The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-07-21
Through the Notch.

As the old time mariner of the Mediteran-
can looked out between the pillars of Hercules
upon the Atlantic, he pictured to himself be-
You'd the unknown sea an earthly paradise
where death and all the minor evils did not
come. Were he of an adventurous disposition,
he probably set sail for the green, fortunate
isles and was never heard of again. Some
thing of the same feeling possesses the imag-
NATIVE tourist who sits on the piazza of the
Crawford House and looks for the first time
down the gate of the Notch. He stands at
the threshold of a trip contemplated, perhaps,
for years, and unless his Imagination has been
debauched by the perusal of guide books, he
will picture to himself sights as wonderful as
those which stirred the fancy of the sea loving
Ph@ncian as he shot his galley past Gibraltar.
1t is better to have heard of the White
Mountain views vaguely, if at all. The min
ute descriptions of the green covered books
paralyze the imagination aud the inflated rhet-
ORIG prepares one for beauties to be found in
no land under the sun. If the traveller must
read guide book, let him wait until ne gets
back from the mountains.
The square stones which form the gate, the
left crumbled a little by that great modern
Vandal, the Portland aud Ogdensburg, greet
the eye at all hours. They loom up black in
the dusk, and one can easily bring himself to
imagine that the unpleasant and much quo ted
Italian inscription is blazoned somewhere on
the rocks 1t is well, however, to trust to the
imagination in the matter OF inscriptions, for
the only legends to be found upon the noun
tain side are the cabalistic IS. T.-1S6O-X, D
orr ha cta
low letters, ''Ringold's Elixir, good for Pin
Worms
If the visitor has plenty of time he will do
well to linger at the Crawford. The gate is al
ways before HIM, and the great ravine which
they call the Notch deserves at least that period
OF thought and preparation enjoined upon the
devout Brahmin before he enters the temples
of his triune gods. He can sit and watch the
green summit of Willard, that long line of
granite, standing out yellow in the sun, bare of
verdnre, which some man, gifted with a sense
of the eternal fitness of things, has christeped
Webster. A little pool, prolific of mosquitoes
and with edges skirted with green scum, is
pointed out as the head-waters of the Saco,
That stream, little more than trout brook
brawls through the ravine below, making a
great deal of noise for It's size, in that respect
much like the cities whc b sit at its mouth and
make faces at each other. Nearly at the en-.
trance to the Notch the Elephants Head. a
rock which really has a remarkable resembl-
ance TO the huge pachyderm whose name it
bears, looks down bengnly at the traveller.
according to the wont of the elephant tribe as
set forth in the documentary zoologies for
children. A little back of the house the prettv
waterfall called the Beecher cascade, leans
down the rocks Immediately up IN the visit
or's arrival here, an employe of the house is
detached to tell him the story of Beecher and
the hornets nest, and the sermon preached
about it the next Sunday. The great preacher
appears to have turned over the business of
strrngup hornets nests to his quondam friend
Tilton.)
Before going through the Notch and winding
round to the Glen, there to ascend Mt. Wash
ington by the great carriage road, the tourist
shonld view the mountain from this side, or if
good walker, shond climb up by the old
bride path from the Crawford Their
he is prepared to swing around the cir
Gle and and nestle in the Glen for
time, at the very foot of the mountains,