A whole host of natural beauties and attractive scenes lie at hand near this great mountain caravansary.  Turn in any and all directions, at every point a view greets the vision which rivals the touches of an almost divine brush on Oriental canvas.  Avenues lead through a perfect labyrinth of forests in all directions, and many are the famous sights to be seen.  Profile Lake lies close by at the base of Cannon or Profile Mountain and Mount Lafayette.  From its shore can be seen that inspiring curiosity known the world over as the “Old Man of the Mountain,” about which much good prose and passable poetry has been written.  The profile is produced by the peculiar combination of the surfaces and angles of five huge granite blocks, and when viewed from one spot the resemblance is perfect.  Colossal as it is in its proportions, being seventy feet from chin to forehead, the lines are softened by distance, and the sphynx itself is not carved more justly.  There it stands, calm, grand, majestic, wearing from age to age the same undisturbed expression of sovereign and hoary dignity—­the guardian spirit of the region.  No wonder the simple red man, as he roamed these wilds, should pause as he caught sight of this great stone face gazing off through the mountain openings into the distant valley, and worship it as the countenance of his Manitou.  All are impressed with it, and its influence is magnetic.

To climb Mount Lafayette will be scarcely less interesting than the ascent of Mount Washington, though it is more tedious, as it has to be made wholly on foot.  But the charming views from its sides and summit will repay the labor of the tourist.  A fine view of the Franconia Mountains can be obtained from the summit of Bald Mountain, to the top of which a carriage road has been constructed.

Following down the outlet of Profile Lake, the headwaters of the Pemigewasset, one may visit with profit and pleasure Walker’s Falls, the Basin, the Cascades, and the Flume.  The Flume is one of those rifts in the solid rock caused by some titanic force in ages long since.  For many years there hung suspended far up above the path a huge granite boulder.  In 1883 a sudden mountain storm caused a torrent to dash through the chasm, and the boulder became a subject for history.  It disappeared, thus partially explaining how it was originally lodged in its former resting place.  A short distance below the Flume are the Georgiana Falls, where the water descends for more than a hundred feet over a sheer precipice.

[Illustration:  White mountains, from the Glen.]

Franconia is a fairyland of wonderful fascination; and the weary of body and mind, or the despondent and languid invalid, and no less the strong and healthy, will find their physical faculties invigorated, and the mind and soul elevated by a sojourn among the attractions of that lovely town.  It was with the deepest regret that we turned from those delightful regions.  Our time was not lost, for as we pant and struggle in “life’s ceaseless toil and endeavor,” a thousand memories come to cheer us from those sojourns in this romantic and magnificent mountain land.