While at Augusta, we crossed the river and visited the Insane Asylum, a state institution, lying on the pleasant declivities of the opposite shore. It is a handsome stone building. One of the medical attendants accompanied us over a part of the building, and showed us some of the wards in which there were then scarcely any patients, and which appeared to be in excellent order, with the best arrangements for the comfort of the inmates, and a scrupulous attention to cleanliness. When we expressed a desire to see the patients, and to learn something of the manner in which they were treated, he replied, "We do not make a show of our patients; we only show the building." Our visit was, of course, soon dispatched. We learned afterward that this was either insolence or laziness on the part of the officer in question, whose business it properly was to satisfy any reasonable curiosity expressed by visitors. It had been our intention to cross the country from Augusta directly to the White Hills in New Hampshire, and we took seats in the stage-coach with that view. Back of Augusta the country swells into hills of considerable height with deep hollows between, in which lie a multitude of lakes. We passed several of these, beautifully embosomed among woods, meadows, and pastures, and were told that if we continued on the course we had taken we should scarcely ever find ourselves without some sheet of water in sight till we arrived at Fryeburg on the boundary between Maine and New Hampshire. One of them, in the township of Winthrop, struck us as particularly beautiful. Its shores are clean and bold, with little promontories running far into the water, and several small islands. At Winthrop we found that the coach in which we set out would proceed to Portland, and that if we intended to go on to Fryeburg, we must take seats in a shabby wagon, without the least protection for our baggage. It was already beginning to rain, and this circumstance decided us; we remained in the coach and proceeded on our return to Portland. I have scarcely ever travelled in a country which presented a finer appearance of agricultural thrift and prosperity than the portions of the counties of Kennebeck and Cumberland, through which our road carried us. The dwellings are large, neatly painted, surrounded with fruit-trees and shrubs, and the farms in excellent order, and apparently productive. We descended at length into the low country, crossed the Androscoggin to the county of York, where, as we proceeded, the country became more sandy and sterile, and the houses had a neglected aspect. At length, after a journey of fifty or sixty miles in the rain, we were again set down in the pleasant town of Portland. Letter XLII. The White Mountains. Springfield, Mass., _August_ 13, 1847.