148 A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE. 



the perfection of their beauty ! One rho- 

 dodendron bush was at least ten feet high, 

 and loaded with blooms. Another lifted its 

 crown of a dozen rose-purple clusters amid 

 the dark foliage of a hemlock. A magnolia- 

 tree stood near ; but though it was much 

 taller than the laurel or the rhododendron, 

 and had much larger flowers, it made little 

 show beside them. Birds were singing on 

 all hands, and numbers of gay-colored but- 

 terflies flitted about, sipping here and there 

 at a blossom. I remember especially a fine 

 tiger swallow-tail; the only one I saw in 

 Tennessee, I believe. I remember, too, how 

 well the rhododendron became him. Here, 

 as in many other places, the laurel was 

 nearly white ; a happy circumstance, as it 

 and the rhododendron went the more har- 

 moniously together. Even in this high 

 company, some tufts of cinnamon fern were 

 not to be overlooked ; the fertile cinnamon- 

 brown fronds were now at their loveliest, 

 and showed as bravely here, I thought, as in 

 the barest of Massachusetts swamp-lands. 



A few rods more, up a moderate slope, 

 and I was at the top of the mountain, 

 a wall of outcropping rocks, falling off 



