24 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



inch or more in depth, if my memory is to be 

 trusted), white as snow, but almost as hard 

 as ice. The effect was strangely beautiful. 

 A dwarf fir tree, for instance, would be snow 

 white on one side and bright green on the 

 other. As we looked along the sharp ridge 

 running to the South Peak, so called (the 

 very ridge at the face of which I was now 

 gazing from the Lonesome Lake path), one 

 slope was white, the other green. Summer 

 and winter were divided by an inch. 



We nestled in the shelter of the rocks, on 

 the south side of the summit, courting the 

 sun and avoiding the wind, and lay there 

 for two hours, exulting in the prospect, and 

 between times nibbling our luncheon, which 

 latter we " topped off " with a famous dessert 

 of berries, gathered on the spot : three sorts 

 of blueberries, and, for a sour, the moun- 

 tain cranberry. The blueberries were Vac- 

 cinium uliginosum^ V. ccespitosum, and V. 

 Pennsylvanicum (there is no doing without 

 the Latin names), their comparative abun- 

 dance being in the order given. The first 

 two were really plentiful. All of them, of 

 course, grew on dwarf bushes, matting the 



