rest and warm
their chilled limbs; but great also was their dismay to find a storm
upon them, and nothing visible from the miraculous height they had
toiled to gain, but the wet rocks lying close beneath the small windows.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

"But these recede. Above me are the Alps,
The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned Eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche, the thunderbolt of snow!
All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
Gather around these summits, as to show
How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below."

CHILDE HAROLD.

A calm, beautiful morning succeeded a night of terrors. O, is there in
all the world a grander sight than sunrise on Mount Washington?

The first faint rays breaking gradually through clouds of mist, and
dimly revealing the outlines of surrounding peaks; then long, bright
streams, piercing the gloomy depths of the valleys, chasing gigantic
shadows, like spirits of light contending with the legions of darkness;
and, at length, the whole immense sea of mountains brought into majestic
view, with their unnumbered abysmal valleys covered with forests of