While breakfasting at Littleton this morning, I came to the conclusion to leave my baggage and visit Franconia. I jumped into the stage, and after a very pleasant ride of seventeen miles, found myself far into the Notch, in the midst of whose scenery I am to repose this night. I reached here in time to enjoy an early dinner with “mine host;” after which I sallied forth to examine the wonders of the place, but was so delighted with everything around, that I did not take time to make a single sketch. I saw the Flume, and was astonished. It is a chasm in the mountain, thirty feet wide, about a hundred deep, and some two thousand long, and as regular in its shape as if it had been cut by the hand of man. Bridging its centre is a rock of many tons weight, which one would suppose could only have been hurled there from the heavens. Through its centre flows a little brook, which soon passes over a succession of rocky slides, and which are almost as smooth and white as marble. And to cap the climax, this Flume is the centre of as perfect and holy a wilderness of scenery as could be imagined.
I have also seen (what should be the pride of the Merrimack, as it is upon one of its tributaries) the most superb pool in this whole country. The fall above it is not remarkable, but the forest-covered rocks on either side, and the pool itself, are wonderfully fine. In the first place, you must remember, that the waters of this whole region are cold as ice, and very clear. The pool forms a circle of about one hundred feet in diameter, and is said to be fifty feet in depth. Owing to the fall, it is the “head-quarters” of the trout, which are found all along the stream in great abundance. After I had completed a drawing, I laid aside my pencils and fixed my fishing rod. I threw the line only about two hours and caught forty-five trout. Among them was the great-grandfather of all trout, as I thought at the time, he was seventeen inches long, and weighed two pounds and one ounce.
The Old Man of the Mountain is another of the lions of this place. It is a cone-shaped mountain (at the foot of which is a small lake), upon whose top are some rocks, which have a resemblance to the profile of an old man. It is really a very curious affair. There the old fellow stands, as he has stood perhaps for centuries, “looking the whole world in the face.” I wonder if the thunder ever frightens him? and does the lightning play around his brow without making him wink? His business there, I suppose, is to protect the “ungranted lands” of New Hampshire, or keep Isaac Hill from lecturing the White Mountains on Locofocoism. He need not trouble himself as to the first fear, for they could not be deeded even to a bear; and as to the second, I do not believe the mountains could ever be persuaded to vote for the acquisition of New Territory. Every plant upon them speaks of freedom, and in their fastnesses does the eagle find a home,—their banner-symbols are the stars and stripes, and therefore they must be Whigs.