A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and reform papers. — John Shaqi
A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and reform papers.Thoreau, Henry David
History
A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and reform papers.
Thoreau, Henry David
Brown, John, 1800-1859; Québec (Province) -- Description and travel; Slavery -- United States
borne coachwise along the spacious but yet empty avenues. Keene is built
on a remarkably large and level interval, like the bed of a lake, and
the surrounding hills, which are remote from its street, must afford
some good walks. The scenery of mountain towns is commonly too much
crowded. A town which is built on a plain of some extent, with an open
horizon, and surrounded by hills at a distance, affords the best walks
and views.
As we travel northwest up the country, sugar-maples, beeches, birches,
hemlocks, spruce, butternuts, and ash trees prevail more and more. To
the rapid traveller the number of elms in a town is the measure of its
civility. One man in the cars has a bottle full of some liquor. The
whole company smile whenever it is exhibited. I find no difficulty in
containing myself. The Westmoreland country looked attractive. I heard a
passenger giving the very obvious derivation of this name,
West-more-land, as if it were purely American, and he had made a
discovery; but I thought of “my cousin Westmoreland” in England. Every
one will remember the approach to Bellows Falls, under a high cliff
which rises from the Connecticut. I was disappointed in the size of the
river here; it appeared shrunk to a mere mountain stream. The water was
evidently very low. The rivers which we had crossed this forenoon
possessed more of the character of mountain streams than those in the
vicinity of Concord, and I was surprised to see everywhere traces of
recent freshets, which had carried away bridges and injured the
railroad, though I had heard nothing of it. In Ludlow, Mount Holly, and
beyond, there is interesting mountain scenery, not rugged and
stupendous, but such as you could easily ramble over,—long narrow
mountain vales through which to see the horizon. You are in the midst of
the Green Mountains. A few more elevated blue peaks are seen from the
neighborhood of Mount Holly, perhaps Killington Peak is one. Sometimes,
as on the Western Railroad, you are whirled over mountainous
embankments, from which the scared horses in the valleys appear
diminished to hounds. All the hills blush; I think that autumn must be
the best season to journey over even the _Green_ Mountains. You
frequently exclaim to yourself, what _red_ maples! The sugar-maple is
not so red. You see some of the latter with rosy spots or cheeks only,
blushing on one side like fruit, while all the rest of the tree is
green, proving either some partiality in the light or frosts, or some
prematurity in particular branches. Tall and slender ash trees, whose
foliage is turned to a dark mulberry color, are frequent. The butternut,
which is a remarkably spreading tree, is turned completely yellow, thus
proving its relation to the hickories. I was also struck by the bright
yellow tints of the yellow-birch. The sugar-maple is remarkable for its
clean ankle. The groves of these trees looked like vast forest sheds,
their branches stopping short at a uniform height, four or five feet
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