it last summer; making our way into the jaws from the
foot of the great slides on Dix, keeping along the ragged spurs of the
mountain through the virgin forest. The pass is narrow, walled in on
each side by precipices of granite, and blocked up with bowlders and
fallen trees, and beset with pitfalls in the roads ingeniously covered
with fair-seeming moss. When the climber occasionally loses sight of a
leg in one of these treacherous holes, and feels a cold sensation in his
foot, he learns that he has dipped into the sources of the Boquet, which
emerges lower down into falls and rapids, and, recruited by creeping
tributaries, goes brawling through the forest basin, and at last comes
out an amiable and boat-bearing stream in the valley of Elizabeth Town.
From the summit another rivulet trickles away to the south, and finds
its way through a frightful tamarack swamp, and through woods scarred by
ruthless lumbering, to Mud Pond, a quiet body of water, with a ghastly
fringe of dead trees, upon which people of grand intentions and weak
vocabulary are trying to fix the name of Elk Lake. The descent of the
pass on that side is precipitous and exciting. The way is in the stream
itself; and a considerable portion of the distance we swung ourselves
down the faces of considerable falls, and tumbled down cascades. The
descent, however, was made easy by the fact that it rained, and
every footstep was yielding and slippery. Why sane people, often
church-members respectably connected, will subject themselves to this
sort of treatment,--be wet to the skin, bruised by the rocks, and flung
about among the bushes and dead wood until the most necessary part of
their apparel hangs in shreds,--is one of the delightful mysteries of
these woods. I suspect that every man is at heart a roving animal, and
likes, at intervals, to revert to the condition of the bear and the
catamount.

There is no trail through Hunter's Pass, which, as I have intimated, is
the least frequented portion of this wilderness. Yet we were surprised
to find a well-beaten path a considerable portion of the way and
wherever a path is possible. It was not a mere deer's runway: these are
found everywhere in the mountains. It is trodden by other and larger
animals, and is, no doubt, the highway of beasts. It bears marks of
having been so for a long period, and probably a period long ago. Large
animals are not common in these woods now, and you seldom meet anything
fiercer than