The view from this, the oldest of the mountains is scarcely surpassed by any in the state.  To the north, Moosilauke, Chocorua, Lafayette, Mount Washington and the main peaks of the principal White Mountain group lie sharply outlined.  The Ossipee Mountain toward the east, the Uncanoonacs in the distance, Ragged and Sunapee and Kearsarge, near neighbors, claimed attention.  In the far western horizon Ascutney, Camel’s Hump, Mount Mansfield, and Jay Peak showed hazy and indistinct.  Below us the broken ranges of green hills surged like immense billows of some Titanic sea.  The fresh verdure of every field and tree made up a landscape seldom equalled in tone of color, and one which amply repaid the climber.  But while some were content with looking, other true Appalachians remembered the objects of the club.  While one took photographs of the surrounding scenery, far and near, another made profile sketches of the distant peaks; while one attempted a bit of topographical work, another took measurements by means of a powerful telescope; and the results of all were put on record for future reference.

A member of the A.M.C. just returned from Florida had been carrying about some strange looking fruit all day, resembling partly an orange but more nearly a small yellow winter squash.  Now, he made himself popular by dispensing great pieces of grape-fruit among the thirsty crowd.  It is a necessity of perverse humanity to be thirsty wherever there is no water; and but for the Florida fruit and the canteens which had been filled at the spring on the mountain side, we should have suffered.

Mount Cardigan is but 3,156 feet above the sea-level; but as it stands alone the view on all sides is unobstructed and clear.  It did not take us an hour to decide that three thousand feet above the sea, under favorable conditions is quite a sightly place.  And we took the homeward path, feeling that the view was worth a dozen times its cost.  Forty minutes afterward we arrived at the bottom in the condition of the weak-kneed and trembling saints whom the hymn-book denounces.

An hour of rattling down the hills brought us to Canaan depot again where our special train awaited us.  After a refreshing draught of milk at the Cardigan House, from the piazzas of which a fine view of the mountain may be had, we were rapidly whirled away toward Patler Place in Andover.

This village was named for the once famous sleight of hand performer Patler.  His house is a cozy, pretty affair, freshly painted and nestled under great embowering trees.  Close by is his grave.

Here, too, barges were in waiting to take us to the Winslow House, four miles distant on Mount Kearsarge.  Before we had left the train the soft rays of the setting sun had changed the hill-sides to amethyst and deepened the purple gloom of the valleys.  Now, as we rode in merry groups of six or eight, over the country by-ways, the new moon slowly touched every tree and shrub with her magical wand until the land with its long, weird shadows and silver radiance seemed to belong to another world than that of day-light.