A VISIT TO MOUNT AGASSIZ 237 



other. I sit down once more in a favorable 

 spot, where every line of the picture falls 

 true, and drink my fill of its loveliness, 

 while a hermit thrush out of the hill woods 

 yonder blesses my ears with music. I have 

 Emerson's wish — " health and a day." 



At high noon, as I had planned, I came 

 to the top of the mountain. The observa- 

 tory was full of chattering tourists, while 

 three individuals of the same genus stood on 

 the rocks below, two men and a woman, the 

 men taking turns in the use — or abuse — 

 of a horn, with which they were trying to 

 rouse the echo (a really good one, as I could 

 testify) from Mount Cleveland and the 

 higher peaks beyond. Their attempts were 

 mostly failures. Either the breath wan- 

 dered about uneasily inside the brazen tube, 

 moaning like a soul in pain — abortive mut- 

 terings, but no " toot " — or, if a blast now 

 and then came forth, it was of so low a pitch 

 that the mountains, whose vocal register, it 

 appears, is rather tenor than bass, were un- 

 able to return it effectively. " I can't get 

 it high enough," one of the men said. But 

 they had large endowments of perseverance 



