who had made the ascent once before, but not
from the northwest side, the direction from which we approached it. The
enthusiasm of this philosopher has grown with his years, and outlived
his endurance: we carried our own knapsacks and supplies, therefore, and
drew upon him for nothing but moral reflections and a general knowledge
of the wilderness. Our first day's route was through the Gill-brook
woods and up one of its branches to the head of Caribou Pass, which
separates Nipple Top from Colvin.

It was about the first of September; no rain had fallen for several
weeks, and this heart of the forest was as dry as tinder; a lighted
match dropped anywhere would start a conflagration. This dryness has its
advantages: the walking is improved; the long heat has expressed all the
spicy odors of the cedars and balsams, and the woods are filled with a
soothing fragrance; the waters of the streams, though scant and clear,
are cold as ice; the common forest chill is gone from the air. The
afternoon was bright; there was a feeling of exultation and adventure
in stepping off into the open but pathless forest; the great stems of
deciduous trees were mottled with patches of sunlight, which brought
out upon the variegated barks and mosses of the old trunks a thousand
shifting hues. There is nothing like a primeval wood for color on a
sunny day. The shades of green and brown are infinite; the dull red of
the hemlock bark glows in the sun, the russet of the changing moose-bush
becomes brilliant; there are silvery openings here and there; and
everywhere the columns rise up to the canopy of tender green which
supports the intense blue sky and holds up a part of it from falling
through in fragments to the floor of the forest. Decorators can learn
here how Nature dares to put blue and green in juxtaposition: she has
evidently the secret of harmonizing all the colors.

The way, as we ascended, was not all through open woods; dense masses
of firs were encountered, jagged spurs were to be crossed, and the going
became at length so slow and toilsome that we took to the rocky bed of
a stream, where bowlders and flumes and cascades offered us sufficient
variety. The deeper we penetrated, the greater the sense of savageness
and solitude; in the silence of these hidden places one seems to
approach the beginning of things. We emerged from the defile into an
open basin, formed by the curved side of the mountain, and stood silent
before a waterfall c