THE LAST VIEW. 63 



earth, and shown all its mountains and forests and 

 lakes at once. But the impression of the whole, it 

 is impossible to convey — nay, I am myself hardly 

 conscious what it is. It seems as if I had seen 

 vagueness, terror, sublimity, strength, and beauty, all 

 embodied, so that I had a new and more definite know- 

 ledge of them. God appears to have wrought in these 

 old mountains with His highest power, and designed 

 to leave a symbol of His omnipotence. Man is noth- 

 ing here, his very shouts die on his lips. One of our 

 company tried to sing, but his voice fled from him 

 into the empty space. We fired a gun, but it gave 

 only half a report, and no echo came back, for there 

 was nothing to check the sound in its flight. " God 

 is great !" is the language of the heart, as it swells 

 over such a scene. 



And this is in New York, I at length exclaimed, 

 whose surface is laced with railroads and canals, and 

 whose rivers are turbulent with steamboats and 

 fringed with cities. Yet here is a mountain in its 

 centre but few feet have ever trod, or will tread for a 

 century to come. 



We designed to encamp as near the summit as we 

 could, and obtain firewood, so that we might see the 



