A NIGHT ALONE ON CHOCORUA. 
65 
by ice make the way difficult and dangerous to 
the novice. A few score rods to the west, yet 
still on the southern face of the peak, there is a 
rift in the cliffs filled with small trees and frag¬ 
ments of rock. This cleft leads straight up¬ 
wards to a small sandy plateau on the west side 
of the peak, two thirds of the way to its summit. 
As I struggled up this almost perpendicular ra¬ 
vine, I heard the steady roar of thunder, and 
saw above me black clouds surging across the 
sky. It would have been dark had not the 
south been filled with silvery light and hazy 
sunset glory. A black-mouthed cave upon my 
right offered a refuge. Hedgehogs lived in it, 
but its outer chamber would be storm-proof. 
Should I wait? No, storm or no storm, I would 
gain the peak, and do my part to keep my tryst 
with the stars. 
Stumbling out of the ravine upon the plateau, 
I faced the north. A picture was there which 
made the memory of Dore’s strongest delinea¬ 
tions of Dante’s visions seem weak. On my 
right was an upright wall of black rock, on my 
left an abyss. Northward, before me, lay that 
wilderness of forests and peaks which forms the 
White Mountains, thirty miles square of spruce 
forests, and all of it on edge, — a sierra forbid¬ 
ding at its best, but now made terrible by a 
tempest. The higher heavens were filled with 
