Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/316

306 of this pond was considerable, but soon lost beneath the rocks.

In the dwarf fir thickets above and below this pond were the most beautiful linnseas I ever saw. They grew quite densely, full of rose purple flowers (deeper reddish-purple than ours, which are pale), perhaps nodding over the brink of a spring. Altogether the finest mountain flowers I saw, lining the side of the narrow horse track through the fir scrub. Just below the top, reclined on a dense bed of Salix uva ursi, five feet in diameter by four or five inches deep, a good spot to sit on, mixed with a rush, amid rocks. This willow was generally showing its down.—We had fine weather on the mountain, and from the summit a good view of Mount Washington and the rest, though it was a little hazy in the horizon. It was a wild mountain and forest scene from south- southeast round eastwardly to north-northeast. On the northwest and down as far as Monadnock, the country was half cleared, the &quot;leopard&quot;-spotted land.

Boiled tea for our dinner by the little pond, the head of the Pemigewasset. We made our fire on the moss and lichens by a rock amid the shallow fir and spruce, burning the dead fir twigs, or &quot;deer's horns.&quot; I cut off a flourishing fir three feet high and not flattened at the top yet. This was one and a quarter inches in