BOOKS.
CHRONICLES OF A STROLLER IN NEW ENGLAND,* OF the more startling features of American scenery we hear plenty. The Falls of Niagara, the Rookies, the Yosemite Valley, the great rivers and the great plains, have been de- scribed again and again, and in language which, to use the phrase of the newspaper which chronicled the last exploit of Mr. Micawber and his family, "exhausts the typographical resources" of the printing-house. It is far seldomer that we get glimpses of the quieter scenery of wild New England. We have been made to understand what Boston, New York, and Philadelphia look like ; we know something even of the villages of New England. But to most of us the country at the back of the great cities is absolutely invisible. No one has as yet made us see the ordinary " uplandish " counties of New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. What is wanted is an American Hardy who will distil for us the essence of New England scenery. Till, however, this inspired interpreter appears, we may gain a good deal of information and entertainment from the very pleasant writer whose work forms the subject of the present article. For the wilder aspects of New England scenery, for the hills, lakes, and forests, his book, indeed, is all that is required. We get from it a living picture of the mountainous parts of the long- settled States. Supplemented by an account of the mini. vated tracts, we should be able to realise what the country parts of New England look like. Like so many successful painters in words, Mr, Bolles is primarily a naturalist. He approaches the country he loves in the spirit of White, and we recognise in his manner of writing and thinking that he is one of the great band of English naturalists. Readers on this side of the Atlantic will bo specially delighted to see bow the English settlers of New England have given an English touch to a landscape which, in many ways, is so dif- ferent from that of England. To speak thus sounds somewhat paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true. Mr. Ruskin has pointed out that what gives the charm, the touch of life and feeling, to the woods and fields, is the something which man and his works have added to them. The footpath that crosses the meadow, the hedgerow, the sheep on the down, the faint column of blue smoke, are necessary conductors of sympathy. But this indefinable something which man throws on the landscape has been thrown both in New England and in Old by the English kin; and hence it is impossible to describe * At the North of Boaroamp Water : Chronicles of a Stroller m New England from July to December. By Frank Bolles. Boston and New York : Houghton, MA CO. Cemtriege The Riverside Press, ISO. even the wilder aspects of New England scenery without striking a chord of feeling to which both branches of the race respond.
Mr. Bolles does not give us any exact geographical informa- tion; but apparently the group of mountains—Chocorua, Whiteface, Paugus, and Bear mountain—which form the background of most of his pictures, belong to the highlands of New Hampshire. The waters and swamps at the base of these hills, and the forests that clothe their knees and even their summits, are his points of vantage for watching for squirrels, wood-chucks, coons, and every other sort of beast and bird. Delightful is his description of a great grove of oaks at the edge of a lake held by the squirrels as " tenants-in- -common with wood-chucks and racoons," and across which a family of porcupines have a right of way " by virtue of unopposed use running back till the memory of rodents knoweth nothing to the contrary." Of the porcupines, Mr. Bolles has many pleasant things to say. Among others, we are glad to note, that "it is impossible to shake the hunter's belief in the brutes' powers to shoot their quills at their enemies." That is satisfactory. One would grudge that the legend should perish in the fierce light that beats from six- penny handbooks of zoology. One of Mr. Bolles's most striking papers is termed "A Night Alone on Chocorua." It describes how he climbed to the top of the mountain one hot evening in August, and there assisted at the long-drawn pageant of the darkness, and then of the dawn. We would gladly quote the whole of his minute and faithful inventory of the effects witnessed from the peak of Chocorua,. All we can do, however, is to give his account of the rising of the sun : "At a quarter after three I noticed that the cloudbank which day along the eastern and northern horizon was becoming more sharply defined by the gradual growth of a white band above it. A greater orb than Venus was undermining her power in the east. The white line imperceptibly turned to a delicate green, and extended its area to left and right and upward. The clouds in the high sky took on harder outlines and rounder shapes. shadows were being cast among them, and a light was stealing through them from something brighter even than the yellow moon. The pale green band had changed to blue, the blue was deepening to violet, and through this violet sky the brightest 'eteor of the night passed slowly down until it met the hills. High in the sky the stars were growing dim, and the spaces between the clouds, which looked for all the world like a badly painted picture, were growing blue, deep real blue. The line of brightest light above the eastern clouds showed a margin of orange. Venus in the violet sky was still dazzling, but her glory was no longer of the night, but of the twilight. She was wonder- ful, in spite of the stronger light which was slowly overpowering her. Mars burned like a red coal low down in the west, unaffected thus far by the sun's rays, while Jupiter, supreme among the high stars, was paling fast as the light of day rolled towards him. The Eastern sky looked strangely flat, Its colours were like a pastel drawing. Small, very black clouds, with hard outlines, lay mire• sieved against the violet, silver, and orange. A full hour had sped by since I first noted the coming of the day, and still the earth below slept on. Hark ! up from the deep valley below the Cow comes a single bird-voice, but scarcely are its notes sprinkled upon the cool, clear air, when a dozen, yes, fifty singers join their voices in a medley of morning music. The first songster was a white-throat, and the bulk of the chorus was made of juncos and white-throats, the stronger song of Swainson's and hermit thrushes coming in clearly now and then from points more dis- tant from the peak."
"Bringing Home the Bear" is a pleasant study of an ex- pedition to fetch home the body of a bear killed by a local hunter. It is introduced by the recital of an incident which shows the character of the men who inhabit the hills of New Hampshire ; and makes us wish that Mr. Bolles had told us more about the people who live round "Bearcamp Water." Of the few scattered passages which deal with the people, one of the most striking is the reference to a deserted New England village. We talk of land going out of cultivation in England, and of the people leaving the land, but not even in Wiltshire or Essex could be seen such a sight as that described in the following passage :- " The road was a new one to me, but I knew that it led through one of the saddest regions in the Bearcamp valley. A generation ago the North Division' was comparatively thickly settled. More than a dozen comfortable sets of buildings were tenanted on those sunny slopes. Children flocked to the little schoolhouse, corn rustled in the fields, and farmer's gee' echoed back to farmer's wah-hish ' from the plowings or wood-lot. Now the porcupine and the skunk, the chimney swift and the adder are the undis- puted owners of the deserted farms. The people have gone as though the plague had smitten the land, and houses, barns, fences, bridges, and well-sweeps are mouldering away together. Why is it ? Ask the West and the great cities, which between them have drawn the young blood from New England's rural families, leaving
the old and feeble to struggle alone with life on the hills. A kindlier region than this could be depopulated by such &process."
There is, however, a certain reflex action going on, as is shown by the passage which immediately fo!lows :— " The most remote and the highest farm in the North Division shone, as we approached it, like a brass button. Carpenters, painters, and home-makers had been at work upon it until the hills and trews knew it for its old self no longer. Nevertheless it was as empty and silent as the decaying farmsteads below. Gazing from its terrace upon the far view of Ossipee Lake, the broad Bearcamp valley, and the semicircle of hills and mountains from Wakefield to Chocorua, I understood why its present owner came from the shores of Lako Michigan to spend his summer in its beautiful quiet."
Though we have somewhat misrepresented Mr. Bolles's book by not quoting any of his minute descriptions of bird or animal life, we shall end our notice by referring to his interesting account of "'Lection Day, '92 ;" that is, of the first election held in the Hill district under the Australian ballot system. What strikes one in the account is the " old- fashioned " air of the whole proceeding. The" up-to-dateness" of the modern English election has no parallel in that natural home of rustic conservatism,—a New England State. It is apparently necessary in New England to hold a sort of public meeting before the poll is opened. At least that was the course pursued at Tamworth, :— " The warrant for the meeting is read, and immediately after an elder offers prayer, the hats and caps being doffed in obedience to a loud call of hats off,' The prayer is simple and earnest, asking for help in a freeman's highest duty. A moderator is chosen, and he delivers a brief and clear lecture upon the machinery of the new ballot law. Then a resolution is passed with a shout, allowing the old men to vote first, and the greybeards are pushed gently forward to the inclosed space in which the five little voting booths are built. The voters are kept waiting half an hour, because at first no one can open the patent ballot-box, but at last it gives way to some persuasive touch and the d Ly's work is fairly begun. By noon about fifty men have passed the guard, taken their folded ballots, entered the little booths, and spent from two to ten minutes each in marking or trying to mark for their favourite candidates. This is a great thing for the fools,' said an old farmer ; they can look just as wise as the wisest of us, but they nor nobody else will ever know just who they voted for.' One man, after entering the booth, came out and said he wanted some one to mark for him. Step this way,' shouted the moderator, 'and take your solemn oath that you cannot read your ballot and
must have help in marking I won't swear to anything of the kind,' said the man indignantly, and he went back to his booth. The crowd became impatient at the delay, and began fo push hard for the narrow entrance. Strong men cried out in pain or anger ; the stove tottered and part of the pipe fell, scattering soot on the nearest heads ; the moderator thundered rebukes, and several men went home disgusted with the now-fangled system, only to be dragged back later by the committees of their respective parties."
Just imagine the indignation if the Ballot Act had " broken down" in this way at an English election. There would have been a Special Commission ordered to inquire into its failure. There are plenty more good things, not only in " 'Lection Day, '92," but in the rest of Mr. Bolles's book. We must leave our readers, however, to discover them for themselves.
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