bridle-paths,
where a single misstep will send you plunging upon a cruel and bloody
death; but so far as choice goes, one would much more wisely ride over
a civilized road, where he can have his whole mind for the mountain,
and not be continually hampered with fears and watchfulness for his own
personal safety. It is a great mistake to suppose that discomfort is
necessarily heroism. Besides, to have opened a carriage-way up the
mountain is to have brought the mountain with all its possessions down
to the cradle of the young and the crutch of the old,--almost to the
couch of the invalid. I saw recorded against one name in the books of
the Tip-top House the significant item, "aged eight months." Probably
the youngster was not directly much benefited by his excursion, but you
are to remember that perhaps his mother could not have come without
him, and therein lay the benefit. The day before our ascent, a lady
over seventy years old ascended without extreme fatigue or any injury.
Several days after, a lady with apparently but a few weeks of earth
before her, made the ascent to satisfy the longings of her heart, and
gaze upon the expanses of this, before the radiance of another world
should burst upon her view. If people insist upon encountering danger,
they can find a swift river and ford it, or pile up a heap of stones
and climb them, or volunteer to serve their country in the army:
meanwhile, let us rejoice that thousands who have been shut away from
the feast may now sit down to the table of the Lord.

This road, we were told, was begun about eight years ago, but by
disastrous circumstances its completion was delayed until within a year
or two. Looking at the country through which it lies, the only wonder
is that it ever reached completion. As it is, I believe its
proprietors do not consider it quite finished, and are continually
working upon its improvement. Good or bad, it seems to me to be much
the best road anywhere in the region. The pitches and holes that would
fain make coaching on the common roads so precarious are entirely left
out here. The ascent is continuous. Not a step but leads upward. The
rise was directed never to exceed one foot in six, and it does not; the
average is one foot in eight. Of course, to accomplish this there must
be a great deal of winding and turning. In one place you can look down
upon what seem to be three roads running nearly parallel along a ridge,
but what is really the