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 (Habenaria 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. Unpretendirig 

 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 



