DIES PISCATORI^. 515 



Back of us lay the lofty summits of the White Mountains — Washington, 

 La Fayette, and Adams, towering above the rest, as those illustrious names 

 among mankind. At the distance of twenty or thirty miles, their well- 

 defined outlines rose against the sky in solemn, gloomy grandeur, and their 

 immense presence seemed to annihilate the space that intervened. 



I have been in the habit of thinking that my own native West is the 

 most beautiful country upon God's earth, and, indeed, in richness of foliage 

 and verdure, in brilliancy of color, I know of none that surpasses it. In 

 the spring-time of the year, when everything is bursting forth in vigorous 

 life ; when the trees bud in fearless defiance of frost, and flowers bloom in 

 bright profusion ; when the corn transcends all limits of respectable growth, 

 and the grain starts its tender shoots before the snow has quite gone, and 

 in later summer, when the golden harvest is ripe for the sickle, and, 

 swayed by the gentle wind, the vast field rolls like the billows of the sea ; 

 with the cultivated garden, the farm with its barns of plenty, and its 

 presses bursting with new wine ; the plain with its velvet grass, the hill- 

 side with its luxuriant vine, Nature presents no lovelier sight than meets 

 the eye and gladdens the heart of the dweller in the Buckeye State. 



Still, such scenery conveys no impression of the vast or grand, for the 

 horizon is limited in its view. But among the mountains of the Eastern 

 States, the landscape stretches away before you for miles upon miles, with 

 lakes, streams and rivers, villages and farms, spread out in one great 

 picture. 



But however beautiful the sight, the sun began to get hot, and ideas of 

 sentiment rapidly vanished, and soon arriving at one of those cool springs 

 that burst forth from the hill-side at every few rods, we stopped to refresh 

 our parched constitutions. 



The second day's ride brought us to Colebrook, where the reign of pork 

 begins. And here let me say a word of this staple commodity of the 

 " rural districts." 



After you get up into this country, you see nothing but pork. Not fresh 

 pork (shades of Elia, defend us!) but salt pork, that has been pickled, 

 brined, and put away in a barrel. They chiefly fry it, when it resolves 

 itself into a compound of liquid grease, and a tough substance, resembling 

 underdone sole-leather, nutritive but not attractive. They fry pork for 

 breakfast, they do the same for dinner, and are not original in the point 

 of supper. They fry it with their potatoes ; sometimes they fry it in a 

 skillet: I believe they use it in their tea. For two mortal weeks we had 

 nothing but pork, until \ie got among the Trout, and then we had trout and 



