The lines of the Sandwich Mountains, on the northwest, of which the lonely Chocorua, who seems to have pushed his fellows away from him, is the most northerly summit, are the most striking features of the borders of the lake. An American artist who had lived many years in Italy, on a recent visit to this country, went to Winnipiseogee with the writer of these pages. He was greatly impressed and charmed with the outlines of this range, which is seen at once from the boat as she leaves Weir's landing. He had not supposed that any water view in New England was bordered with such a mountain frame. And before the steamer had shot out from-the bay upon the bosom of the lake, he had transferred to his sketch-book its long combination of domes and heavy scrolls and solid walls, all leading to a pyramid that supports a peak desolate and sheer.
The most striking picture, perhaps, to be seen on the lake, is a view which is given of the Sandwich range in going from Weir's to Centre Harbor, as the steamer shoots across a little bay, after passing Bear Island, about four miles from the latter village. The whole chain is seen several miles away, as you look up the bay, between Red Hill on the left, and the Ossipee mountains on the right. If there is no wind, and if there are shadows enough from clouds to spot the range, the beauty will seem weird and unsubstantial,-as though it might fade away the next minute. The weight seems to be taken out of the mountains. We might almost say
They are but sailing foam-bells
Along Thought's causing stream,
And take their shape and sun-color
From him that sends the dream.
Only they do not sail, they repose. The quiet of the water and the sleep of the hills seem to have the quality of still ecstasy. It is only inland water that can suggest and inspire such rest. The sea itself, though it can be clear, is never calm, in the sense that a mountain lake can be calm. The sea seems only to pause; the mountain lake to sleep and to dream.
But there is one view which, though far less lovely, is more exciting to one who has been a frequent visitor of the mountains. It is where Mount Washington is visible from a portion of the steamer's track, for some fifteen or twenty minutes. Passing by the westerly declivity of the Ossipee ridge, looking across a low slope of the Sandwich range and far back of them, a dazzling white spot perhaps-if it is very early in the summer-gleams on the northern horizon. Gradually it mounts and mounts, and then runs down again as suddenly, making us wonder, possibly, what it can be. A minute or two more, and the unmistakable majesty of Washington is revealed. There he rises, forty miles away, towering from a plateau built for his throne, dim green in the distance, except the dome that is crowned with winter, and the strange figures that are scrawled around his waist in snow.