Further on you enter the deep gorge which leads gradually upward to the Notch.  In the midst of it is situated the Willey House, near which the Willey family were overtaken by an avalanche and perished as they were making their escape.  It is now enlarged into a house of accommodation for visitors to the mountains.  Nothing can exceed the aspect of desolation presented by the lofty mountain-ridges which rise on each side.  They are streaked with the paths of landslides, occurring at different periods, which have left the rocky ribs of the mountains bare from their bald tops to the forests at their feet, and have filled the sides of the valley with heaps of earth, gravel, stones, and trunks of trees.

From the Willey house you ascend, for about two miles, a declivity, by no means steep, with these dark ridges frowning over you, your path here and there crossed by streams which have made for themselves passages in the granite sides of the mountains like narrow staircases, down which they come tumbling from one vast block to another.  I afterward made acquaintance with two of these, and followed them upward from one clear pool and one white cascade to another till I was tired.  The road at length passes through what may be compared to a natural gateway, a narrow chasm between tall cliffs, and through which the Saco, now a mere brook, finds its way.  You find yourself in a green opening, looking like the bottom of a drained lake with mountain summits around you.  Here is one of the houses of accommodation from which you ascend Mount Washington.

If you should ever think of ascending Mount Washington, do not allow any of the hotel-keepers to cheat you in regard to the distance.  It is about ten miles from either the hotels to the summit, and very little less from any of them.  They keep a set of worn-out horses, which they hire for the season, and which are trained to climb the mountain, in a walk, by the worst bridle-paths in the world.  The poor hacks are generally tolerably sure-footed, but there are exceptions to this.  Guides are sent with the visitors, who generally go on foot, strong-legged men, carrying long staves, and watching the ladies lest any accident should occur; some of these, especially those from the house in the Notch, commonly called Tom Crawford’s, are unmannerly fellows enough.

The scenery of these mountains has not been sufficiently praised.  But for the glaciers, but for the peaks white with perpetual snow, it would be scarcely worth while to see Switzerland after seeing the White Mountains.  The depth of the valleys, the steepness of the mountain-sides, the variety of aspect shown by their summits, the deep gulfs of forest below, seamed with the open courses of rivers, the vast extent of the mountain region seen north and south of us, gleaming with many lakes, took me with surprise and astonishment.  Imagine the forests to be shorn from half the broad declivities—­imagine scattered habitations on the thick green turf and footpaths leading from one to the other, and herds and flocks browzing, and you have Switzerland before you.  I admit, however, that these accessories add to the variety and interest of the landscape, and perhaps heighten the idea of its vastness.