94 IN THE i MOUNTAINS. 
and on and on, through a magnificent forest, 
and then over more magnificent rocky heights, 
until I stood at last on the platform of the hotel 
at the summit. True, the path, which I had 
never traveled before, was wet and slippery, 
with stretches of ice and snow here and there ; 
but the shifting view was so grand, the atmos- 
phere so bracing, and the solitude so impressive 
that I enjoyed every step, till it came to clam- 
bering up the Mount Washington cone over the 
bowlders. At this point, to speak frankly, I 
began to hope that the ninth mile would prove 
to be a short one. ‘The guide-books are agreed 
in warning the visitor against making this as- 
cent without a companion, and no doubt they 
are right in so doing. A crippling accident 
would almost inevitably be fatal, while for sey- 
eral miles the trail is so indistinet that it would 
be difficult, if not impossible, to follow it in a 
fog. And yet, if one is willing to take the 
risk (and is not so unfortunate as never to 
have learned how to keep himself company), 
he will find a very considerable compensation 
in the peculiar pleasure to be experienced in 
being absolutely alone above the world. For 
myself, I was shut up to going in this way or 
not going at all; and a Bostonian must do 
something patriotic on the Seventeenth of June. 
But for all that, if the storm which chased me 
