SUNSET IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3185, 13 September 1881, Page 4

SUNSET IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

As we advance up the lake new and rare vistas succeed each other. .After passing Long Island, an opening appears, through which, blue as lapis lazuli, a chaplet of clouds, crowning his imperial front, Mount Washington bursts upon the view. Slowly, majestically, he marches by, and now Chocorua scowls upon us. A murmur of admiration runs from group to group as these monumental figures, the two grandest types these mountains enclose, are thus displayed in thefull spendour of noonday. The low athletic mountain now gliding into the gap through which we looted at the panorama of moving mountains is Eed Hill. Its position at the head of the lake, overlooking jts whole extent, assures us that we shall

find an incomparable view from its summit. Let us therefore l -md, as we may easily do. before the close ot* tho day, and from its heights behold the gorgeous spectacle of sunset on the lake. u:k r -l:ii- t.he Sandwich Mountains obtain far greater interest and character No two summits are precisely alike in form or outline. Higher and more distinct peaks peer curiously over their brawny shoulders from their laira in the Pemigewasset Valley; but more remarkable, more weird than nil, is the gigantic monolith topping the rook-ribbed pile of I'hoco'rua. As the sun glides down the west, a ruddy glow tinges its pinnacle; while the shadows lurking' in the ravines, stealing darlily up the mountain side, crouch for. a final spring upon the summit. Little by flows over bhe valley, and a thin haze rf? .j< ; i its surface. Glowing mi jmn-ieP streaked with all'the husis of th<* ninbuw, the lake is indeed magnificent. T> ' '.m t)\e "yo roves hi!her and thither, sr r, .--;-t.ie foil for this peerless beauty. Everywhere the same unrivalled picture lend* ifs captive over the long lengues of gjeanrtisr water, up the graceful curves of the mountains, to rest at last among crimson .clouds floating in rosy vapour over their notched summits. To attempt to describe this ravishing spectacle is like a profanation. Paradise eeems to have opened wide its gates to our en nipt ured gaze. Or have we, indeed, -surprised ihe secrets of the unknown world '.' We stand spellbound, with a strange, ex-jiiisite feeling at the heart; v:e feel a thrill o? pain when a voice breaks the solemn s illness alone befitting this almost siipern lUiral vision. Vanquished by the ineomparaVe scene, the mind turning away from earth, runs over the most sublime or touching incidents of Scripture—the Temptation, the Sermon on the Mount, the Transfiguration—and memory brings to our aid words, so simple,'so tender, yet so expressive, ''And TTe went up into the mountain apart to npflT."-" The White Mountains," in Harper's Monthly Magazine.