When the dispatch from Long's
Peak had once become known, there was but one universal feeling of surprise and alarm.
However, on we went, till we saw before us, and between ourselves and the
peak, a vast circular hole with sloping sides, three hundred feet or more in depth, and quite half a mile round.
Day by day it varied in form, or rather its lower
peaks, and the summits of others of the chain emerged above the clear horizon, and finally the inferior line of hills which connected most of them rose to view.
Hillocks grow into hills, and hills into mountains, each range overlying its neighbor, until they soar up in the giant chain which raises its spotless and untrodden
peaks, white and dazzling, against the pale blue wintry sky.
'Now, it is of no use,
Peak,' said Sir John, raising his hand in deprecation of his delivering any message; 'I am not at home.
The evening breeze had sprung up, and though it was well warded off by the hill with the two
peaks upon the east, the cordage had begun to sing a little softly to itself and the idle sails to rattle to and fro.
That very night a telegram was sent from the station of Long's
Peak by Joseph T.
Captain Nemo went towards the
peak, which he doubtless meant to be his observatory.
The conversation of our party soon became more animated and sincere, and we recounted some traditions of the Indians, who believed that the father and mother of their race were saved from a deluge by ascending the
peak of Mount Washington.
Amongst other things he has a special knowledge of the
Peak and its caverns, and knows all the old legends of prehistoric times."
They say the great
peak opposite this town is five thousand feet high: but I feel sure that three thousand feet of that statement is a good honest lie.
When in tall trees the dying moonbeams quiver: When floods of fire efface the Silver River, Then comes the hour when I must seek Lo-Yang beyond the furthest
peak. But the warm twilight round us twain Will never rise again.