158 Rhodora. [JUNE 
seemed ready to fall of itself, it was so rotten; and this being 
remarked, our guides, as cool of nerve as they were agile and strong 
in body, proceeded, standing upon the uncertain and dizzy brink, to 
detach great masses which we heard dash and bound from cliff to cliff, 
carrying hundreds of other portions with them in their wild descent. 
The spectacle was more safely witnessed by our camp attendant 
below, who said the rocks did not rest till they reached the little belt 
of shrubbery above the lake. | 
We had now again crossed the path of Thoreau, who, in Septem- 
ber, 1846, ascended the mountain, from the west side, though by 
reason of bad weather he did not get quite to the summit. Some of 
his observations are so appropriate and accurate that I venture to 
quote them : — 
* At length," he says, “I entered within the skirts of the cloud 
which seemed forever drifting over the summit, and yet would never 
be gone ; but was generated out of that pure air as fast as it flowed 
away ; and when, a quarter of a mile farther, I reached the summit 
ofthe ridge, which those who have seen in clearer weather say is 
about five miles long, and contains a thousand acres of table land, I 
was deep within the hostile ranks of clouds, and all objects were 
obscured by them. 
*'lhe peculiarities of that spacious table land on which I was 
standing, as well as the remarkable semi-circular precipice of basin 
on the eastern side, were all concealed by the mist. 
“ The tops of the mountains are among the unfinished parts of the 
globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into 
their secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and 
insolent men, perchance, go there. Simple races, as savages, do not 
climb mountains,— their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never 
visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who climb to 
the summit of Ktaadn." 
Two of our party (Fernald and Collins) decided to risk further the 
anger of Pomola by scaling the narrow and difficult path along the 
ridge over the Chimney and thence returning home over the brow of 
Pomola, with a guide. We watched them from the summit, and it 
was surprising how far away we still saw them through the clear air; 
and we exchanged signals when they looked no bigger than flies. 
Pomola launched no thunderbolts upon them that day and they 
reached camp safely after a long and precipitous descent. The 
