It is far more independent to travel on foot

July 4. 

July 4, 2021

Sunday. A. M. — Clears up after a rainy night. 

Get our breakfast apparently in the northern part of Loudon, where we find, in a beech and maple wood, Panax quinquefolium, apparently not quite out, Osmorrhiza brevistylis (or hairy uraspermum), gone to seed, which Bigelow refers to woods on Concord Turn pike, i. e. hairy sweet cicely. Also ternate polypody (?). Saw a chestnut tree in Loudon.

Leaving Loudon Ridge on the right we continued on by the Hollow Road — a long way through the forest without houses — through a part of Canterbury into Gilmanton Factory village. 

I see the Ribes prostratum, or fetid currant, by roadside, already red, as also the red elder-berries, ripe or red. Strawberries were abundant by the roadside and in the grass on hillsides everywhere, with the seeds conspicuous, sunk in pits on the surface. (Vide a leaf of same kind pressed.) 

The Merrimack at Merrimack, where I walked, -— half a mile or more below my last camp on it in ’39, — had gone down two or three feet within a few days, and the muddy and slimy shore was covered with the tracks of many small animals, apparently three-toed sand pipers, minks, turtles, squirrels, perhaps mice, and some much larger quadrupeds. 

The Solidago lanceolata, not out, was common along the shore. Wool-grass without black sheaths, and a very slender variety with it; also Carex crinita. 

We continue along through Gilmanton to Meredith Bridge, passing the Suncook Mountain on our right, a long, barren rocky range overlooking Lake Winnepiseogee. Turn down a lane five or six miles beyond the bridge and spend the midday near a bay of the lake. 

Polygonum cilinode, apparently not long. I hear song sparrows there among the rocks, with a totally new strain, ending whit whit, whit whit, whit whit whit. They had also the common strain. 

We had begun to see from Gilmanton, from high hills in the road, the sharp rocky peak of Chocorua in the north, to the right of the lower Red Hill. It was of a pale-butt color, with apparently the Sandwich Mountains west of it and Ossipee Mountain on the right. 

The goldfinch was more common than at home, and the fragrant fern was perceived oftener. The evergreen-forest note frequently heard. 

It is far more independent to travel on foot. You have to sacrifice so much to the horse. You cannot choose the most agreeable places in which to spend the noon, commanding the finest views, because commonly there is no water there, or you cannot get there with your horse. 

New Hampshire being a more hilly and newer State than Massachusetts, it is very difficult to find a suitable place to camp near the road, affording Water, a good prospect, and retirement. We several times rode on as much as ten miles with a tired horse, looking in vain for such a spot. and then almost invariably camped in some low, unpleasant spot. 

There are very few, scarcely any, lanes, or even paths and bars along the road. Having got beyond the range of the chestnut, the few bars that might be taken down are long and heavy planks or slabs, intended to confine sheep, and there is no passable road behind. And beside, when you have chosen a place one must stay be hind to watch your effects, while the other looks about. 

I frequently envied the independence of the walker, who can spend the midday hours and take his lunch in the most agreeable spot on his route. The only alternative is to spend your noon at some trivial inn, pestered by flies and tavern loungers. 

Camped within a mile south of Senter Harbor, in a birch wood on the right near the lake. Heard in the night a loon, screech owl, and cuckoo, and our horse, tied to a slender birch close by, restlessly pawing the ground all night and whinnering to us whenever we showed ourselves, asking for something more than meat to fill his belly with. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 4, 1858