28 



RECREA TION. 



roamed through these woods, antlered 

 bucks fought tourneys in their shades, and 

 big gray wolves held grewsome carnival. 

 Yet here, if anywhere, the wilderness of the 

 olden time has been preserved, and the 

 moccasined Indian with his bow and ar- 

 rows would seem more in keeping with the 

 place than the white man with his breech- 

 loader. 



Never believe that you know a mountain 

 well until you have stood on its highest 

 rock, bathed in the unimpeded current of 

 the upper air! Here you shall learn the 

 difference between aspiration and inspira- 

 tion, and gain new conceptions of things. 

 Here you shall find the old earth seems 

 older than elsewhere. The ledges of rock 

 are its ancient and fleshless bones, and even 

 the moss that covers them is gray and 

 hoary. The elements have had their way 

 up here and have left the marks of their 

 rude ringers. The trees are scraggy and 

 stunted, distorted, as though by pain, at the 

 buffetings they have received at the hand of 

 the winds. Dwarfed from exposure and 

 lack of nourishment, their crippled limbs 

 and crooked bodies bear evidence of the 

 hard treatment they have suffered. 



But look abroad from the summit of 

 Skitchewaug, and you shall see a rare and 

 beautiful sight. At the North, old As- 

 cutney rears his massive bulk, a dome of 

 solid granite; while to the East, and West, 

 and South, the lesser hills hem in the land- 

 scape with a wall of green. In the Eastern 

 valley the fair Connecticut winds its way 

 through level meadows, and on the slop- 

 ing hillsides the cloud shadows come and 

 go. Some such scene as this it must have 

 been which inspired Percival to write, 



" A waste of rocks was round me, 

 But below, how beautiful! How rich the plains! 

 A wilderness of groves and ripening harvests." 



It is indeed a glorious thing to stand 

 upon the summit of a mountain, with one's, 

 feet on the everlasting rock! I do not 

 wonder that Byron's fiery soul found sat- 

 isfaction there. I do not wonder that 

 Elijah fled to the mountains for refuge from 

 both bodily and mental ills. I do not won- 

 der that the Saviour himself " went up into 

 a mountain," to escape the multitude; nor 

 do I marvel that his disciples followed him 

 and there listened to the grandest sermon 

 that ever was preached. 



AMATEUR PHOTO BY F. D. BLACK, HASTINGS, MICH. 



RECREATION LAUNCH, OWNED BY MR. BLACK. 



