Black Mountain

“ A black mountain is a sinister object. There is a kind of fear which does not concern itself with real things that might happen, but is a primitive fear of nature herself. Even the bandits admitted feeling it sometimes. It is a fear of something impending in the bare spaces, as though the mountains threatened. A little creeping chill that had nothing to do with the cool of evening kept us close behind the Ford. At the [Pg 47] bottom of the rough slope lay a somber basin full of shadow, beyond which rose an abrupt, high ridge of sand. ”

“ Its situation leaves nothing to be desired in an ideal mountain village. So completely is it secluded from the rest of the world by its environment of mountains, that you might pass and repass the Pemigewasset Valley a hundred times without once surprising the secret of its existence. All those houses, half hid beneath groves of maples, bespeak luxurious repose. Opposite to Black Mountain, whose dark forest drapery hides the mass of the mountain, is the immense whitish-yellow rock called Welch Mountain. Only a scanty vegetation is suffered to creep among the crevices. ”

“ The summits of these mountains are of almost every figure, from the arch, to the bold, bluff, and sharp cone. In some instances, the loftier ones are bald, solemn, and forbidding; in others, they are clothed and crowned with verdure. It is the peculiarity of Lake George, that, while all the world agrees to speak only of its loveliness, it is surrounded by features of the highest grandeur and sublimity. The Black Mountain is one of these; and there is every variety of chasm, crag, promontory, and peak, which a painter would require for the noblest composition of mountain scenery. ”

“ BLACK MOUNTAIN, a mountain range and district on the Hazara border of the North-West Frontier Province of India. It is inhabited by Yusafzai Pathans. The Black Mountain itself has a total length of 25 to 50 m., and an average height of 8000 ft. ”

“ And so deeply had he descended now, that the sunshine, silver rather than golden, already streamed past far over his head along the ridges, and no gleam found its way to where he was. The shadows, too, no longer blue and purple, had changed to black, as though woven of some delicate substance that had definite thickness, like a veil. Across the opposite slope, one of the mountain summits in the western sky already dropped its monstrous shadow fringed with pines. ”

“ The Mountain Itself The Black Mountain may be described as a long, narrow ridge with higher peaks at intervals, and occasional deep passes; the general outline of the crest is more rounded than sharp. From the sides numerous large spurs project, which are often precipitous and rocky, with deep, narrow glens or gorges lying between them, in which are some of the smaller villages of the tribes, the larger ones being, as a rule, situated on the banks of the Indus. ”

“ The Black Mountain is the quarter where the old families live, and the silence is profound. The space that Europeans would reserve for recreation and games, the Chinese consecrate to retreat. In this animal honeycomb, between these streets seething with an unclean humanity, they reserve wide unused spaces,—empty enclosures that are the inheritance of some distinguished person, and that cloister his household gods. ”

“ The mists had lifted from it, but the snow had fallen deep. Poor Valley lay white and drear—it seemed to him that he had never before known how drear—between the grim mountain with its great black crags, its chasms, its gaunt, naked trees, and the long line of flinty hills, whose stunted pines bent with the weight of the snow.
There was no smoke from the chimney of the blacksmith's shop. There were no footprints about the door. An atmosphere charged with calamity seemed to hang over the dwelling. ”

“ The Black Mountain, as you well know, is a long curved ridge, 15 or 20 miles in length, its base having somewhat the form of a common fish-hook, of which the extremity of the shank is near Thomas Young’s, in Yancey. ”

“ For five miles the road skirts the western slopes of the valley, which grows continually deeper, narrower, and higher. Spruce Mountain is now on our left, the broad flanks of Black Mountain occupy the right side of the valley. Beyond Black Mountain Carter Dome lifts its ponderous mass, and between them the dip of the Perkins Notch, dividing the two ranges, gives admittance to the Wild River Valley, and to the Androscoggin, in Shelburne. ”

“ Their highest summit north of the Usk, on the eastern side, where they are known as the Black Mountains, or sometimes the Black Forest Mountains, is Pen y Gader (2624 ft.) between Talgarth and Llanthony, and on the south-west the twin peaks of the Mynydd Du (“Black Mountain”) or the so-called Carmarthenshire Vans or Beacons, only the higher of which, Fan Brycheiniog (2632 ft.) ”

“ A little north of Shelving Rock is the Black Mountain, its summit twenty-two hundred feet high, thickly covered with the dark spruce, and its sides robed with the cedar, fir, pine, and tamarac. There the wild deer, the bear, and the catamount have free range, for the hunter seldom toils up its weary ascent.
* This little sketch was taken from the steam-boat, near the south end of Long Island, which appears in the foreground. Long Point is seen in the center, and on the right are Dunham's Bay and the northern extremity of the French Mountain. ”

“ Before describing the Black Mountain itself and the various tribes which inhabit its slopes, it may be as well to say something about the country which encompasses it on three sides and about the men who occupy it. ”

“ It fact the traveller, once acquainted with the fanciful legend, will remember it at every turn; and the higher he climbs, up towards the giant-keeper of the Hungarian frontier, the towering Black Mountain (the Czernahora) , the more it will appear to him as though a contest between opposing forces had verily taken place; the upper valley certainly is one of the wildest and fairest spots on earth. ”

“ There was no path, but we pressed directly up the steep side, through bushes and long grass, and in a short time reached the top, breathless from such exertion in the thin atmosphere. The pine woods shut out the view to the north and east, which is said to be magnificent, as the mountain is about five thousand feet high. The wild, black peaks of the Black Forest were spread below us, and the sun sank through golden mist towards the Alsatian hills. Afar to the south, through cloud and storm, we could just trace the white outline of the Swiss Alps. ”

“ The flanks of the Purple Mountain have been planed down by the moving ice, and the rocky amphitheatre which the guides choose for the production of echoes has been scooped and polished by the same agency. Near the point where the road from the Gap joins that up the Black Valley is a slab of rock, which rivals the famous Höllen Platte in Haslithal. The Black Valley, indeed, was the mould through which a great glacier from the adjacent mountains moved, ‘unhasting, unresting,’ grinding the rocks right and left, and filling the entire basin now occupied by the waters of the Upper Lake. ”

“ With a mean breadth of 28, and a total length of 90 miles, it develops itself in a westerly direction, at the foot of the sombre mountain-chain known as the Black Hills. On issuing from the immense, uniform, and monotonous prairie, the traveller finds himself suddenly transported, after a descent of 100 to 200 feet, into a depression of the soil where rise a myriad of abrupt rocks, irregular or prismatic, or like columns dressed with enormous pyramids, and from 110 to 220 feet in height. ”

“ The forest closed in upon it from all sides, pierced only by roads that lead to picturesque villages, equally out of the world; or by glades that meandered among the trees till they stopped at a secluded farmhouse or sawmill droning away its life on some little turbulent mountain stream.
Everywhere one came across evidences that the fairy life of the deep woods mingled more or less freely with the peasant life of the village⁠—pools were haunted; certain pathways unsafe after dark; open knolls were used by the witches for their revels ”

“ Harney Peak stands like a sentinel in Custer Park. The highest point in the Black Hills, it rises to an altitude of 7,242 feet, 4,000 feet above the prairie floor outside the Hills. Higher by 900 feet than Mount Washington in New Hampshire, it is the highest mountain east of the Rockies. ”

“ On the border-line of Dakota and Wyoming, and therefore within the Indian reservation, stand the Black Hills, a rugged mountain group rising nearly 8,000 feet above the sea level, an insight into whose wild and romantic fastnesses we have already given. ”

“ A gust of wind tore an opening in the mist and the vision of a heaped mountainous landscape grew before their eyes. Southward the indented bow of Radnor Forest rose blue-black, the summit of Black Mixen hugely threatening. Westward p. 271in molten clouds the sun went down over Wales and fifty miles of thin air and solid mountain were mingled in a fiery haze. The sky was a furnace in which the mountains melted away. But Abner and Mary had no desire to see these splendours. Their eyes were fixed, peering into the trough of the valley beneath them. ”

“ We again follow a beautiful mountain stream, Spring Creek, through Sheridan and down to Hill City. Along the road we find some real rock cliffs running up several hundred feet and we can here see the plan of the rock layers, thrown in, tilted on edge, the formation which is general throughout the Black Hills. At Sheridan there is a good looking tourist camp, including cabins. ”

“ CUTBANK RIVER. A GOOD TROUT RIFFLE July 27.
Last night, in Black Bull’s lodge, we had more tales of the long ago in this Cutbank Valley. Would that I had the time to collect all the [Pg 85] Blackfeet legends of the various places in their once enormous domain. From the Saskatchewan to the Yellowstone, and from the Rockies between these two streams, eastward for about three hundred miles, there are tales of adventure, of camp-life, and wonderful legends, for every mountain, stream, butte, and spring within that great area. ”

“ After climbing a gently sloping 'hog-back' for about eight miles, you are at the top of the divide and one thousand feet higher than Hot Springs, which may be seen on the left. Looking ahead you can see Harney Peak, the highest mountain in the Black Hills district ”

“ The first mention I have met with of an Indian name for the White Mountains is in the narrative of John Gyles’s captivity, printed in Boston in 1736, saying:
“These White Hills, at the head of Penobscot River, are by the Indians said to be much higher than those called Agiockochook, [14] above Saco.”
The similitude between the names White Mountains and Mont Blanc suggests the same idea, that color, rather than character, makes the first and strongest impression upon the beholder. Thus we have White Mountains and Green Mountains, Red Mountains and Black Mountains, the world over. ”

“ THE USK. The Black Mountains—Trecastle—The Gaer—Brecon—The Brecknock Beacons—Crickhowell—Abergavenny—Usk—Caerleon and the Arthurian Legend—Christchurch—Newport.
THE wild and inclement Black Mountains, “Fforest Fawr,” between Carmarthenshire and Brecknockshire, collect the first drops that, trickling down the side of the hills, gather volume and strength and in time become rivers that are the delight and pride of a country. ”

“ The mountains, with their shining heads piercing through light clouds into that wonderful blue of the western sky, and their feet pushed into the pine masses, gazed down upon Black Rock with calm, kindly looks on their old grey faces. ”

“ Almost as soon as this era of upheaval first started, as soon as the first land of the Black Hills was elevated above the great sea, the forces of erosion set to work. Wind and rain worked their terrifying magic on the slowly rising terrain, carving away the softer rocks and the loose dirt and leaving only the granite outcroppings. Down from the sides of the great dome poured the waters of melting snows, gushing springs, and torrential rainfalls, digging out rivers, canyons, and the deep and narrow cuts which characterize this beautiful region. ”

“ In winter, each Stube with its Bruder, we wandered through the lovely forest paths, skated, tobogganed, or plunged in high snow-boots through the great drifts in the woods. It was the real Black Forest then. No tourist was ever seen. No carriages, bicycles, or “visitors for health” ever crossed our path. Unmolested, we explored new glades, and found in every direction unknown little valleys hidden away among the dense trees and Strafe (punishment) , when to the pain of carpeted with moss a foot thick. ”

“ Below, between the towering, oppressive, liver-coloured cliffs and the foam-mantled, blanched blue sea lay the Black Rock, a huge, flat, monstrous table cast off by the land and spurned by the sea.
For a while the two men stood speechless on the edge of the cliff overlooking the barren waste of heaving waters and the sullen ramparts of indomitable heights. The deep boom of the bursting wave, the roar of the outwashing boulders, and the shrill hiss of the falling spray, made the dismal scene more deserted and forlorn. The sea and cliffs were forbidding to man. ”

“ In the ascent, a narrow path not more than nine feet in width, leads along the margin of a frightful precipice of nearly fifteen hundred feet in extent, so perpendicular that it can not be approached without terror; while to the north of the summit nearest to the one the most elevated, a semi-amphitheater of precipitous rocks, also of a great hight, is seen; and, behind this summit, another semicircle of equal depth and extent. The loftiest summit here appears to descend in the form of a sharp ridge, and beneath it another appears, which, on account of its color, is called the Black Rock. ”

“ The intricate windings of a railroad that follow charmingly the foldings of pine-clad valleys will nowadays conduct the traveller well into the more frequented portions of the Black Forest. One minute he will look down from the car window into the yawning depths of rocky gorges, with a wild torrent brawling over the stones at the bottom ”