In Stirrups
Uff! puff!” goes the locomotive, and the passengers for Mount Washington are set down at the “Tip - Top House.” So all the romance of climbing is gone. We shall yet visit the Holy Land with the “Owl Train.” Who knows but the water of the Helicon may yet be made to turn a factory of shoe -pegs? Bucephalus would be a plain horse on Central Park, and Throckmorton’s pointer, of history, is nothing, compared with our dog, sharp at the nose, thin at the flanks, long in the limb, and able to snuff up the track of the reindeer three miles away. We tell a story of olden times — that is, of three years ago, for the world no longer contents itself to turn once a day on its axis, but makes fifty revolutions a minute.
The breakfast hour of the Crawford House, at the White Mountains, is past, and word is sounded through all the halls of the hotel that those who desire to ascend Mount Washington must appear on the piazza. Thither we come, though an August morning, in midwinter apparel. The ladies, who the evening before had lighted up the parlors with the flash of diamonds, now appear in rough apparel, much of which has been hired from the porter of the hotel, who sticks out his sign of hats, coats, and skirts to let. A lady, minus hoops, minus laces, minus jewelry, plus a shaggy jacket, plus boots, plus a blanket, equals a lady equipped for the ascent of Mount Washington.
The horses came, unled, out of their stables, each one answering to his name — “Spot,” “White Stocking,” and “Bouncer.” They were peculiar horses, unlike those you are accustomed to mount, their sides, their knees, and their fedocks having the mark of the mountains. They had clambered terrible heights, and been cut again and again by the rocks. Not bit- champing horses, thundernecked, but steady, serious, patient, the gloom of shadow and precipice in their eyes, a sHght stoop in their gait, as though accustomed to move cautiously along places where it would be perilous to walk upright. We helped the ladies into the saddle, though we were all the time afflicted with the uncertainty as to whom we were helping, and not knowing whether the foot we put into the stirrup belonged to a Fifth-Avenue belle or one not accustomed to such polite attentions.
Thirty-five in all, we moved up the bridle-path, through the woods, a band of musicians playing a lively air. With what exhilaration we started we will not attempt to tell, for we were already at great altitudes, and had looked on the Kearsarge, and the Chocorua, and felt the stroke of those emotions that slide from the stupendous bowlders of the Willie peaks when one first gazes upon them.
“General Scott,” considered the safest horse
in all the mountains, began his upward career
that morning by brushing off against a tree
his fair rider.* He did not seem sorry a bit, but
looked round to me with a wink, as much as to say, “I do not like to wear belles In the summertime;” and, while I stood shocked at the poverty of the pun, he seemed hardly able to keep from breaking into a horse-laugh.
Orders pass along the line: “Bear hard in the stirrup!” or, “Hold fast the pommel of the saddle!” Up a corduroy path we mounted, and wedged ourselves through narrow defiles, and height after height sank beneath; and the hoofs of the horse before us clattered close by the ears of our own trusty beast, that bore bravely on, though the white legs that gave to him the name of White Stocking were already striped with blood struck out by the sharp edges of the first mountain.
After a while the guides commanded us to halt. We were coming to more exciting experiences. The horses’ girths were taken up another hole into the buckle, and their shoes examined. Aeain we fall into line. The guide takes his position by a plunge of rocks, so as to steady and encourage horses and riders. The ponies halt at the verge, look down, measure the distances, and examine the places for a foothold.
IN STIRRUPS. Sy
“Steady! “shouts the guide. ‘* Steady!” cry the riders, and down the rocks you go, now with a leap, now with a sHde, now with a headlong stumble against which you jerk up the reins with all your might, the horse recovering himself, and stopping midway the declivity for another look before a deeper plunge, until, all panting and a-tremble with the exertion, he stops to rest a moment at the foot of the rocks, and you turn round, put your hand on your pony’s back, and watch others poised for the same leap.
Two hours more, and we have left vegetation behind us. Mountain-ash, and birch, and maple, which we saw soon after starting, cannot climb such steeps as these. Yes, we have come where spruce, and fir, and white pine begin to faint by the way, and in every direction you see the stark remains of the trees which have been bitten to death by the sharp white teeth of the frost. Yet God does not forsake even the highest peaks. The majesty of forests may be denied them, but the brow of this stupendous death hath Its wreath of alpine plants.
and its catafalque Is strewn with bluebells and anemones.
After passing great reaches of desolation, you suddenly come upon a height garnished with a foam of white flowers dashed up from the sea of divine beauty. There, where neither hoof nor wheel can be traced, you find the track of God’s foot in the turf; and on the granite, great natural laws written on “tables of stone,” hurled down and broken by the wrath of the tempest. Oh! how easy to see that the Divine care is here tending the white flocks of flowers which pick out their pasturage among the clefts.
We are now in the region of driving mist, and storm, and hurricane. The wind searches to the bone, and puts a red blossom on the soberest nose. It occurred to us that this must be the nest where all winds and storms of the country are hatched out, under the brooding wing and the Iron beak of this great Mount Washington blast. The rain drips from the rim of our hats. Through the driving mist the advancing cavalcade look weird and spectral. Those coming behind and beneath you, seem like ghosts travelling up from some nether world, and those before and above, as though horsed on the wind.
Five of the party long ago turned back, overcome by cold, and fatigue, and fright, and, accompanied by one of the guides, are by this time safely housed. The rest are still advancing, and the guide with his long staff urges on the ponies. We are told that we are at the foot of the last steep. We cannot restrain our glee. We shout and laugh. The dullest man of all actually attempts a witticism. Our blood tingles! Hurrah for Mount Washington! We talk to persons that we never knew as though they were old acquaintances. We praise our horse. We feel like passing over our right hand to our left and congratulating ourselves. Deacons, ministers, and the gravest of the grave, sing snatches of” John Brown,” “Yankee Doodle,” and the “Girl I left behind me.”
Our dignity loses its balance and falls off, and rolls down the side of the mountain, six thousand two hundred and eighty-five feet, so that the probability is that it will never again be recovered. We drive into the pen of rocks, and as the party start on foot for the Tip -top House a few rods off, we give one long, loud halloo, and the storms answer.
Having entered the house, we threw off our coats. We gathered around the red - hot stoves. Some sat down exhausted; others were hysterical from the excitement. Strong men needed to be resuscitated; but by the time the dinner-bell sounded, the whole party were sufficiently revived to surround the tables.
It is astonishing with what force the” cork of a champagne bottle will fly out. Two of the company were knocked over by one of these corks, and one of the two afterward fell from his horse and went rolling down the mountain. Elegant gentleman he was before the cork struck him, and had an elegant overcoat which he put up in a bet and lost, and would have been obliged to descend the mountain in a shivering condition (but for the guide who lent him a coat), through a hailstorm in which our horses stopped, and turned their backs, and refused to go till goaded on by the guides. With this exception the dining hour was not marred. But while we were abundantly supplied, alas, for “White Stocking,” “Spot,” and “Bouncer.” They stood in a roofless pen. Mountain horses have a hard life. Did we not pride ourselves on our orthodoxy, we would express the hope that these suffering beasts, so much wronged on earth, may have a future life, where, unharnessed and unwhipped, they may range in high, thick, luxuriant pasture forever and ever.