P ro 
Notices of Mount Washington and the vicinity. 77 
Ladies sometimes go on this adventure, but it were better, in my 
judgment, that they should not attempt it. It is scarcely pos- 
sible to afford them any material assistance; they must struggte 
almost unaided, first through the arduous Sonesteride, where none 
but the practiced and-wary-footed animals, that are trained to 
the service, can carry them in safety; and safety depends, very 
much, upon permitting the horses to wend their own way, un- 
molested by guiding, through the deep mud _ holes, the tangled 
roots, and the projecting stones and timber, which, notwithstand- 
jes that has been done, (and much labor has evidently been 
here,) still obstruct no small portion of the journey 
dabei the woods. There are, however, only two or three miles 
that are thus anxious and fatiguing ; the rest is a plain and open 
road, the whole distance from the hotel to the foot of the moun- 
tain being six miles. When the horses are abandoned, then com- 
“When we began our ascent, and during most of its pro- 
gress, I insisted that the party should halt and sit down every 
twelve or fifteen minutes; three or four minutes of rest was, in 
general, sufficient to restore a natural respiration and to equalize 
the circulation of the blood, both being much disturbed by an 
unceasing ascent, and the muscles are thus overstrained and ex- 
hausted ; the respiration becomes laborious and the circulation is 
hurried on, especially through the lungs, with oppressive and 
even dangerous celerity. ‘These precautions are of the utmost 
consequence in ascending mountains, and by the Fish of en 
and especially by yielding to a false pride of vigor a 
, and to an equally false shame of being thought lier 
health is hazarded, and sometimes both health and life are de- 
stroyed.* If ladies insist upon making this ascent, their dress 
d be adapted to the service, and none should attempt it cee 
those of firm health and sound lungs, and although this r 
applies to them in a peculiar manner, it is decidedly applicable 
also to those of the other sex. 
th. See 
* An eminent writer iia orator, one of the brightest ornaments oF hia coun- 
try, assured me, that he never recovered from the effects of a rapi id ascent in his 
youth, up Mount en near Windsor, in Vermont, which is not half so high 
as Mount Was 
A very lovely and ace rsanenige young lady, of fine talents, but of a spirit which 
only rose with the difficulties to be encountere , is said to have laid, in this very as- 
cent up Mount Washington, o ie a few years since, the foundation of an illness 
which cut her off prematurely in a foreign land. I knew her well. I may add also, 
