"The country through which we passed is remarkably picturesque. The great number of mountains there encountered, and the picturesque aspect by them produced, form a striking contrast with all that part of western New York through which we journeyed on our way from Albany to Buffalo. You know that this latter region is always flat, and that nothing is so rare there as to see a hill or a valley. We were struck by the appearance of riches and prosperity reigning in Massachusettes; everything three proclaims a happy population; it is no longer that wild nature that one meets with everywhere in the states of the west; the virgin forest has long since disappeared and you no longer find a single trace of it. Massachusettes, which as you know once bore the name of New England, is evidently a vieux pays: I call old a country counting 200 years of existence. One sees in Massachusettes neither tree trunks in the fields, nor houses of logs serving as habitations; the fields are carefully enclosed, the culture is varied, and everything indicates that the inhabitants draw from the earth all the benefit possible, because the ranks are already crowded there. . . ."

Beaumont (Pierson 350)

Boston

Stockbridge