Every tourist through the White Mountains knows the propensity of the natives to increase the interest of their region, by pointing out all sorts of fancied zoological likenesses in their rocks and mountains--so that before he sees the "_Old Man_," he will be apt to rank him, in advance, with the facial pretensions he has already seen. But, no! this time the artist has made a hit, and the likeness is admirable. There is nothing vague, imperfect, or disproportioned about him. You are not forced to _imagine_ a brow to the nose, or go in search of a chin to support the mouth. They are all there!--a bent, heavy brow, not stern, but earnest--a straight, sharp nose--lips thin and with the very weakness of extreme senility in their pinched-up lines--and a chin, long and massive, thrown forward with a certain air of obstinacy, that completes the character of the likeness! The mass of rock forming this extraordinary profile is said to be eighty feet in height; is fifteen hundred feet above the lake, and about half a mile from a spectator in the road--from which point it appears to be at the top of the mountain though it is really five hundred feet below the summit. The "Old Man" does not change his countenance under the closest scrutiny of the spy-glass, constantly leveled at him by the starers "beneath his notice." Under such inspection the likeness loses none of its human character, though the cheeks of the veteran appear woefully cut-up and scarred. But it seems rude to peer thus impertinently into the wrinkles and "crow's-feet" of his grim visage that has faced, perhaps, centuries of sun and tempest. Nor is it advisable to take your first look at him when the sun lights up the chasms of his granite cheek, and the cavernous mystery of his bent brow. Go to him when in the solemn light of evening the mountain heaves up from the darkening lake its vast wave of luxuriant foliage--sit on one of those rocks by the road-side, and look, if you can, without awe, at the Granite Face hung against the luminous sky--human in its lineaments--supernatural in size and position--weird-like in its shadowy mystery, but its sharp outline wearing an expression of mortal sadness that gives it the most fascinating interest! If this singular profile has existed long enough, it must have been an object of veneration to the aborigines. Mr. Oakes, in his _White Mountain Scenery_, says it was first publicly made known to the whites only as far back as forty years ago. It is curious to observe the odd changes of the profile, as we advance or recede along the road. Now it resembles an old woman--now it flattens like a negro's face, and now its nose presents an "eagle-beak," like the Duke of Wellington's! A peculiar feature of beauty in the Profile Mountain is the rare luxuriance of its forest of birch and beech, with an occasional hemlock rising spire-like from its groves. The "Old Man" has a remarkable echo, with which (after a becoming deliberate pause)