ses on Thatcher's Island, seeming,
from here, to be standing, not on the land, but out in the ocean. Nearer
and more distinct is Boston Light--a sentinel at the entrance to the
harbor, while beyond it stretches Massachusetts Bay. Turning nearly east
the eye, passing over Chickatawbut Hill--three miles off and second in
height of the Blue Hills--follows the beautiful curve of Nantasket
Beach, and the pointing finger of Minot's Light. Facing nearly south,
the long ridge of Manomet Hill in Plymouth, thirty-three miles away,
stands clear against the sky, while twenty-six miles away, in Duxbury,
one sees the Myles Standish Monument. Directly south rises the smoke of
the city of Fall River; to the westerly, Woonsocket, and continuing to
the west, Mount Wachusett in Princeton. Far to the right of Wachusett,
nearly over the dome of the Dedham Courthouse, rounds up Watatic in
Ashburnham, and northwest a dozen peaks of southern New Hampshire. At
the right of Watatic and far beyond it is the Grand Monadnock in
Jaffrey, 3170 feet above the sea and sixty-seven and a half miles away.
On the right of Grand Monadnock is a group of nearer summits: Mount
Kidder, exactly northwest; Spofford and Temple Mountains; then appears
the remarkable Pack-Monadnock, near Peterboro, with its two equal
summits. The next group to the right is in Lyndeboro. At the right of
Lyndeboro, and nearly over the Readville railroad stations, is Joe
English Hill, and to complete the round, nearly north-northwest are the
summits of the Uncanoonuc Mountains, fifty-nine miles away.

This, then, is the Great Blue Hill of Milton. Those who are familiar
with the State of Massachusetts--and New England--can stand here and
pick out a hundred distinguishing landmarks, and those who have never
been here before may find an unparalleled opportunity to see the whole
region at one sweep of the eye.

From the point of view of topography the summit of Great Blue Hill is
the place to reach. But for the sense of mysterious beauty, for snatches
of pictures one will never forget, the little vistas which open on the
upward or the downward trail, framed by hanging boughs or encircled by a
half frame of stone and hillside--these are, perhaps, more lovely. The
hill itself, seen from a distance, floating lightly like a vast blue
ball against a vaster sky, is dreamily suggestive in a way which the
actual view, superb as it is, is not. One remembers Stevenson's
observation, that sometimes