8 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
change takes place in the whole coloring of the 
mountain. Looked upon through the birch 
vista, the air being clear and clean, and the 
colors of the mountain uncommonly bright, the 
peak seemed near at hand, and even grander 
than usual. There are few things in New Eng¬ 
land as truly picturesque as this horn of Cho- 
corua. Three thousand feet above its lake and 
the level of the Saco, the great rock lifts itself 
with bold and naked outline into the midst of 
the sky. No foot seems able to creep up its 
precipitous slopes to its dizzy tip, and even the 
sturdy spruce can cling only to the deep clefts 
in its storm-swept ledges. There was a time 
when the forest reached to its crest, and when 
the cold rocks, now naked, were covered deep 
in soil and mosses. Passaconaway, close by, 
shows how this could have been, and how Cho- 
corua must have looked draped in evergreens. 
Fire and hurricane destroyed the trees; the 
parched soil was washed away from the rocks; 
and now the only trace of the old forest growth 
is an occasional bleached stump or log hidden 
in a cleft in the ledges. 
As I strolled homewards I passed a spot 
where the linnaea has covered several square 
yards of ground in a birch wood. The tiny 
bells had rung out their elfin music for the year. 
By dint of laborious search on hands and knees 
