A WEEK ON WALDEN'S BIBGE. 133 



And there, all at once I seemed to be 

 in New Hampshire. The land fell away 

 sharply, and at one particular point, through 

 a vista, the forest could be seen sloping down 

 on either side to the gap, beyond which, 

 miles away, loomed a hill, and then, far, far 

 in the distance, high mountains dim with 

 haze. It was like a note of sublimity in a 

 poem that till now had been only beautiful. 

 From the bottom of the valley came a 

 sound of running water, and between me 

 and the invisible stream a chorus of olive- 

 backed thrushes were singing, — the same 

 simple and hearty strains that, in June and 

 July, echo all day long through the woods 

 of the Crawford Notch. The birds were on 

 their way from the far South, and were 

 happy to find themselves in so homelike a 

 place. Then, suddenly, amid the golden 

 voices of the thrushes, I caught the wiry 

 notes of a warbler. They came from the 

 treetops in the valley, and — so I prided 

 myself upon guessing — belonged to a ceru- 

 lean warbler, a bird of which I had seen my 

 first and only specimen a week before, on 

 Lookout Mountain. Down the steep hill- 

 side I scrambled, — New Hampshire clean 



