little play upon the fears of our friend. We ex- | but an orthodox Syntax will indignantly scorn this erted ourself successfully to overturn a number of the largest stones around us, and then, joyfully announcing the success of our search, we pointed with an affected shudder to the freshly disturbed rocks. B turned pale with fright, and grasping us by the arm literally pulled us along the path. We intimated to him, pointing to our sketch-box, that with such a load it would be impossible for us to proceed so fast. Taking the hint, he added our burden to his own, and thus relieved us to the end of the journey. When he came to a "realizing sense" of the nature of the ruse played upon him, which we very triumphantly laid bare to his imagination, he vowed never again, under any circumstances whatever, to carry our box, and at the same time condemned us to a fine of a pitcher of the very best milk-punch which the borough of Palenville (our head-quarters at the time) would afford. On the opposite side of the hotel is another grand look-out which visitors delight in, under the programme of a jaunt to the South Mountain. It overlooks the clove of the Kauterskill, the finest chapter of the Catskill scenery, and which we shall read con amore, when we have sufficiently glanced at the Mountain House localities. The next pilgrimage which the tourist is expected to make is to the two charming lakelets, which, in their strange mountain bed, add so greatly to the interest of the surrounding points. Their waters supply the renowned Catskill Falls, which we shall reach in due order. An easy wagon passes the lakes at intervals throughout the day, on its way from the hotel to the cascades, vulgar mode of locomotion, and bless the man who first invented boots. A few minutes' walk will bring you to the margin of the Upper or Sylvan Lake, a view of which we add to the list of our pictorial memories. You may pass an hour or two delightfully in strolling upon the pleasant shores, or you may enter one of the skiff's which skim the waters, and mingle your voice in happy carol with the murmur of the breeze, which never fails to play with the bright image cast by tree and rock and sail on the pellucid bosom of the lake. When these more demonstrative expressions of pleasure, which the scene will always draw from the coldest hearts, are spent, you may give your thoughts to the poetic page, or to the dreams of the romancer, occasionally glancing at the fly which you have cast upon the water to lure the wary trout. In short, unless you can find here some or other source of pleasure, God pity you, unhappy man! The footpath to the Falls is another and much shorter one than the carriage way. It leaves the lakes to the right and traverses the forest. We did it for the first time by moonlight, after lingering too long in the shadows of the ravines below. The density of the leafage made the way very sombre. Late rains had left innumerable pools here and there, and our foot often sank into their treacherous depths, when we thought we were firmly stepping upon inviting bits of polished rock. Now we nearly lost our equilibrium, as like a drunken man we made a lofty step over some nothing, which, in the partial obscurity, appeared to be a considerable obstruction in the ment, from brandy-punch (in the quality of which you may place the extremest confidence of true love) to a cooling ice-cream or a draught of sparkling lemonade. At the same time you may relieve yourself still further by lightening your purse to the extent of a quarter, which the placards posted around will instruct you it is ex path. Now a dripping bough cooled our per- | pleasant sort of café, where you may strengthen spiring phiz with its saucy greetings, and then your physical man with any species of refreshour thoughtless heel crushed the head of some unsuspecting reptile. It was a lonely walk, and despite our romance, we were not a little relieved when we emerged from the wilderness upon the larger path which leads over the plain of the "Pine Orchard" to the Mountain House. The sight of that beautiful structure, in its wild insulation, and with its many illumined windows, ob-pected that gentlemen will pay to keep the stairs, scured only by the passings and repassings of gentle forms, was as grateful to our eye as was the sound of the distant music to our ear. the Falls, and the guides, in order. This assessment also rewards the Neptune of the spot-our venerated friend Peter Schutt, whom you must cultivate-for "letting off the water!" For, be it known unto you, that a dam is built above these Falls; by which ingenious means the stream, restrained from wasting its sweetness on the des Now for the Falls. Approaching from the Mountain House, you of course see them first from above. Before you commence the descent of the long flights of wooden steps which lead to the base of the cataracts, you enter a very ert air, is peddled out, wholesale and retail, at the tale of two and a half dimes a splash! Cooper | to shelf, first running this way and that way, says, in the "Pioneer," touching these cascades: striving to get out of the hollow, till it finally gets "The stream is, may be, such an one as would to the plain." turn a mill, if so useless a thing was wanted in the wilderness; but the hand that made that 'leap' never made a mill!" Alas! since Cooper's hero lived, the "wilderness" has "blossomed as the rose," and the once free torrent is now chained by the cold shackles of the spirit of gain. Happily, after being thus bound, it laughs with the greater glee when released; and, one will forget while he gazes, spell-bound, upon the world of spray, that, like the sunshine in his own heart, it will not always last. To continue our loan from the graphic picture in the Pioneer: "The water comes croaking and winding among the rocks, first so slow that a trout might swim in it, and then starting and running, like any creature that wanted to make a fair spring, till it gets to where the mountain divides like the cleft foot of a deer, leaving a deep hollow for the brook to tumble into. The first pitch is nigh two hundred feet; and the water looks like flakes of snow before it touches the bottom, and then gathers itself together again for a new start: and, may be, flutters over fifty feet of flat rock, before it falls for another hundred feet, when it jumps from shelf When you reach the base of the first Fall, your guide will perhaps conduct you over a narrow ledge behind the falling torrent, as at "Termination Rock" at Niagara. Then reaching the green sward on the opposite side of the stream, you may make a signal to Peter Schutt, who will be looking over the piazza of his café above, and if you have duly settled between you the telegraphic alphabet, in such case made and provided, he will attach a basket to the projecting pole, and incontinently there will descend sundry bottles of the very coolest Champagne of which the vineyards of France ever dreamed. You may then repose yourself half an hour or more upon the mossy couch aforesaid, imbibe Neptune's nectar, and when your quarter's worth of cascade is spent, you may remount the steps to the summit of the Fall, or may accompany us and the stream down the ravine to the great clove below. One moment, though, before we tumble through brush and brake, and over rock and rapid. On one occasion, while we were sketching the beauties of certain other cascades in the neighborhood called Little Falls, we were discovered by Peter Schutt, who accused us bitterly of forgetting our first love, and strictly forbade us, or any body, to "paint the Little Falls bigger than his!" Peter Schutt can bear no rival near the throne. The passage of the gorge we now traverse is replete with interest. Up and down we go for a varied mile, urging our way through the deep tangled wild wood, leaping from rock to rock across the brawling stream, contesting the track with prostrate trees, gazing reverently upward upon sullen cliffs, or far below into the deep chasms where the plunging waters lie inert for a moment after their unwonted toil. At the close of this brief but brilliant episode in our tour, we open upon the fine turnpike road which crosses the mountains through the clove of the Kauterskill. We shall perhaps explore this picturesque gorge more intelligently if we commence the jaunt at the mouth of the passage, where one or other of the little inns of Palenville will afford us a very tolerable if not luxurious bivouac. Very few of the thousands who annually visit the Mountain House ever explore this, the most charming part of the Catskills. The village of Palenville, apart from its location, is a hamlet of the most shabby sort. It barely supports one illfurnished store, two primitive way-side taverns, a Methodist chapel, a school, a post-office, and a small woolen factory. With the exception of such gentry as the blacksmith, the wagon-maker, the cobbler, and the tailor, the inhabitants employ themselves in the factory, in neighboring sawmills, tanneries, and in the transportation of lumber and leather to the river landings. In the vicinity are a few of the better class of homesteads and small farms. The situation of Palenville, at the portals of the hills, gives you an equal and ready access to the great valley on one side, and to the mountain solitudes on the other. Eastward from the hamlet, half a mile is a most lovable cascade, too much neglected by the few travelers who come to the clove. A minute's walk through a dense copse will bring you to an unexceptionable point of observation. Seated upon a mossgrown rock, and shaded by the "sloping eaves" of giant hemlocks, you "muse on flood and fell." At your feet lies the deep basin of dark waters, the clustering foliage toying with their busy bubbles. The cascade and its accompanying rockledges fills the middle ground, exposing beyond the entire stretch of the southern line of hill, until it is lost in the golden haze of the setting sun. At this evening hour, too, the sunlight kisses only. the tops of the trees and shrubs, and glimmers upon the upper edge alone of the falling water. A little way below and this picture occurs again, in a scarcely less pleasing form. Still further eastward are other smaller yet exceedingly agreeable glimpses of cascade and copse. The greater beauties, however, lie west of the village, and along the bed of the torrent, rather than on the frequented path. You must make a thousand détours to properly explore the varying course of the brook which dashes and leaps through this magnificent pass. You must risk your neck now and then in descending to the arcana of a ghostly glen far below the roadside, and anon you must struggle manfully to pull your aching limbs back again. After the passage of a mile and a half you cross the creek on a wooden bridge, rickety and insecure enough for all the requisitions of the | and unusua! noise. Remembering that the much picturesque, at the favorite point of " High Rocks." Beneath this bridge is a fall of great extent and beauty. To see it to advantage, you must hunt up the footpath, which will lead you to the edge of the water on the opposite bank, where a good granite lounge looks the roystering spray full in the face. dreaded snake moves more silently, we ascribed the fracas to the passage of stray cattle, or to the noisy amours of the winds, and resumed our meditations. Again were we startled, and this time, with a consciousness of some extraordinary presence; when looking up, we caught the wondering eye of a remarkable old denizen of Palen picture, ""Tis most onaccountable!" This is a favorite expression of the good old man's. "Is that you, Uncle Joe!" we exclaimed, much relieved, "we took you for a bear!" Beyond this point the highway offers very lit-ville, and heard him ejaculate, as he stared at our tle of interest, excepting in the general vistas of the ravine, up and down, as you ascend the ridge. The waters may, however, still be followed two or three hundred yards, to the base of another fall, not less noticeable, though of totally opposite character to that which you have just left. This is known to all habitués of the clove as the DogHole. It is a perpendicular leap of some sixty feet. The stream here, extremely narrowed by the rocky banks, rushes over an immense concave ledge, into a caldron from which a fish could scarcely emerge. We were once passing the day here sketching; undisturbed, save by the music of the waters, and the melody of birds; when, as we finished our drawing and were examining it with inward satisfaction, we were suddenly startled by a near "O no!" said he, "there ain't many bears in these parts now, and they never disturb a body. When they hear a man coming, they always bear away! he, he, he! 'Tis most onaccountable!" Uncle Joe looks out and observes the clouds gathering or rolling away, and each circumstance strikes him as most unaccountable; in the long winter evenings he loses at dominoes in the sitting-room of the village inn, and in his peculiar nasal utterance still thinks it "most onaccountable!" He once undertook to pilot us over a short cut to the Mountain House, when he completely lost his way, yet found every consolation |