342 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



Andrascogan river, exhibiting a succession of pools and 

 rapids, so eminently suited for salmon retreats, that you 

 cannot fail to regret that these noble fish are debarred 

 from visiting this choice water. A few miles farther your 

 course winds by a beautiful mountain brook well stocked 

 with trout, and in which a good basket can always be 

 taken. We will now suppose you have reached the half- 

 way house, a pretty little roadside tavern, where the horses 

 are baited, and the traveller, if he chooses we would 

 strongly advise you not to fail to may insist upon making 

 the acquaintance of mine host, a worthy man with a 

 wonderful fund of information on various interesting sub- 

 jects. The allotted half-hour having expired, and the 

 inner man been refreshed, forward is again the word, and 

 more beautiful becomes the scenery. Wild, irregular hills, 

 with bases densely covered with timber, but stony and 

 irregular towards their summit, frown over your head ; 

 precipices, cliffs, and yawning chasms alternately vary the 

 prospect, throwing, for grandeur, the choicest wilds of 

 Scotland into the shade. Only an able poet, with a romantic 

 turn of mind, is wanted to immortalise by soul-stirring 

 lays these stupendous mountain fastnesses, accessible alone 

 to the wild denizens of the forest, or to him who is gifted 

 with the nerve, steady foot, and reliable eye of the chamois 

 hunter of the Alps. 



Having at length reached the upper portion of the village 

 of Upton, an entire change comes over the landscape ; far 

 beneath your feet lies nestled, in all the splendour of 

 luxuriant timber, with irregular and changing outline, the 

 lovely sheet of water, Umbagog, thickly studded with in- 



