FIVE DAYS ON MOUNT MANSFIELD. 103 
a pleasing relief after living so long with 
men whose minds were all the time full of 
those serious and absorbing questions, “* What 
shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and 
wherewithal shall we be clothed?” 
I remember with special pleasure a profu- 
sion of white orchids (/Zabenaria dilatata) 
which bordered the roadside not far from 
the top, their spikes of waxy snow - white 
flowers giving out a rich, spicy odor hardly 
_to be distinguished from the scent of carna- 
tion pinks. I remember, too, how the whole 
summit, from the Nose to the Chin, was 
sprinkled with the modest and_ beautiful 
Greenland sandwort, springing up in every 
little patch of thin soil, where nothing else 
would flourish, and blossoming even under 
the door-step of the hotel. Unpretending 
as it is, this little alpine adventurer makes 
the most of its beauty. The blossoms are 
not crowded into close heads, so as to lose 
their individual attractiveness, like the flor- 
ets of the golden-rod, for example; nor are 
they set in a stiff spike, after the manner of 
the orchid just now mentioned. At the 
same time the plant does not trust to the 
single flower to bring it into notice. It 
