Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/172

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��The While ami Franconia Mountains.

���MOUNT MADISON, IN GORHAM.

��"What?"

" You interrupted me ; we will call it an cesthetic pilgrimage."

What clays those were we passed in the upland region. Fabyan's is situated in the very heart of the White Hills and is the objective point for all tourists. From the verandas of this spacious ho- tel, one obtains an uninterrupted view of the whole Presidential Range, and can watch the course of the train of cars as it creeps slowly up the precipitous sides of Mount Washington.

Taking the train at Fabyan's, one glides rapidly up the steepest practical grade to the Base station, where he leaves the ordinary passenger coach and takes his seat in a car designed to be pushed up the Mount Washington Railroad. After the warning whistle the train starts slowly on its journey — the grandest sensation of the whole trip to the ordinary traveller. The most magnificent scenery is soon spread be- fore the tourist. No other three miles ■of railway in the world affords such a

��succession of wild and startling views as the passenger has on his mountain ride on this iron line up the steep in- clination of this mighty summit of the great northern range. We get glimpses of the wide valley below, the bold land- scape ever changing, yet always filled with grand and startling outlines. Up and up we go. We pass Gulf station, Naumbet station, Jacob's Ladder, and the monument of stones which marks the spot where, in 1855, Miss Lizzie Bourne of Maine died from exposure. At last we are at the summit, in front of the hospitable looking Tip Top House. We are standing at an altitude of over six thousand feet above the sea, or to be exact, 6,293 feet, according to Professor Guyot, on the highest point of land with one exception east of the Rocky Mountains.

" Isn 't the thought inspiring," I re- marked to my companions, " that we are on the highest land for which our fathers fought a century ago?"

" And is it not the theme the ultima

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