But here lay Roan, a long, sprawling
ridge, lifting itself 6250 feet up into the sky. Impossible to go
around it, and the other side must be reached. The Professor was
obliged to surrender, and surmount a difficulty which he could not
philosophize out of his mind.

From the base of the mountain a road is very well engineered, in easy
grades for carriages, to the top; but it was in poor repair and
stony. We mounted slowly through splendid forests, specially of fine
chestnuts and hemlocks. This big timber continues till within a mile
and a half of the summit by the winding road, really within a short
distance of the top. Then there is a narrow belt of scrubby
hardwood, moss-grown, and then large balsams, which crown the
mountain. As soon as we came out upon the southern slope we found
great open spaces, covered with succulent grass, and giving excellent
pasturage to cattle. These rich mountain meadows are found on all
the heights of this region. The surface of Roan is uneven, and has
no one culminating peak that commands the country, like the peak of
Mount Washington, but several eminences within its range of probably
a mile and a half, where various views can be had. Near the highest
point, sheltered from the north by balsams, stands a house of
entertainment, with a detached cottage, looking across the great
valley to the Black Mountain range. The surface of the mountain is
pebbly, but few rocks crop out; no ledges of any size are seen except
at a distance from the hotel, on the north side, and the mountain
consequently lacks that savage, unsubduable aspect which the White
Hills of New Hampshire have. It would, in fact, have been difficult
to realize that we were over six thousand feet above the sea, except
for that pallor in the sunlight, that atmospheric thinness and want
of color which is an unpleasant characteristic of high altitudes. To
be sure, there is a certain brilliancy in the high air,--it is apt to
be foggy on Roan,--and objects appear in sharp outline, but I have
often experienced on such places that feeling of melancholy, which
would, of course, deepen upon us all if we were sensible that the sun
was gradually withdrawing its power of warmth and light. The black
balsam is neither a cheerful nor a picturesque tree; the frequent
rains and mists on Roan keep the grass and mosses green, but the
ground damp. Doubtless a high mountain covered with vegetation has
its compensation, but for me the naked granite ro