its indescribable emerald purity, although its surface is constantly agitated with tiny wavelets. Nature never fashioned such a darling nook as this exquisite Basin, in which Diana might have bathed, and issued purer from its transparent tide! The water escapes from the pool by another narrow fissure in the lower part of its granite rim, a projecting mass of which is said, by the ingenious Mr. Oakes, to resemble the half-immersed "leg of some Hydropathic Titan!" There are not wanting those who carry the fancied resemblance still further. At present the delicate beauty and graceful contour of the Basin are impaired and obscured somewhat by a clumsy foot-bridge flung across its curved margin, which, it is to be hoped, the next freshet will sweep away; and in anticipation of such wished-for fate to the unsightly and unnecessary structure, it is omitted in the annexed sketch.
A mile below the Basin, and five miles from the Notch, we come to the termination of the defile of the Franconia Mountains. At this point the Flume House, kept by Mr. Taft, offers the most admirable accommodations to those who wish to linger in this noble region. From the hotel the tourist can enjoy a magnificent review of the majestic summits he has just passed – the Profile Mountain filling the left of the view with one broad rounded mass, while the right is broken up with a series of pointed peaks, whereof Mount Lafayette and Eagle Cliff are duly prominent. This view of the Notch often assumes strange characteristics. Frequently in stormy weather, when the clouds elsewhere are, flying swiftly, "like cars for gods to travel by," the masses of vapor caught in the "Notch" seem too entangled to escape – nay, seem to lose their very motion between those peaks, while their brethren overhead are scudding past. And often, when the Notch is completely enshrouded in motionless cloudy gloom, we may see the landscape and the heavens north and south of the Notch, reposing in cloudless calm – the "bridal of the earth and sky!" By stepping to the south piazza of Mr. Taft's hotel, the tourist meets a prospect wholly unlike the stern grandeur he has left. He looks down upon the valley into which the defile debouches, and sees its gently sloping hills and glimmering meadows receding in airy perspective, and melting in a strip of tenderest azure at a distance of forty miles. The effect of this beautiful vista upon eyes long fatigued with frowning crags and shadowy ravines is inexpressibly cheering.
Within easy distance of the Flume House we find the three remaining curiosities of the Franconia Mountains. These are the Pool, the Cascade, and the Flume. The first of these is formed by another and heavier cascade on the Pemigewasset, and is but an enlarged idea of the Basin, with considerable grandeur, but with none of the fantastic picturesque loveliness of the latter. The Pool is very wonderful, but it does not win our affection as does the Basin, whose exquisite beauties sink with peculiar interest into the traveler's heart that will, long after his return to the grave duties of town, be haunted with the music of its cascade, be illumined with the emerald flash of its crystal waters, and be linked with the memory of the pleasant chance-acquaintances made within the influence of its bewitching loveliness. Will those whose eyes have been gladdened by this choice work of nature, deem our eulogy aught but well-merited enthusiasm?
Crossing the Pemigewasset, and following up one of its little mountain tributaries, we come to the foot of a steep slope some two hundred feet in height, the smooth granite face of which has been washed bare to a width of forty feet by the violent freshets of spring. At ordinary times, merely a thin rivulet slides noiselessly over the slope, here and there leaving little pools whirling round in the shallow basins scooped out of the smooth granite. This is the Cascade– only deserving the name when a freshet occurs, and then its heavy volume of water is said to be fearfully sublime, bringing down ice and gigantic trees which, catching in the margin of the smooth bed, are often flung up on end by the force of the current, and momentarily standing erect, then plunge headlong and broken down the terrible declivity. When the stream is low nothing can be gentler than this singular granite slope, fringed with trees. Those ascending to the Flume, will be glad to rest awhile on a rustic bench near the top of the slope, and refresh themselves with a draught from the cool stream sliding noiselessly past.
Above the Cascade, the stream is almost hidden among vast rocks and fallen trees of a ravine, becoming deeper, larger, and damper with every step. Crossing and recrossing its numerous little waterfalls by means of rustic bridges, decayed logs, and rocks dripping and hung with the richest moss, we suddenly emerge from the dense wood, and stand in front of a stupendous narrow ravine which, from its fancied resemblance to the flume of a mill, has acquired its well-known name.
The Flume is about two hundred yards in extent, its greatest height is sixty or seventy feet, and has a general width of about twenty feet. Its smooth sides have been excavated with the most singular evenness, and its bed is littered up with rocky rubbish, over which brawls the mountain brook that leaps into sight at the further end of this remarkable corridor. At that end we find the most wonderful feature of the Flume, for there it suddenly contracts to a width of not more than ten feet, and in its jaws holds suspended over the cascade a huge rock twelve feet in height, and which, being undoubtedly a boulder, has rolled from above into the chasm, and there been held by its slight excess of breadth – not more than two inches at the utmost.
There being neither trees, nor shrubs, nor herbage of any sort, save the luxuriant mosses nourished by the eternal moisture, to break the long vista of the Flume, it presents a very novel appearance to the visitor issuing from the dense wood below, and catching a sudden and complete view of its steep, dripping walls, and rocky bed, terminating with the suspended boulder and the Cascade flashing underneath; while the tall hemlocks above the cliffs, shut out all save a small patch of blue sky. Ordinarily the stream is very low, and visitors can not only pick their way over rocks and logs to the foot of the Cascade, but can clamber over the granite ledges and pass under the suspended boulder that looks as if at any moment it might slip through upon them. This feat of passing under the rock is always a very damp one, though during the season, troops of damsels may be seen bravely accomplishing it, scornful of the rock above and the wet below – and doing it too without the confident freedom of the Bloomer dress! As the Flume is little penetrated by the sun's rays, the eternal moisture of its depths makes it advisable for those disposed to linger in them, to take abundant extra clothing; fur during the warmest summer-day, when an artist issues from its damp walls after a long siege of its curiosities with canvas and colors, he looks as if he were rehearsing the favorite circus-feat of throwing off multitudinous jackets and vests! By following up the ravine beyond the suspended rock, the visitor can ascend the cliffs overhanging the Flume; and if he or she have nerve enough, a large hemlock fallen across the chasm affords spacious footing whence a fine bird's-eye view of the ravine may be enjoyed. In winter and in spring the Flume is said to present a scene of fearful interest – now bearded with icicles, and anon, from melting snows, filled with a torrent of ice and fallen timber crashing in thunder through its jaws, to be launched more freely over the broad slope of the Cascade below. Until very recently this extraordinary ravine was wholly unknown, and it is to be regretted that we have no authentic chronicle of the gradual cutting of the Flume by the action of its stream; and also when and by what changes the suspended boulder has been caught in its present singular position.
We can not recross the Pemigewasset, on our return from the last great lion of the Franconia Mountains, without another notice of that exquisite mountain-stream. Though from its being so over-fished, it now holds out few inducements to enthusiasts in trouting, yet the prospect of having even "a glorious nibble," should tempt the angler to explore its beauties – its picturesque cascades, and deep, slumbrous pools above and below the bridge leading to the Flume. The accompanying sketch shows one of these numerous fairy nooks, overlooked by Mount Liberty– the fine peak directly opposite the Flume House.
This sketch of the attractions of the great Franconia Notch must not be closed without mention of the view from Mount Lafayette, considered by many far more interesting than that from Mount Washington; for, though less extensive than the latter, it embraces a far more picturesque and beautiful region lying distinctly under the eye. Hitherto this noble panorama has not been generally enjoyed, owing to the difficulty of its only mode of ascent – on foot. The coming season, however, will supply tourists with two bridle-roads, from the Lafayette House and the Flume House,
