i|lliB^aiiiftili))ii»iirT--|| V iTmn t. /W V-^v ^ :*^. I ;ii-?: '^"s^-:^ ii U r4 f "im i Cije ilibtarp of m OniDetiSft? of J8oct[) Carolina 9yo^\)-}>'o^ jr^^^f^^:^SK ■>>o^(cu;-'''o\vv 5^>^^' CndotoeD bp ^^e ^Dialectic anD vNvn'.N ^ V * 4yr^-^.i4^./":.^^^c'->^ :^^^> .^^-■■k?-^ BOOK CARD Please keep thfg card fn Dook pocket L-^'^ 'f^^ '^-M '^'**H.> ■;s>^Vx---v EZs THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA 1 ^jr Si--;;. ^'^ M iR;; \h ' / .^ r^.j,.ii/ti... V.r 1 ^ .c^ / ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETIES F917.3 .B91p V. 2 / /.■ '''V ''■m'\i\ '£■-''= r\«;.s s^^^i'^::^& rc^^'- -.;/:// y ftu^^HUnH ■»*? This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be renewed by bringing it to the library. DATE „pT^ DUE ^^^ DATE DUE '*'^' - \ 'i; m M 3 2011 JAM ' ^- ■-': 'SI. i's*- ■>'f^ ■■•% 1^ '4 w p= \ \i yy •. ^ \ "k \^ ' J o ~\ / - o \\ ^-^ * t /oL.lt- ;))., -4 -.PVT.Ti^nr,- Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/picturesqueameri02brya PICTURESQUE AMERICA; OR, THE LAND WE LIVE IN. A DELINEATION BY PEN AND PENCIL OF THE MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, LAKES, FORESTS, WATER-FALLS, SHORES CANONS, VALLEYS, CITIES, AND OTHER PICTURESQUE FEATURES OF OUR COUNTRY. W\\\ %\\m\mX\tm m f M mi W004 bjj ^mxmX %xm\tM %-iX\M* EDITED BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. VOL. II. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. CONTENTS, VOLUME SECOND. SUBJECT. HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON. PHILADELPHIA AND ITS SUBURBS. NORTHERN NEW JERSEY. VALLEY OF THE CONNECTICUT. BALTIMORE AND ENVIRONS. THE CATSKILLS. THE JUNIATA. ON THE OHIO. THE PLAINS AND THE SIERRAS. THE SUSQUEHANNA. BOSTON. LAKE GEORGE AND LAKE CHAMPLAIN. MOUNT MANSFIELD. VALLEY OF THE HOUSATONIC. THE UPPER MISSISSIPPL VALLEY OF THE GENESEE. ST. LAWRENCE AND THE SAGUENAY. EASTERN SHORE. THE ADIRONDACK REGION. THE CONNECTICUT SHORE OF THE SOUND. LAKE MEMPHREMAGOG. E. L. BURLINGAME. C. D. Gardette. W. F. Williams. W. C. Richards. J. C. Carpenter. Henry A. Brown. R. E. Garczynski. Constance F. Woolson. E. L. Burlingame. R. E. Garczynski. G. M. Towle. O. B. BUNCE. Rossiter Johnson. W. C. Richards. R. E. Garczynski. W. S. Ward. W. H. RiDEING. G. M. Towle. Robert Carter. W. C. Richards. W. H. Rideing. ARTIST. PAGE Harry Fenn. I Granville Perkitis. 23 Jules Tavernier. 47 J. D. Woodward. 61 Granville Perkins. 97 Harry Fenn. 116 Granville Perkins. 134 Alfred R. Waud. 146 Thomas Moran. 168 Granville Perkins. 204 J. D. Woodward. 229 Harry Fenn. 253 Harry Fenn. 276 J. D. Woodward, 288 Alfred R. Waud. 318 J. D. Woodward. 353 James D. Smillie. 370 J. D. Woodward. 395 Harry Fenn. 414 W. H. Gibson. 436 J. D. Woodward. 451 < IV CONTENTS, VOLUME SECOND. SUBJECT. THE MOHAWK, ALBANY, AND TROY. THE UPPER DELAWARE. WATER-FALLS AT CAYUGA LAKE. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. THE CANONS OF THE COLORADO. CHICAGO AND MILWAUKEE. A GLANCE AT THE NORTHWEST, THE MAMMOTH CAVE. NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. WASHINGTON, AUTHOR. ARTIST. PAGE R. E. Garczynski. Woodward and Fenn. 457 W. H. RiDEING. J. D. Woodward. 471 W. H, RIDEING. J. D. Woodward. 477 W. H. RiDEING, Thomas Mora7t. 482 J- E. COLBURN, Thomas Moran. 503 0. B. BUNCE. Alfred R. Waud. 512 W. H, RiDEING, Alfred R. Waud. 529 w. H. RiDEING. Alfred R. Waud. 540 0. B. BUNCE. Harry Feiin. 545 G. M. TOWLE. W. L. Shefpard. 566 LIST OF ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL. VOLUME SECOND. SUBJECT. NEW YORK, FROM BROOKLYN HEIGHTS. DOME OF THE CAPITOL. WEST POINT. MOUTH OF THE MOODNA. PHILADELPHIA, FROM BELMONT. CONNECTICUT VALLEY, FROM MOUNT TOM. BALTIMORE, FROM DRUID-HILL PARK. SUNRISE, FROM SOUTH MOUNTAIN, CATSKILL. CITY OF CINCINNATI. CITY OF LOUISVILLE. EMIGRANTS CROSSING THE PLAINS. CALIFORNIANS LASSOING BEAR. THE SUSQUEHANNA. BOSTON, FROM SOUTH BOSTON. LAKE GEORGE. THE HOUSATONIC. THE CITY OF ST. LOUIS. QUEBEC. BEVERLY COAST, MASSACHUSETTS. ARTIST. engraver. FACE PAGE. A. C. Warren. G. R. Hall. Frontispiece. Harry Fenn. E. P. Brandard. Title-page. Harry Fenn. S. V. Hunt. FACE 9 David Johnson. G. W. Wellstood. 21 Granville Perkins. R. Hinshelwood. 40 J. D. Woodward. R. Hinshelwood. 80 Granville Perkins. R. Hins/ielwood. 97 Harry Fenn. S. V. Hunt. 126 A. C. Warren. IV. Wellstood. . 161 A. C. Warren. E. P. Brattdard. 165 F. 0. C. Darley. H. B. Hall. 176 F. 0. C. Darley. F. Holl. 201 Granville Perkins. R. Hinshelwood. 216 J. D. Woodward. E. P. Brandard. 233 J. W. Casilear. R. Hinshelwood. 256 A. F. Bellows. S. V. Hunt. 289 A. C. Warren. R. Hinshelwood. 321 J. D. Woodward. R. Hinshelwood. 384 J. F. Kensett. S. V. Hunt. 401 vi LIST OF ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL. SUBJECT. ADIRONDACK WOODS. EAST ROCK, NEW HAVEN. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. CITY OF MILWAUKEE. TERRACE, CENTRAL PARK. WASHINGTON, FROM ARLINGTON HEIGHTS. ARTIST. ENGRAVER. FACE PAGE. J- M. Hart. R. Hiiishelwood. 425 C. G. Griswold. S. V. Hunt. 444 w. Whitteredge. R. Hinshelwood. 488 A. C. Warren. R. Hi7ishelwood. 528 C. Rosenberg. G. R. Hall. 557 W. L. Sheppard. R. Hinshelwood. 569 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. Poughkeepsie, and its Founderies at Night. HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY FENN. 'nr^O those who are wiUing to accept such unobtrusive companionship as we have to -*- offer, in this artist's voyage among the noblest scenes of our most beautiful and perfect American river, we must say at the beginning that we shall not follow the tra- 2 ■ PICTURESQUE AMERICA. ditions of the ordinary guide. To him it matters httle by what path he leads a trav- eller to the most glorious outlook, nor does he care for his observer's frame of mind ; he will suddenly show you the Rhine-fall from the back-door of a dingy beer-house, and point out your first view of Niagara through the dusty window of a hackney-coach. To us, the way of approach seems of no little moment ; and here especially, among the scenes we know so well, we have our fixed ideas of the traveller's most satisfying course. The true way, then, to learn the noblest beauties of the Hudson's grandest region, is to enter the Highlands with the river's course; beginning the voyage from some point above, watching the growing picturesqueness of the stream, and noting the gradual rise of the hills, the increasing grandeur of their outline, and the deepening majesty of their presence, until, with his heart full of this slowly-gaining beauty, one finds himself among the perfect pictures which lie in the very midst of the mountain-group. Let us enter on our journey in search of the picturesque, then, from some point at a little dis- tance up the river. Newburg is too near the Highlands ; it lies in the shadow of their The Hudson, south from Newburg. HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON. On the Old Newburgr Toll-Road. very gates ; let us be- gin our voyage at that point of practical as well as theoretical convenience — at Poughkeepsie. Indeed, our place of depart- ure is itself, in the matter of picturesque outlook, not to be despised. The " rural city," as one of our writers has called it, lies very pleasantly upon its group of gentle hills, and overlooks a bright and sunny portion of the river- view. By day, one may quarrel a little with the smoke of its busy founderies, but by night these become the most strangely beautiful and striking feature in many miles of the Hudson's scenery. They light the river like weird beacons, and the sound of their great furnaces _comes across the water in the stillness, as the panting of giants that toil when the weaker forces of the world are all asleep. Our departure from Poughkeepsie allows us to approach the Highlands by the " Long Reach " — that quiet and sunny portion of the river's course that here lies like a broad, straight avenue between the beautiful banks, for more than twenty miles. Its upper extremity is at Crom Elbow — the Krom Elleboge of the old Dutch settlers; its PICTURESQUE AMERICA. C3 lower is at Newburg. Sail- ing down it, we pass many- points which their history, as well as their beauty, makes noteworthy. Here, on the eastern bank, two miles below the town, is Locust Grove, entitled to remembrance as the summer home of Morse, whose name the wires of his telegraph have told to all the world. A mile or two farther on, where Spring Brook comes into the Hudson, lived stout Theophilus Anthony, the blacksmith, a century ago, who helped to forge the great chain that once guard- ed the river at Fort Mont- gomery, below. Farther still in the Long Reach lie the bright little villages of Mil- ton and Marlborough, al- most hidden from the river by the high banks ; we pass New Hamburg, too, called into sad prominence a year or two ago by one of the terrible disasters that are all too common now ; and so, noting picturesque little Fishkill on our left, we come upon the beautiful Newburg Bay — the most perfect of the Hudson's har- bors. Close by the gate of the Highlands, opposite the WEST POINT, AND SCENES IN VICINITY 6 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. range of the Fishkill hills, and overlooking a stretch of river and shore such as you may hardly find anywhere else in the world, Newburg lies, with its bright group of picturesquely-clustered houses, with memories of old Revolutionary days surrounding it, and every association con- nected with it that should make it a marked town among our historic places. Here were Wash- ington's headquarters dur- ing a part of the storm- iest of the war - time ; and here, in combating with the strongest and simpliest eloquence, the work of the famous " Newburg Addi esses," he perhaps, more than anywhere else, showed how great agents were his strength of will and earnest purpose in the sal- vation of the country. It is with the beauty of the old town, however, and not with its his- tory, that we have to do. From the shore below it we have gained one of the most perfect views of this noble part of the Hudson's course. We see the entrance of the Highlands, and the broad expanse of water lying between this and the town. This is the very perfection of an approach to the glorious scenery below. The broad bay forms a kind of enchanted border-region, which the true guide will let his visitor study well ; and it and its shores — along which one should pass to fully learn the beauty of the great stretch of sunny river — put one in the truest mood for the first sight of the grander aspects of mountain and stream upon which he is to look with the next stage of his jour- ney. One should pass, we say, along the shore as well as make the voyage upon the river, to catch the full beauty of this scene in Newburg Bay. The old toll-road runs along the western bank of the Hudson here, and gives from time to time such glimpses of the hills below as are worth a day's travel to seek. From one of these Mr. Fenn has shown the very spirit of the whole scene. This is a portion of the journey that no St. Mary's Church at Cold Spring. HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON. 7 one should miss. And now we are within the gates of the Highlands themselves, in the presence of the great Storm-King and the dark pile of the Cro'-Nest. To us these two noble mountains are the grandest of the Highland range. They have a charm that might induce a man to live in their shadow for no other purpose than to have them always before him, day and night, to study their ever-changing beauty. For they are never twice alike ; the clouds make varying pictures all day long on their wooded sides, and nowhere have we seen more wonderful effects of shadow and sun- Glimpse of the Hudson from Fort Putnam. shine. Under the frown of a low thunder-cloud they take on a grim majesty that makes their black masses strangely- threatening and weird ; one forgets to measure their height, and their massive, strongly-marked features, by any common standard of every-day measurement, and they seem to tower and overshadow all the scene around them, like the very rulers and controllers of the coming storm. And when the sunlight comes back again, they seem to have brought it, and to look down with a bright benignity, like giant protectors of the valley that lies below. Beyond them, on a remarkable and beautiful promontory, extending into the river at what seems to us the most perfect point of the whole course of the Hudson, lies West Point. It has always been to us an ideal place. In its shores, every view of PICTURESQUE AMERICA. which is full of picturesque charm ; in the dark back- ground of its hills; in the aspect — somewhat unusual in our America — of its earthworks and defences, and all the surroundings that have been given it by the long years of its occu- pancy as a military school ; in its broad plain, forming the central ground of hu- man action, on which the great natural amphitheatre of the Highlands looks si- lently down ; even in the grouping of its cluster of buildings, and in the pictu- resque monuments about it, that call up so many mem- ories, there seems to us a harmony of beauty that makes the site of our important mili- tary post one of the most attractive spots in the whole country. It IS from West Point, too, that the most satisfying views of the Hudson itself are View south from the Academy Grounds. a ^ ^ \ \ / : r HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON. 9 to be gained. Whoever has looked out from the broad veranda of the hotel near the parade — the familiar " Roe's " — and seen the broad reach of the river stretching north- ward between the picturesque dark hills, never forgets the perfect vista that lies before him here. Equally beautiful in sunshine and shadow, and fairly glorious in a storm, this is such a scene as no other river can show. Sit and watch it lying under the sky of a cloudless autumn morning, when its outlines all seem mellowed with a touch of golden haze, and it is framed by the many-colored splendors of the foliage of late October; or see it when the perfect beauty of the new green of spring is over its hills, and the river is just rippled by a touch of air ; or, best, perhaps, and certainly grandest of all, when the overhanging thunder-cloud of a summer afternoon comes slowly nearer, and first the sharply-outlined black shadow, and then the distinct, clearly-marked edge of the pelting storm, approach across hills and river, until, with the growing thunder and whirl of rain, you find yourself overtaken by the tempest ; see this picture of the Hudson in one of these aspects or in all, and you will grant that no Old World vaunted Rhine can show you more and truer beauty than is thus given in our own home. But this perfect river-view, which lies always before the visitor, to be enjoyed with- out an effort, and to satisfy even without any thing else, is really only the beginning of what West Point has to offer to a lover of the picturesque. Turn in whatever direction one may from the parade-ground of the academy — the recognized central point of all things at the post — he finds new points of outlook, and new beauty waiting for him everywhere. On the summit of Mount Independence, an irregular hill, some distance back from the river, are the ruins of old Fort Putnam — such ruins as are left of the once stout work ; and, climbing to these, one gains a new glimpse of the Highlands and the water. It is useless to try to show in words the different and always fresh charm that each new point of observation gives ; nor could the pencil show it with entire suc- cess unless it could fill a volume with sketches, in which even then one would miss the glorious coloring that forms a crowning beauty of these hills. The ruins of the fort are themselves picturesque, with that beauty of ruins that is so rare with us in America — - the nameless charm that, even for the least sentimental, always surrounds an old, decay- ing structure that has played its part in the world, and seems resting and looking on dreamily, only an observer now, and not an actor. Close by the central grounds of the academy there are other relics of old days, monuments that have an interest besides their picturesque aspect, as they lie among the green of the turf and trees. Along the steep shore of the river, that rises so suddenly as to form a series of sharp precipices and rough terraces between them, there are many of these memorials, and many historic nooks. Here, half-way down the slope of the shore, is " Kosciuszko's Garden," where the brave Pole used to make his favorite haunt, and where he would lie and read in his leisure, regardless, according to the story, of the 73 THE HUDSON AT " COZZENS'S. HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON ii fact that shot from the vessels in the river now and then struck the rocks not far away. Along the paths that lead from one to another of these natural terraces are smooth cliffs, on which the names of famous victories have been cut in large, bold letters ; the vines and ferns give to these natural frames of green, and the plain records are the most perfect that could have been devised — better than any tablets of less noble sim- plicity. There is no lack of memorial-stones erected by men's hands, however ; here and there a column or an obelisk looks out from the foHage — a monument to some army hero, who once went out into earnest battle from the quiet existence and petty events of " the corps." Down by the most beautiful part of the shore runs the path — memorable in the lives of countless fledgling soldiers — that has been named by profane souls " Flirtation Walk " — a designation at which the heart of any man over two-and-twenty must sink, in despair of his race. For the path is a perfect ideal of beauty ; at every point of its course there are glimpses of hills and river that it makes a man's whole life better to have seen ; and yet it must exist for whole generations more of gray-clad youngsters under the title of " FHrtation Walk ! " Not that we quarrel with the fact of the flirta- tion — under sun, moon, or stars, there is no such place for tender passages and summer love-making — but why did not some young hero, with his memory full of these things, christen it by any name, though ever so ultra-sentimental, that would commemorate them better than the chosen title that now rules .? From the shady nooks of the West Point shores one may look out upon parts of the opposite bank that are, in their quieter fashion, also beautiful. Opposite the prom- ontory of the Point lies the little village of Cold Spring — a bright group of houses by the water. Above and below it the shore rises into high, steep banks, and on one of these stands the little church of St. Mary's, which Mr. Fenn has chosen for a pict- ure that might almost persuade one he was looking upon some view of a little chapel crowning the rocks by an old river of Europe, so quaint is it, and so foreign in its features to the ordinary aspect of our American scenes. Near by it the railway runs along the bank and through dc rough tunnel in the ragged point ; but the little church looks like a mediaeval building, as far removed as- possible from the practical progress of to-day. But we must not long digress from the detail — even though it be so meagre — of the beauties that more closely surround the West Point plain. We should be unfaithful to our duties as guide if we did not lead the looker-on at these favorite scenes of ours to some few more of the points from which he will carry away pleasant memories. One of these is the landing-place itself at which he finds himself upon arrival by the ordi- nary route from the city ; for one is carried by the train to Garrison's, on the Hudson's eastern side, and thence in a little steamer across the river, and is landed at the foot of the cliffs of the promontory. Here is a road leading to the plain above, and built by 12 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. the engineers in a single long slope from the water, along the steep face of the shore, to the point where it again reaches level ground. It is to this road and the views seen from it that we would, in guide-book manner, call the reader's notice. Whoever is sound in wind and limb should walk up the long, regularly-graded ascent, and now and then look down at the river. It lies below him, seen through the branches of the trees, as he will see it nowhere else. Such a sense of overhanging the water is hardly felt even on the Palisades themselves. The rocks above and below the road are grouped in Anthony's Nose, from the Western Shore. rough, massive forms ; the sense of height is far greater than actual measurement would warrant ; and the outlook, wherever one turns, is striking, and such as will be gained from perhaps no other point but this, midway in the slope along the cliff. On the opposite side of the promontory from this, and some distance beyond the academy grounds, is the cemetery of the post. Overlooking the river to the north and east, and lying in a little level plain above the cliffs, where the sunlight falls all day long, and where every thing in scene and surrounding seems to join in giving quiet HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON. 13 and peaceful beauty to it, it is such a resting-place as any man might choose after a sol- dier's stormy life. Here Scott is buried, and here are many heroes of fame more or less widely spread — all honored by the younger men growing up to take their places, with an honor partly made up of gen- erous ambition to go and do like them, partly of an admi ration for bravery in the ab- stract, and partly of the name- less and indescribable senti- ment of veneration that hangs about the memory of " a grad- uate." To us, the cemetery — overlooked by dark old Cro'- Nest ; looking down on the river far below ; quiet and peaceful in the sunlight ; silent, yet never gloomy, under the stars ; scarcely touched, it would seem, even by the winds of the Highland storms — -is among the West Point scenes that seems most beautiful. We must not leave the Point without saying some- thing of the associations, which, besides its beauty, make it a place full of interest to every traveller through the Hudson's scenery. For here are the scenes of not a few events to which every one's memory turns back familiarly, and the whole neighborhood is Near Anthony's Nose at Night. 14 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. among the most famous regions of our history. During the War of the Revolution, West Point was, if not the principal, at least one of the most important mihtary posts in the country. Singular as such a statement must appear to us now, it was looked upon — as an American historian has phrased it — as the key to the passage between the New-England and the Middle States — the colonies of Revolutionary days. It com- manded the entrance to the Upper Hudson ; it was the centre of the scene of many principal movements of the war ; it was invaluable as a deposit for munitions, and troops were mustered within its fortifications, to be sent to every part of the theatre of action. Upon its defences was concentrated much of the attention and effort of the Congress and the leaders of the army. Here, from Gee's Point to Constitution Island (no longer surrounded by the stream), was stretched across the Hudson the huge chain, to which reference has been made already. " It was laid," says the best descrip- tion that we have at hand, " across a boom of heavy logs, that floated near together. These were sixteen feet long, and pointed at each end, so as to offer little resistance to the tidal currents. The chain was fastened to these logs by staples, and at each shore by huge blocks of wood and stone." Several of the great links of the chain are pre- served at the Point ; and the work of the stout old blacksmith looks as though it might have borne the wear and rust of centuries ; but by the vessels of an enemy its strength was never tested. Here, too, on a conspicuous part of the promontory, Kos- ciuszko constructed Fort Clinton, in 1778. Of Fort Putnam we have already spoken; and, indeed, the whole vicinity of the post was provided with no mean works for forti- fication and defence. It is not hard to see, then, apart from other reasons, why Wash- ington and his generals looked upon it as, perhaps, their chief fortress. The fighting col- onies had no other military stronghold of such extent and permanent character as this. All these features of the place contributed to increase the magnitude of the crime which will always be associated with the history of West Point — the treason of Bene- dict Arnold. It is impossible to forget it as we look at the scene of the plan — impos- sible even for us, who have come to seek rather the beauty of the present than the stir- ring recollections of the past. Inevitably we picture again in mind, as we did when school-boys, the September morning when the traitor heard of the miscarriage of his plans, and wonder what feeling came to him as he sat at the table of Beverly House (where Colonel Beverly Robinson had made his home, on the eastern side of the river, nearly opposite the post), and the note was brought to him from his subordi- nate at the military station below, that said " Major Andr^, of the British army, is a prisoner in my custody." The scene with his wife, the hurried flight, his treacherous sur- render of his boatmen — all these things that were wont to stir our blood when we read them in the school-histories, come back to us perforce when we linger at the Highland fortress. It must have been, indeed, a sorry time for more men than Arnold; and one can have a feeling of thorough sympathy for the disheartened commander-in-chief, when HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON. 15 he turned to Lafayette and Knox with his saddened, " Whom can we trust now ? " But we are playing false to our guide's duty in thus digressing to talk of the by-gone days, when the Hudson had added to its beauties the interest of war. Because we have lingered so long in the beautiful neighborhood of West Point and its really glorious scenery, the patient reader must not fancy that the noblest views of the Highlands approach Anthony's Nose, from lona Island. r6 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. their end when the picturesque mih- tary post is passed. So far is this from being the fact, that we fear we have given to what is, we confess, our favorite of all the places on the river's shore, more than its share of time and space. For we have not yet spoken of Cozzens's, that familiar and great resort of summer pleasure-seekers, perched high on the brow of the cliff that is the most prominent on the western shore for several miles below the Military Academy. Nothing could be more pictu- resque than the situation of the great building of the hotel, high up in air, looking down upon all the noblest of the river -views. It is several hundred feet above the water in reality ; but it looks twice the real distance from the low shore at the base of the cliff to the foundations of the house, for the precipice is here so bold and rugged that the most practised eye is deceived by its appearance of great height. Along this steep descent runs the road, cut as at the post-landing above, in a well- graded slope from the river to the summit of the cliffs. On the shore Mr. Fenn has found a point of view where one may deceive himself into the belief that he looks upon some legend-haunted ruin near the Rhine or the Neckar, so picturesquely are the out- lines of this commonplace old structure by the Cozzens's Landing shaped and scarred by time and weather. But we must hasten on, for now, a little distance farther down the river, we come HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON. 17 upon another of the most glorious mountain-groups of the Highlands — the most southern of all, forming the lower gate, as the Storm-King and its fellows form the upper. Chief among this new group is the bold height of Anthony's Nose, descending sharply to the water of the river at one of the most perfect bends in all its course. So boldly does the promontory jut out into the stream that it seems actually to close its channel ; and the good Hendrick Hudson, as he approached it, thought for a time that his progress was finally brought to a close, and that the arm of the sea, up which he imagined that he was sailing, had ended here among the hills. The steep sides of the headland are dark with rock and forest and thick undergrowth ; and the coloring of the whole is so stem and sombre, even in the sunlight, that there is about the mountain an air of majesty that makes it by far the most prominent of the chain in which it stands. ■ Why this famous height received the name it bears, no one knows ; but the vera- cious Knickerbocker claims to have made discovery of the facts that led to the choosing of the title. " And now I am going to tell," says he, " a fact which I doubt much my readers will hesitate to believe ; but, if they do, they are welcome not to believe a word The Hudson, north from Peekskill. 74 1 8 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. in this whole history, for nothing which it contains is more true. It must be known, then, that the nose of Anthony the trumpeter was of a very lusty size, strutting boldly from his countenance, like a mountain of Golconda, being sumptuously bedecked with rubies and other precious stones — the true regalia of a king of good fellows, which jolly Bacchus grants to all who bouse it heartily at the flagon. Now, thus it happened that, bright and early in the morning, the good Anthony, having washed his burly visage, was leaning over the quarter-railing of the galley, contemplating it in the glassy wave below. Just at this moment the illustrious Sun, breaking in all his splendor from behind a high bluff of the Highlands, did dart one of his most potent beams full upon the refulgent nose of the sounder of brass, the reflection of which shot straightway down hissing hot into the water, and killed a mighty sturgeon that was sporting beside the vessel. This huge monster, being with infinite labor hoisted on board, furnished a luxurious repast to all the crew, being accounted of excellent flavor, excepting about the wound, where it smacked a little of brimstone ; and this, on my veracity, was the first time that ever sturgeon was eaten in these parts by Christian people. When the astonishing miracle became known to Peter Stuyvesant, and that he tasted of the unknown fish, he, as may well be supposed, marvelled exceedingly; and, as a monument thereof, he gave the name of Anthony's Nose to a stout promontory in the neighborhood, and it has continued to be called Anthony's Nose ever since that time." There are other mountains here that guard, with Anthony's Nose, this southern entrance. Chief among them is the grand Donderberg, jutting sharply into the river from the shore opposite the Nose, and a mile and a half below it in the stream's course. Around this Mountain of Thunder the summer storms collect ; and its summit is best known to those who have seen it with the frown of a cloud sweeping over it, and the sound of the coming tempest already heard about its sides. We are in the very land of Irving now ; the whole region is peopled with the creatures of his fancy. Who does not remember the " little bulbous-buttomed Dutch goblin, in trunk-hose and sugar-loaf hat, with a speaking-trumpet in his hand, which, they say, keeps the Donderberg.'' They declare," Irving says further of the river-captains and their legend, " that they have heard him, in stormy weather, in the midst of the turmoil, giving orders, in Low-Dutch, for the piping up of a fresh gust of wind, or the rattling off of another thunder-clap ; that sometimes he has been seen surrounded by a crew of little imps, in broad breeches and short doublets, tumbling head-over-heels in the rack and mist, and playing a thousand gambols in the air, or buzzing like a swarm of flies about Anthony's Nose ; and that, at such times, the hurry-scurry of the storm was always greatest." Of the Sugar-Loaf, Bear Mountain, and the other picturesque hills that form the beautiful southern Highlands, we have not space to speak at length ; nor have we looked upon our guide's office as imposing upon us the duty of pointing out to view HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON. 19 each several feature of the Highland scenery. Had we done so, we should be open to a thousand charges of neglect. We have rather floated down with the stream, talking with perhaps some garrulity of what first met our eyes ; but if we were to yield to tempta- tion, and wander away upon the shore, or penetrate ever so little inland, we should A Misty Morning on the Hudson. never end our journey. For there would be then all the picturesque creeks that tumble foaming to the river, and all their long, wild valleys, to follow up ; there would be the bright villages, with their legends and their scenes of our old history, to recall ; and there would be the hundred thousand points of view to visit and to enjoy, each one more than the last. But we cannot do this; and we must make our farewell to the Highland The Hudson, at Yonkers. group, with Mr. Fenn's sketches of the great promontory, and go on into the new scenes of the river below. As Newburg at the northern entrance of the Highlands, so lies Peekskill near the southern. Very picturesquely the town is placed, with its houses lying on the sloping 20 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. lower shore, and its terraced road on the steep hill - side be- hind. From this road we again look out on the long reaches of broad and open river ; and the wilder and grander aspects to which we have grown ac- customed disappear. Yet the quieter scene is very beautiful ; The Palisades. ^iV^^, lookiug southward from the high terrace, a pleasant country meets the • view, where along the river-banks are the little country-places that make homes for crowded-out New-Yorkers. '■¥ ^1 I J HIGHLANDS AND PALISADES OF THE HUDSON. 21 And now follows a long reach of river of which our title strictly takes no cog- nizance ; it is neither in the Highlands, nor is the greater part of it bordered by the most picturesque portion of the Palisades ; yet how can we pass it entirely by without a word — even we who are seeking that which is by nature beautiful, and have nothing, by the stern limitations of our duty, to do with story or reminiscence or manifold attrac- tions of association ? We cannot pass by it without at least a word or two ; for here, in the part of the river to which we are coming, are scenes that every one knows by heart. We do not mean to speak of Stony Point, where gallant Anthony Wayne led his men so well through the July midnight in 1779; or of Treason Hill, where Arnold's plans were matured, and where Andr^ took the papers that betrayed it ; or of the hun- dred other historic localities that lie hereabout ; for we will not weary the voyager again with long rehearsal of history, or call him away from his journey. But, when we speak of scenes that every one knows by heart, we mean those that have been touched by Irving's pen, and those among which he himself lived and wrote. For now we approach the Tappan Zee, and that whole region of the river and its valley which is always connected with the romance and the legendary lore that he created for it. And below is his own home of Sunnyside, standing in classic ground for all Americans. Who can pass, a little above Tarrytown, the shore beyond which lies Sleepy Hollow, or sail past the banks of which every point suggests some memory of the sunny-hearted writer, and not be glad at the thoughts they bring into his mind } Every thing that Irving has touched he has turned into something better than gold. But, while we have looked only at the eastern shore in this part of the Hudson's course — the eastern shore, to which its associations irresistibly draw the traveller's first glances — the Palisades have already begun, and have grown into an unbroken, massive wall upon the western bank. In strict truth, and geographically, their great escarpments begin in the neighborhood of Haverstraw, and run south along the river-bank for thirty miles or more ; but the noblest part of their wall of vertical and columned rock is of much less extent. ' It is that portion which we call the noblest in which they rise, in rude and rugged but uninterrupted line, to the height of three hundred and even five hundred feet, attaining their greatest magnitude in the enormous and jutting buttress that thrusts itself into the stream nearly opposite Sing Sing. For miles on either side of this, their giant ridge, like a natural fortress, lies between the river and the bright and fertile region on its west. Here and there the wall is cut by deep and narrow ravines, and through such fissures in the cliffs are gained some of the most perfect views of river and landscape that have greeted us in all our course. It is through such rifts in the rock that one sees the stream lying so far below that it seems almost in another world, and looks across into the blue distance in the east as he might look out from a great and magical window that gave a glimpse into an entirely different life. For nothing could present sharper contrasts than do the two regions sep- 22 PICTURESQUE AMERICA, arated by this natural wall. On its west lies the quietest farming country, with its people leading simple, uneventful, pastoral lives — people to whom the ^j|j^ busy towns and the noises of the city seem as far away as if they ex- isted only to be read about and wondered over. But on the eastern side, in the places along the banks of the river, in every kind of dwelling, from great country-seat to smallest suburban cottage, is found a class utterly different. These are they the chief part of whose days is passed " in town," who have come out, or been driven out, to the beauty of the country for rest and- a little freshness and invigoration in their homes, at least. All over the Hudson's banks, from Newburg to New York, these people cluster in villages and little cities, trying hard to bring into the whole region the bustle of their town-hfe, but gaining good, in spite of themselves, from their surroundings. But there is niore to be gained from the summit of the Palisades than an out- look at the various aspects of the humani- ty about their base. High up upon the crest of the great escarpment one may stand and look far away into the east, or see the most glorious sunsets that ever changed the sky to gold and fire. To the north lie the Highlands we have passed, stretched out in noblest panorama for his view ; and to the south the river flows on in a broader stream, until on its eastern side the city begins, and the stream changes its as- pect, and passes between the crowded shores that send out across it the noisy thunder of their busy life ; and Palisades, and rocky hills, and long reaches of still stream, and green, pleas- ant banks, make a sudden end, as the Hudson sweeps grandly and quietly down to the sea. At the Foot of the Palisades. PHILADELPHIA AND ITS SUBURBS. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GRANVILLE PERKINS. Chestnut-Street Bridge, on the Schuylkill. THE Quaker City! Little did William Penn think, as he stepped out of his boat upon the grassy margin of Dock Creek, that memorable morning of 1682, and walked, with mien sedate and befitting, along the path that led to the pleasant but soli- tary hostelry of the Blue Anchor, his mind in travail with the scheme of a Philadel- phia about to be founded among the " coves and springs and lofty lands " of Coaquan- noc — little, beyond peradventure, did he think of the vast possibilities of growth and change that might transform and in one sense alienate, in a future more or less remote, this child of his ambition and his hope ! Sagacious and far-seeing as he undoubtedly was, it surely never occurred to him, sitting — as in those days even " friends " did not disdain to sit — in the sanded parlor of the Blue Anchor, and looking, perchance, in a prophetic mood of mind, along the winding shores of the creek, and on what y^ere then the uplands upon the hither bank of the great river in which the creek was lost — surely it could not have happened that his sober fancy pictured so great and Chestnut Street, looking up from Independence Hall. Chestnut Street, looking down from Ninth Street. SCENES IN PHILADELPHIA. PHILADELPHIA AND ITS SUBURBS. 25 so wonderful a metamorphosis as that which has at this day transfigured the entire landscape into the Hkeness of the actual Philadelphia ! The scope of his forecast may be gauged by the limit of his design. He planned a " town " of thirty streets, crossing each other at right angles, nine east and west, and one-and-twenty north and southward trending— the former serving only as highways from shore to shore of the two streams that held the " lofty lands " in their embrace, with no thought, it would seem, of ven- turing across these watery barriers, but the latter capable of indefinite extension, sub- ject, of course, to the contingent rights and privileges of neighboring " settlements." Hampered by the memories and traditions of the Old-World towns and cities, he in- flicted upon the future metropolis of the Keystone State the same misery that has stayed or stunted the complete and comely development of nearly all the older towns and cities on this continent — the misery of narrow thoroughfares and scanty spaces, blind alleys, dark courts, and a general inadequacy of breathing-room and free circulation, to say nothing — though a great deal should be said — of the lost opportunities for architectu- ral adornment, and the refinement of the popular mind by objects of beauty and grand- eur placed constantly before them in their goings up and down the high- and by-ways of daily toil and traffic. Mr. Penn perhaps thought to remedy this to some extent by laying his city out with a fair and, to a mathematical mind, satisfying rectangularity ; and, viewed from a thoroughly Gradgrindian stand-point, a city whose streets are inter- sected by each other at invariable right angles, and consequently traverse the length and breadth of the land in undeviating straight lines, is possibly the most comfortable and convenient of cities. But, looking from a picturesque point of view, such an ar- rangement is very unfortunate, and a wholesale sacrifice of beauty to utility. Though the sect to which the eminent founder of Philadelphia belonged was not popularly be- lieved to have much sympathy with the allurements of the beautiful, either in Nature or art, yet it will not be denied that there were, and are, many picturesque features in the landscape of the spot chosen by him for the site of his city of fraternal love. Here was a large and pleasantly-undulating plain, rising gently, north and westward, to a coun- try of heavily-timbered hills, and rich uplands pregnant with the promise of future harvests, margined for many a mile by the broad, swift, deep-flowing Delaware, and the shallower, slower, but more beautiful and purer, Schuylkill — twin channels for an appar- ently illimitable commerce, and an equally exhaustless supply of the vital element that is necessary to the existence of this commerce and of the life that makes it possible — a plain, too, with further accidents of beauty along its borders in the shape of rocky dell and shadowy ravine, hints of mountain and gorge, and all the fascinating marvels of torrent, cascade, and rapid, reproduced in miniature, so to speak, upon the romantic banks and in the sylvan stream of the weird and winding Wissahickon. " It seemed," indeed, as Penn himself said, the very place " appointed for a town ; " and surely the phenomena of its growth have gone far to prove the wisdom of his selection. 75 26 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. Tower and Steeple, Independence Hall. The Philadelphia of Wil- liam Penn was incorporated in 1701 ; and for a number of years thereafter the tendency of its growth was in a lateral direction, upon or near the shore of the Delaware, north and southward rather than westward toward the Schuyl- kill. This disposition to chng to the margin of the waters over which the adventurer has sailed from the Old to the New Land is natural, and no- ticeable in nearly every in- stance of the early settlements in this country. It was spe- cially so in Philadelphia, where both the business and social life of the city long clustered in the streets bordering or abutting upon the Delaware, leaving most of the upper or western part of the city-plan either in the condition known to real-estate dealers as " unim- proved," or occupied as small farms and suburban villas. Even as late as the first quar- ter of the present century, many of the finest private resi- dences in the city were on Front Street, which was the first street opened by Penn, and ran nearly due north and south along the course of the river. Some of these remain to this day the habitations of wealthy citizens, though jostled PHILADELPHIA AND ITS SUBURBS. 27 by the encroachments of toil and traffic, and their river-side pleasures and privileges usurped by unsightly and unsavory wharves, crowded avenues, and lofty warehouses. There are, of course, but few historical monuments left standing of the earlier days of Philadelphia. The most venerable, perhaps, and one of the most interesting, is Christ Church, in Second Street, above Market, which dates, in its present construction, as far back as 1727, two years before the laying of the corner-stone of the State-House, since memorable as Independence Hall. Hemmed in, as this stately pile now is on all sides, by the obtrusive and inharmonious aggregations of brick and mortar devoted to the prosaic purposes of trade, it may be difficult, if not impossible, for the artist to find a point of view from which its picturesque features can be brought into full relief; but from its belfry the visitor at least beholds a panorama of land and water which will well repay the fatigue of ascent. The broad expanse of the Delaware, with all its varied aspects of commercial highway and grove-fringed, villa-bordered stream, flows between its level banks for many a mile beneath him. Eastward he looks far across the river to the sandy reaches of New Jersey, with Camden and Gloucester in the foreground, and an indefinite vista of sombre pine-groves beyond. To the south his roving eye will first be caught by the old Navy- Yard, with its ark-like ship-houses, its tiers of masts and docks, and the green oases of its officers' quarters ; while still farther away, where the Schuylkill and Delaware meet on their way to the sea, low and dark on the horizon lies League Island — the Navy-Yard of the future. If, now, he turn his back on the river, the entire city and its far-reaching suburbs are spread as a map before him from the mouth of the Schuylkill, on the south, to the extremest limit of Germantown, on the north, and westward, far beyond the semi-rural avenues of West Philadelphia, Mantua, and Hestonville, all of which are comprised in the city of to-day. A similar panoramic view will open before him who may gaze from the belfry-gallery of Independence Hall; and a third, and even more picturesque overlook, is obtained from the summit of Girard College, which is itself one of the most mag- nificent monuments of individual benevolence in this country. The buildings devoted to this noble charity stand upon high ground, in the midst of a park-like plot of forty- five acres, stretching along what was once called the Ridge Road, but now elevated to the more sounding title of Ridge Avenue, in the northwestern part of the city. The principal and central structure, containing the college proper (the other buildings being chiefly dormitories and offices), is a massive Corinthian temple, of white marble, and is justly regarded as the best reproduction of pure Greek architecture in this country- The purpose and history of this institution are too well and widely known to need further recapitulation. Most of the streets of Philadelphia are, unhappily, narrow, and their rectangularity and straightness offend the artistic eye as well as mar the architectural effect of the FOUNTAINS IN PHILADELPHIA. PHILADELPHIA AND ITS SUBURBS. 29 more imposing structures erected upon them. There are, however, on almost all her highways noble and graceful edifices constructed by public or private munificence and taste, massive temples of charity, of religion, of industry, and of art, which go far to redeem the stiffness and monotony of the general plan of the city. Something about the more notable buildings, public and private, may not be wholly inappropriate even in a picturesque article, the less so as some of them are intimately connected with the his- tory and traditions (which are always picturesque) of the place. So, having left the " dim, religious light" that marks the sacred precincts of Christ Church, let us go on to Chest- nut Street, and pause at the State-House, with a reverent recognition of its claims, to notice above those of more recent and more ornate constructions. The edifice is but two stories in height, and built of simple brick, but its associa- tions have given it an interest scarcely less world-wide and thrilling than that attaching to any structure, however magnificent in size or symmetry, throughout Christendom. It is surmounted by a steeple, in which was hung the great and glorious bell, with its pro- phetic inscription, verified little more than a century after its first echoes woke the good burghers of the royal province of Pennsylvania, when the clangorous psean was pro- claimed of — " Liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." Beneath its roof was pronounced the Declaration of Independence, and in the same chamber, a few years afterward, the system of government which culminated in the establishment of the Great Republic was discussed and adopted. Market Street is the great central highway of traffic, foreign and domestic, and is chiefly remarkable for its handsome warehouses and mercantile depots, its width, and its turmoil. The traveller in search of the picturesque will not care to linger amid its pro- saic bustle. Neither will he find much to arrest his eye on Arch Street, save a graceful spire here and there ; but he will be struck by the repose of the street as contrasted with the rattle and hurry of adjacent highways, and with the air of placid respectability that distinguishes the staid denizens of that quiet avenue. It was, and to some extent still is, a favorite street for " Friends' " residences, and partakes, both in its architecture and its human circulation, of the peculiar plainness and primness of the primitive Quakers. The handsomer private residences are chiefly in the western and northwestern parts of the city. West Philadelphia, across the Schuylkill, is full of elegant villas and taste- ful cottages. The western part of Walnut, Chestnut, Arch, Spruce, and Pine Streets, is wholly occupied by what we sometimes hear called palatial' mansions ; and the spacious and noble boulevard of Broad Street runs for miles between the dwellings of the rich, built of every variety of stone and in every conceivable (or inconceivable) style of architecture, and, in many instances, further adorned by lawns and gardens of most elab- orate finish and fruitfulness. The numerous spots of shade and greenery known as " squares " are pleasant and wholesome features of this city. They were part of the original plan of Penn, and hav- 30 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. ing had the advantage of time, are full of noble and venerable trees, some of which were denizens of the virgin forest that gloomed the soil on which they still stand. In the centre of Franklin Square — the largest and one of the most beautiful of those within the city — there is a fine fountain, with a number of jets falling into a large basin, upon whose clear surface two or more swans were wont to glide, much to the delight Navy-Yard. of the children ; but these graceful water-fowl have vanished, having, perhaps, been removed to the broader waters of Fairmount Park. The thirsty wayfarer, by-the-by, whether man or beast, will find no lack of fountains whereat to quench his thirst in Philadelphia. There are scores of these grateful drinking-places on the high- and by-ways of the city and suburbs, some of them, as may be seen by the accompanying illustra- tion, not without a picturesque or artistic beauty and fitness in their design, which does PHILADELPHIA AND ITS SUBURBS. 31 not render the water less refreshing or the pilgrim less appreciative. These street foun- tains are due to the humane and enlightened labors and taste of a few gentlemen, who, in 1869, formed themselves into a Fountain Society for this beneficent object, and, either through their personal and pecuniary efforts and assistance, or by the influence of their example upon others, these well-springs of wholesome refreshment have been offered to the parched throats of hundreds of thousands of their fellow-creatures. In several instances an intelligent advantage has been taken — notably in the Park and upon some of the pretty roads about the skirts of the city — of the natural acci- dents of scenery in the selection of the spot and the character of the fountain, and the result is picturesque, and in harmony with the landscape and associations. It were to be wished that an equally enlightened taste had been displayed in every instance ; but as some of these — shall we say works of art } — have been the free gift of individual citi- zens (and, therefore, not to be viewed with the "critic's eye"), there is here and there an unfortunate specimen of that peculiar taste supposed to belong to the great " Veneering " and " Podsnap " families. Under the circumstances, however, it would be uncharitable to seem severely critical, and these blots upon the artistic perspicacity of the Fountain So- ciety shall not, therefore, be more particularly alluded to herein. Art and science have received careful attention in Philadelphia. For many years the quiet and modest rooms of the Academy of Fine Arts, in Chestnut Street, were the resort of art-loving citizens and curious strangers. Here several of the huge canvases of Benjamin West and Rembrandt Peale were enshrined in state, and received the hom- age of those who deemed them superlative works of art, the finest of which the country could boast. Here the annual exhibitions of the works of Philadelphia's artists are held, and in the basement beneath are casts of the famous statues of antiquity, arranged in sepulchral rows. All of these treasures, it is believed, will in time be transferred to the new Academy of Fine Arts, which will be erected on an appropriate site in another portion of the city. One of the most remarkable buildings in Philadelphia is the new Masonic Temple, just erected on the corner of Broad and Filbert Streets. It is constructed of granite, dressed at the quarry and brought to the site all ready for immediate use. As a piece of architecture it is a curious imitation of the round and pointed styles of the middle ages — the outhnes, the tower, and certain other features, suggesting the Gothic, while the windows, the fagade, and the minuter details, are thoroughly Saxon in character. Thus, the deeply-recessed porch, with its dog-tooth ornaments and round arches, might be copied from one of the old Saxon-built abbeys of England ; while the tower, adorned in a more elaborate style, only needs a spire to be Gothic in general effect if not in de- tail. Inside the Temple there are various halls, built in the Corinthian, Doric, and . other styles, so as to be in consonance with various phases of masonic practices. If the Delaware River is the source of commercial prosperity to Philadelphia, the 32 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. ^^ Mil' THE CATSKILLS. iij slope gradually toward the central part of the State of New York, running off into spurs and ridges in every direction. On the eastern, however, they rise abruptly from the valley to a height of more than four thousand feet, resembling, when looked at from the river, a gigantic fist with the palm downward, the peaks representing the knuckles, and the glens and cloves the spaces between them. Thus separated from their kindred, and pushed forward many miles in advance of them, they overlook a great extent of country, affording a wider and more varied view than many a point of far greater elevation. Indeed, from few places, even among the Alps of Switzerland, does the traveller see beneath him a greater range of hill and valley; and yet many an Amer- ican stands on the summit of the Righi, rapt in admiration of the wonderful prospect, ignorant that a view nearly as extensive, and in many respects as remarkable, may be found in one of the earliest-settled parts of his own country ! Nor are the Catskill Mountains famous only for this celebrated bird's-eye view. They contain some of the View of Mountains from Creek, Catskill- Mountain Road. most picturesque bits of mountain-scenery in the world. The beauties of the Clove and the Falls of the Kauterskill have been immortalized by Irving and Cooper and Bryant, passing into the classics of American literature, and awakening in the genius of Cole its loftiest inspiration. After such illustrators, the task of describing the charms of this beautiful group of mountains would seem to be as difficult as the attempt were pre- sumptuous ; but a few notes may, perhaps, be useful in explanation of some of the sketches made by Mr. Fenn in this shrine of summer pilgrimage. It was mid- August when we started for the Catskills. Though it was early when we left New -York City, no air was stirring, and the hot morning gave promise of a hotter day. The train steamed out of the huge depot into the glare of the early sunlight, and the dust began to whirl up beneath the wheels in a white, dry cloud. We have rushed with lightning-speed aldng the eastern bank of the Hudson— now plunging into a dark, damp tunnel cut through the overhanging rock ; now whirling around some ii8 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. promontory, jutting out into the placid river ; and, again, seeming to skim over its silvery- bosom, as we glided across an elbow of the stream. We have passed beneath Yonkers and Tarrytown, and watched the shad- ows play on the high wall of the Palisades ; skirted the shores of Hav- erstraw Bay and Tappan Zee ; and, entering the giant gates of the High- lands at Stony Point, caught a glimpse of West Point, as we swung around the mountain opposite Cro' - Nest. Newburg and Poughkeepsie have flashed by in the rapidly-changing pan- orama. The Hudson, bearing many a white-sailed craft upon its bosom, flows tranquilly along between high banks covered with trees, with here and there a pretty cottage nestling among them. Now and then, as we strain our eyes forward, we can catch for a moment a faint outline, toward the north, of high mountains, dark blue in the lessening distance. Suddenly we rush through a dark cleft in the rock, and then out again on the other side. On the western bank of the river you can see a series of ridges covered with trees, rolling away, one after another, eight or ten miles ; and beyond the farthest, lifting their wood- ed sides up into the clouds that have begun to settle on their peaks, are the famous mountains. Yonder round one to the right is Black Head ; then, in succession. North Mountain, South Mountain, and Round Top, with High Peak towering over all. Between this last and the South Mountain you see a sharp notch, or depression, terminating in a deep shadow. There lies the Clove, through which the Kauterskill comes tumbling to the plain. High on the face of the South Moun- Rip Van Winkle's House, Catskill Road. THE CATSKILLS. 119 tain, or rather between it and its northern neighbor, your eye detects a small speck, hang- ing like a swallow's-nest upon a wall, white and glistening in the sun. It is the Mountain House, from the broad piazza of which three or four hundred human beings are perhaps, at this moment, looking out over the landscape which lies beneath them like a map, and noting the faint line of white smoke that marks the passage of our train. A scream escapes from the locomotive, and the speed is slackened. Presently we come to a dead stop. Bundles are quickly made ; a crowd of travellers hurries from the cars ; baggage is thrown about in wild confusion ; the locomotive gives a warning whistle ; and, amid a cloud of dust, the train whirls up the river, and out of sight on its way to Albany. A ferry-boat lies waiting at the little wharf A few gasps from the asthmatic engine, and we are off. A few turns of the lumbering wheel, and we have reached the western bank. Old-fashioned stages stand by the landing, awaiting our arrival. In a little while our trunks are strapped on behind ; and, seated each in his place, we swing about, and are jolted up and down, as the huge vehicles roll through the little village of Catskill. South Lake. We have presently crossed the bridge which spans the mouth of the Kauterskill, and have fairly begun our ride toward the mountains. The day is intensely hot. The road stretches before us white and dusty in the sunshine. On either side the trees stand drooping, unstirred by a breath of air ; and often, as our horses slowly pull their heavy burden up a rise in the road, and stop a moment to rest, a locust, perched on a tree by the road-side, begins his grating cry. In the meadows the cows stand under the trees, switching away the buzzing flies ; and the recently-cut grass breathes out its life in the soft perfume of new-mown hay. In the distance, the clouds have begun to gather on the tops of the mountains ; and, now and then, a long rumble of thunder reverberates through them, and comes rolling down into the valley. Here Mr. Fenn pauses to make his first sketch. Beside us, the little Kauterskill, wearied with its rough journey down from the heights yonder, winds among the trees that line its banks, placidly smihng in the sun. Half a dozen cows are standing in the stream to cool themselves. In front, the valley rolls gradually (about a thousand feet in I20 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. First Leap of the Falls. seven or eight miles) up to the base of the mountains, which rise in the distance Hke a wall. Round Top and High Peak are buried in a dark cloud, but the scarred head of the North Mountain is in full view, and the Mountain House is clearly defined against a background of pines. A ride of several hours across the fertile valley, climbing the ridges that lead like steps from the level of the river to the foot of the mountains, brings us at length to a toll-gate, from which we see the road straight before us, ascending steadily. We have now beofun to climb in earnest. This ex- cellent road takes advantage of a deep glen, or ravine, through which in the winter the melting snow finds its way into the valley. By clinging closely to the mountain — now creeping around a projecting rock ; now crossing the beds of little streams, which, in the midsum- mer heat, trickle down the mossy rocks beneath the overshadowing trees — it brings us, at last, nearly to the highest point of the ravine. On every side huge trees overhang the road. On the right, the mountain towers straight up above our heads ; on the left, the pre- cipice plunges headlong down among the scattered rocks. As you climb up this steep road, and see, here and there, great bowlders lying on the slope of the mountain, covered with moss and fern, and in the perpetual shade of the forest -trees that interlace their leafy arms above you — catching a glimpse, every now and then, through some CATSKILL FALLS. 122 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. opening in the tree-tops, of the valley, a thousand feet below, and the river glistening in the distance — you can hardly blame him who, seeking a scene for Irving's immortal story, wandered into the romantic beauties of this wild ravine, and called it " Rip Van Winkle's Glen." And, indeed, I am reminded of the legend ; for, as we stop to rest the horses at a point where the road crosses the bed of a stream, from which we can look at the gorge and see a triangular piece of the valley, set in the dark foliage on both hands like a picture in its frame, a sudden clap of thunder breaks on the peaks, and echoes among the cliffs above our heads, rolling off slowly, fainter and fainter, till it dies away. Here, by the side of a little stream, which trickles down the broad, flat surface of a large rock, is the shanty called " Rip Van Winkle's House," which is represented in Mr. Fenn's sketch. The artist is looking up the glen from a point on the left of the road. On the right, one may notice the corner of a house, built for a tavern some time ago, which serves for a resting-place and half-way house between the foot of the mountain and the hotel on the summit. From this point the glen grows narrower and steeper, until it is finally lost among the crevices on the cliffs of the mountain. The road now winds around the side of the North Mountain, creeping at times on the edge of the precipice, and steadily ascending. Mr. Fenn has sketched one of its most striking points of view. At a certain place it turns abruptly, and commences to climb in zigzags. At the first turn you suddenly see the Mountain House directly be- fore you, apparently at the distance of half a mile. Perched upon a piece of rock which juts out far over the side of the mountain, in the bright sunshine glistening and white against the pine-clad shoulders of the South Mountain, the pile of buildings forms a sin- gular feature of the view. On the left of" the picture you may notice the opening of the Kauterskill Clove, between the sloping side of the South Mountain and that of the more distant High Peak, and, above the clouds, which are floating, like bits of gauzy drapery, about the sides of the mountains, see the valley of the Hudson fading off toward the south. One feature of these views is strikingly shown in this sketch. The face of the cliffs is broken into ledges of rock, sharp and jagged, and often over- hanging the precipice for more than a thousand feet. From this point there is a steady climb of three miles, the last part through a narrow gorge shaded by drooping hemlocks, when you have at last reached the plateau on which the hotel stands. The Mountain House is built on a flat rock, on the very edge of the precipice. Beneath it the cliff falls almost perpendicularly about eighteen hundred feet. The view from the piazza is wonderful. Two or three trees, growing on the broken stones twenty or thirty feet below the level of the house, peep up above the rock in front ; and between their waving tops the landscape for miles lies spread out before you. The Indian Ridge, and the smafler ridges beneath you, though in some places as much as seven hundred feet in height, are dwarfed into nothingness ; and the hill-country, through which you have ridden from the river, looks like a flat and level UNDER THE CATSKILL FALLS. 124 PICTURESQUE AMERICA. plain. Through the centre of this, at a distance of eight miles, the Hudson winds along like a silver ribbon on a carpet of emerald, from the hills below Albany on the north to where, toward the south, its glittering stream disappears behind the Highlands at West Point. Directly beneath you, the fertile valley, dotted with farms, and broken here and there by patches of rich woodland, is smiling in the sunlight, constantly changing, as the waves of shadow chase each other across the varied mass of green. And, beyond, an amphitheatre of mountains rises on the horizon, stretching, in jagged lines, from the southern boundaries of Vermont to Litchfield, in Connecticut — rolling off, peak after peak, wave after wave of deepening blue, until they are lost in the purple of the Berkshire Hills. On the wide face of this extended landscape the atmosphere is con- stantly producing strange effects. In the morning, when the sun peeps above the distant hills, and the valley is filled with clouds that lie massed a thousand feet beneath you, the effect is that of an arctic sea of ice. At times, Righi himself affords no more wonderful sight than when the rosy light of sunset falls from behind the Catskills upon huge masses of cumulus clouds, heaped up upon one another like peaks of snow. Day by day, the scene is changing with the hours, and ever revealing some new beauty. Mr. Fenn's sketch of the view at sunrise (see steel engraving) was taken from a point on the face of the South Moun- tain, near the entrance to the Clove. The morning had just broken when we scrambled Pudding-Stone Hall. THE CATSKILLS. 125 over the edge of the chff down, a hundred feet or more, to a point where the rocks, broken off from the mountain, stood up hke huge monuments, towering out over the abyss below. As we sat upon a ledge, from which a pebble would have fallen perpendicularly more than five hundred feet, the sun rose up above the hills in Massachusetts, pouring a flood of light upon the western side of the val- ley. The eastern, from the river to the foot of the distant mountains, was still in shadow, filled with a mass of clouds, out of which the smaller hills peeped up like rocky islets in a frozen sea. Directly beneath us light, fleecy clouds, white as snow, came creeping out of the valley, throw- ing into bold relief the gnarled and twisted pines that clung to the rocks in front of us. Steadily the sun mounted into the heavens, and the clouds, gathering into a snowy curtain, and for a few moments obscur- ing all beneath, presently broke into pieces and melted away, and there lay the exquisite land- scape smiling in the sun- shine. The most famous beauty of the region is the Fall of the Kauterskill. On the high table-land of the South and North Mountains lie two lakes, buried in a dense forest. Of one of these, the South Lake, Mr. Fenn has given us a sketch. It was taken from a high ledge on the North Mountain, looking southward. The shores are dark with pines, and the surface of the lake is dotted here and there with the broad leaves of the water- lily, but the most striking feature of the view is the summit of Round Top reflected as Druid Rocks. 126 ■ PICTURESQUE AMERICA. . in a mirror. A little brook, making its way from these lakes, westward along the shoul- der of the mountain, soon reaches the edge of a very steep declivity, over which it leaps into a deep pool in the centre of a great amphitheatre of rock. Gathering its strength again, the torrent makes a second leap over huge bowlders, which have fallen from the ledges above and lie scattered down the glen, dashing itself into foam in its headlong fury. Tumbling from one ledge to another, it reaches, at length, the bottom of the glen, when, meeting the stream that flows from Haines's Fall, the mingled waters hurry down the stony pathway through the Clove, and out into the valley, until, swollen to a wide stream, they glide placidly into the Hudson at the village of Catskill. There is nothing more beautiful in American scenery than this water-fall as it leaps from the lofty height and dashes into spray in the hollow basin below. The strata of which the mountain is formed lie piled upon one another horizontally, and through them the water has cut its way smoothly like a knife. Some distance above •the margin of the pool, in which the fallen waters boil as in a caldron, there is a stratum of soft stone, which has broken up and crumbled in the dampness. Wearing away several yards deep into the cliffs, it has left a pathway all around the Fall, from which you have a fine view, and often, when the stream above is swollen, through a veil of glittering drops dripping from the rocks above. Exquisite as is the effect of the whole Fall, when seen from the rocks at the foot of its second leap, this last point of view is even more striking. Standing on the narrow pathway, you look through the great white veil of falling waters, leaping out over your head and sending up clouds of spray that float "^off down the gorge. Sometimes, when the sun is shining brightly, a dancing rainbow will keep pace with you as you creep around the semicircle beneath the rock. Here, too, you get an enchanting glimpse of the edges of the Clove, down which the stream goes headlong, and can mark the wild figures of the pines that cling to the verge of the cliffs, and seem, with their black spears, to pierce the sky. Upon the very edge of the precipice, close to the narrow channel through which the Fall makes his plunge, there is a tree which has grown out from a crevice, and then upward until it juts out over the abyss. To this solitary tree the lad who acts as your guide points with his finger, and tells you of the adventurous young woman who crept out to the rock, and, clasping the slender trunk of the tree with her hands, swung her body far out over the Fall, and then, with a cry of triumph, back again in safety. Beneath the second fall the gorge is wild in the extreme. On both sides the mountains rise almost perpendicularly, clad with a dense forest, and, through the shade beneath, the torrent roars, ceaselessly, among the rocks. One of the most beautiful walks is over the South Mountain. Immediately after leaving the House you plunge into a dense thicket of pines, and commence to climb a steep pathway among the rocks. The roots of trees, interlacing across the path, form a series of steps, and, here and there, a huge rock serves for a resting-place in the con- fi'ilBM; ,ii:niiTiliiii;"' u ;'.i'i^)Li',i'i)rsiS'j=,Ali i;'(:.i, |jyB_Appli!tmiX-Co uiflie 01Br,6 iifllij3Liliranaii.ufCmJrra»,*£alimJtou V/ UNHJ oli T'i-i.OM" fiOUTH MOUNTAIN, THE CATSKILLS. 127 stant ascent. In a few minutes you have reached the level of a stratum of conglom- erate of many feet in thickness, which lies across the top of this and the North Moun- tain. Some convulsion of Nature has riven off a piece of it, which now lies on the hill-side, many feet in thickness, and eighteen or twenty high. Between this and the solid rock is a passage several feet in length and two or three in width, to which some MlMSSii5^^ Looking South from South Mountain. one has given the name of " Pudding-Stone Hall." Ferns are growing in the dark re- cesses of the rock, and water drips constantly into the cavity. Your path leads through this chasm, and, by means of a pile of stones at the farther end, as shown in the sketch, you climb up to the top of the ledge of conglomerate. Here the trees are white and dead, having been killed by repeated fires, and the path winds among the rocks, half buried in long mountain-grass or blueberry-bushes, until it comes out to the 12^ PICTURESQUE AMERICA. Glimpse of Catskill Clove from Indian Head. eastern face of the mountain. You are, of course, high above the level of the Mountain House, which lies beneath you to the left, and the view over the surrounding country and the valley of the Hudson is even more extended than that from the piazza of the hotel. With a good glass you can distinguish a round object glittering on the summit of a hill on the north- ern horizon. It is the Capitol at Albany, forty miles off as the crow flies. Farther along, still keeping southward, and occasion- ally climbing up steep steps, you find the cliffs exceedingly fine. Some of them are sharply cut, and overhang the tops of the tallest trees that grow from the debris at their base. On a prom- ontory of high rock, near the entrance to the Kauterskill Clove, lies " the Bowlder," which is often the goal of walking-parties. It is a huge block of the pudding- stone brought here, doubtless, by the ice in the glacial period, and left by some strange chance on the very verge of the precipice. A few feet farther and it would have toppled over the edge and crashed downward two thousand feet into the bottom of the Clove. Mr. Fenn has sketched the Bowlder and the cliffs on top of which it lies. From his point of view you look south- THE CATSKILLS. 129 ward, across the mouth of the Clove, the great shoulder of High Peak and Round Top rising up abruptly beyond. Here, as in the sketch of the sunrise, the precipitous walls of rock hardly afford foothold for the weather - beaten pines that grow out of the crevices and wave their twisted arms from the dizzy heights. Some- times, after passing through Pudding-Stone Hall, you keep straight along the path through the woods instead of turning eastward toward the face of the mountain. After a time you come to a point where the bits of rock have fallen from the ledge above and lie scattered along the hill-side, like the bowlders hurled about in the giant warfare of the Titans. The wood is dense and dark : the pines interlacing their arms above your head throw a per- petual twilight on the hill-side, and, as you sit on the soft carpet of their fallen leaves, and see these huge fantastic rocks scattered around you, one cannot but feel that the name of " Druid Rocks," which has been given to the place, is at once suggestive and ap- propriate. At times the path keeps close along the sloping hill-side, finding a doubtful way beneath the base of tall cliffs Bridge in Catsl