SKITCHEWAUG. 



ARTHUR F. RICE. 



In one of the Southern counties of Ver- 

 mont stands a rugged offshoot or, rather, 

 out-cropping, of the Green mountains; a 

 straggler that has left the main column's 

 line of march and wandered over to the 

 Eastward to slake his thirst in the waters of 

 the Connecticut. This abrupt and robust 

 rover has brought with him the flavor of 

 the more remote North, and imported 

 grandeur and wildness to the very doors of 

 the farmhouses on the river bank. Along 

 his spiny back the panther sometimes 

 steals down from the higher mountains, 

 and his bristling slopes and rocky caverns 

 are the home of the hedgehog and the rat- 

 tlesnake. Here the panting fox finds safe 

 refuge from the hounds, and in the hem- 

 lock thickets the wary grouse discovers a 

 secure retreat for herself and brood. At 

 the sound of the farmer's dinner-horn, from 

 the meadows far below, the gray squirrel 

 barks his disapprobation, and to the 

 whistle of the night freight train, across the 

 river, the raccoon sends his quavering re- 

 sponse. 



At its Northern extremity. Skitchewaug 

 emerges from the hilly farming country 

 like a huge mole, shouldering away the 

 loose soil and rocks, lifting its head above 

 the lesser hills and exposing its bold, pre- 

 cipitous sides. 



" Sheer to the vale below go down the 

 bare old cliffs." At its Southern end it 

 dives suddenly into the earth once more, 

 as if its mission above the surface had been 

 accomplished. Its abruptness and com- 

 parative isolation give it the dignity of 

 a mountain; a distinction which, in a 

 rugged country, it might not otherwise 

 claim. It has no national reputation, it is 

 not lofty enough to be honored with a 

 signal station: but there is more game in 

 its forests than the hunter will ever catch 

 sight of: there are more secrets in its rocky 

 bosom than the geologist will ever be able 

 to unlock: more glorious views from its 

 summits and more picturesque scenes in its 

 gorges than will ever be described or put 

 upon canvas. What it lacks in altitude it 

 more than makes up in length, and he who 

 follows along its back-bone, scrambling, as 

 it were, from vertebra to vertebra, must 

 needs be sound in lung and limb. 



To every true lover of nature there is 

 some particular locality dearer than all 

 others, by virtue of his long association and 

 close familiarity with it. Here the streams 

 are purer, the flowers more fragrant, the 

 summer air more soft, the winter's breath 

 more bracing than elsewhere. His ac- 

 quaintance with the very rocks and trees 



amounts to personal friendship: and, 

 though bounded by so narrow a horizon, 

 this little spot of earth holds a more pre- 

 cious and permanent place in his affections 

 than all the rest of the universe. 



Speak of mountains, and it is not an 

 Everest or a Chimborazo that comes first 

 to his mind: it is the hill which over- 

 shadowed him in his youth, where he first 

 discovered the hen-hawks nest and saw the 

 tracks ofthe foxes in the snow. The river 

 he loves is not the Ganges or the Amazon, 

 but the stream on which he sailed his toy 

 boats, where he learned to swim, and 

 watched the flight of the heron and the 

 kingfisher. This definite and enduring love 

 of locality has rescued from oblivion many 

 a retired spot, and invested even common 

 place surroundings with a subtle charm; 

 so that, although seen through another's 

 eyes, they at last come to be beloved of all. 



The modest little hamlet of Selbourne 

 would be naught to us if Gilbert White had 

 not lived there and studied the details of 

 its natural history with such affectionate 

 zeal. Probably few of us would be aware 

 of the existence of Walden Pond if Henry 

 Thoreau had not built his log cabin on its 

 shore. Why then should not this compara- 

 tively unknown and insignificant mountain 

 be our theme? There is but one Skitche- 

 waug. and some one should be its prophet! 



Skitchewaug! The very name is 

 freighted with interest and carries with it a 

 suggestion of wampum and flint arrow- 

 heads. Its exact meaning is said to be 

 " Place for salmon." Strange name for a 

 mountain, one would say; but, centuries 

 ago, when salmon were as numerous in the 

 Connecticut river as minnows are to-day, 

 the Indians used to spear them in the shal- 

 low water opposite the mountain, where 

 the fish rested previous to ascending the 

 rapids above; and the impressive name re- 

 mains to mark the spot. There is some- 

 thing so potent and poetic in these verbal 

 relics of an extinct race that even this age 

 of change cannot efface them. 



" Their memory liveth on your hills, 

 Their baptism on your shore; 

 Your ever-rolling rivers speak 

 Their dialect of yore." 



The railroad surveyor drives his stakes 

 where the Indian planted his lodge-poles; 

 the iron horse tears through the pass where 

 the red man's trail once lay; but the rivers 

 and the valleys and the mountains still mur- 

 mur and echo the names which the Indian 

 gave them long ago. Skitchewaug! Place 

 for salmon! And a glorious place, too, it 



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