went to bed on the banks of the Delaware-with as little fatigue as one would feel sitting at table, for the same length of time, over cigars and coffee. Please realize, dear General, that, any hot day, with a prospect of a sultry night in the city, you may leave by the Erie route at five in the afternoon, glide a hundred miles in a stuffed easy chair, go to bed early on the other side of the mountains, at Port Jervis, and be again in the city the next morning at eleven; the perfection of scenery and fresh air, going, staying, and returning.

As I looked at the full moon over this beautiful river, last night, I took a vow not to let familiarity breed contempt," of these charming opportunities newly wedded to my enjoyment -no, not " 'till death us do part." I may mention, by the way, that the city, as I left it, gave me a strong contrast as a preparative to enjoyment of life— -one line of funerals threading Broadway from Waverly Place to the Park, and the carriage in which I drove passing seven hearses in that distance. It took many a mile of the animated and bright scenery of the Hudson to displace the melancholy spectacle from my thoughts.

Prevented, by my departure yesterday afternoon, from seeing Father Mathew welcomed to this side the water (though the band of music going to meet him played in a gap between two of the funerals just alluded to), I determined to honor him in a symbol; and was up this morning at four to receive the sun, a minister of healthful influences like His Reverence, and, like him, "newly arrived from Europe," and entering with glowing and universal welcome on a path of blessing to the west. Did you ever see the sun rise, my dear Morris? One blushes to think that the same magnificent affair takes place every common morning, and scarce twice in a life-time does one trouble himself to be "there to see." Alas! of the feast which God sets out for us, daily, how much of the choicest and sweetest goes from the table untouched!

My purpose, on this excursion, was to see the Falls of the Sawkill; and I was on my way thither in a one-horse wagon, while the tears of the dark hours were still trembling on the eye-lashes of the trees. (How sentimental the country makes one, to be sure!) I was ferried over the river, at starting, by a Delaware raftsman; and he was such a clean-limbed, lithe, small-hipped and broad-shouldered rascal, in his shirt and trousers, that I could not forbear telling him what a build for

DRIVE TO MILFORD.

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a soldier was thrown away upon him. His reply expressed one of the first principles of Art in masculine symmetry-the "inverted pyramid" rule as to outline of proportions—and I therefore give it to you in the rough:-" Not much starn," said he, as he shoved away at his pole, "but I've allers noticed that chaps heaviest about the shoulders does the most work."

My pretty gray pony favoured his fore-foot a little as he climbed up the opposite bank of the river, but my weight (a hundred and fifty pounds and a heart as light as dignity would allow), was not much to draw, and he took me to Milford very willingly in an hour-the road taking the Delaware where the Erie route leaves it, and keeping along the west bank, six miles, to the mouth of the Sawkill. Milford looks like a town that all the mountains around have disowned and kicked into the middle-a bare, neglected-looking and unshaded village in the centre of a plain, with no sign of life except the usual tilters on two legs of chairs under the stoups of the taverns. The rail-road, I suppose, has passed just near enough to tap and draw off its "prospects," and the inhabitants feel too much stranded and aground to keep up any appearance of being still under

way.

From a man who was ploughing in a field, I got a vague direction to "the Falls," which he seemed to think were very little worth going to see. Yet he looked like an intelligent man, and he had, at least, imagination enough to personify a production of nature, for, in reply to a remark of mine, he said, "Yes, the season is back'ard and the oats don't like it." Pursuing my way to "some'ers over that-ar gap, "I came to the last visible house on the road, and alighted to leave my pony and strike across the fields.

"Can I tie my horse to your fence, Ma'am?" I asked of a barefooted old dame who came out at the sound of the wheels. "You know best whether you know haow!" she said, looking sideways at my mustache with an evident doubt whether it was a proper thing for a woman to see.

"How far is it to the Falls?" I asked again.

"Ten mile."

"What, to the Sawkill Falls ?"

“Oh, them-are? No. I thought you meant the Shoholy Falls. What you mean, I 'spose, is just over the hill yonder." Across ploughed fields and through wild thickets of brush

and wood, I made rather a doubting traverse, for I could hear no sound of falling water. I was about concluding that I had come up the wrong mountain, when I stumbled on a cowtrack, and knowing the hydropathic habits of the ruminating sisterhood, I was sure that one end or the other of the track, if a stream were near by, ended at its brink. My ear, presently, caught the roll of a low, heavy, suppressed thunder, (a deep-down sound, like the basso's, whose voice was in his boots,) and I felt at once rewarded for my pains—an anthem with an under-tone like that, being, of course, well worth the coming to hear. An increasing spray-moisture in the air, like a messenger sent out to bring me in, led me up an ascent to the right, and, with but a little more opposition by the invidious and exclusive birches and hemlocks, I “stood in the presence."

If you can imagine a cathedral floor sunk suddenly to the earth's centre-its walls and organ-pipes elongated with it, and its roof laid open to the sky-the platform on which I stood might be the pulpit left hanging against one of the columns whose bases were lost sight of in the darkness below; and the fall might represent the organ, directly in face of the pulpit, whose notes had been deepened in proportion to its downward elongation. From above, the water issues apparently out of the cleft-open side of a deep well in the mountain top, and at the bottom it disappears into a subterraneous passage apparently unexplorable, the hollow roar of which sounds like a still heavier fall, in the un-plummeted abysses out of sight. With what you can see of the depth, and what you can conjecture of the profundity by the abyssmal roar, you might fancy the earth's axis had gone through here perpendicularly, on a tunnel laid open by lightning, and that the river, like Paul Pry, had "just dropped in." Indeed, any

thing more like a mile of a river galvanized to stand suddenly on end, I never saw.

With the aid of roots, overhanging branches, and ledges of rock, I descended to the basin of the fall, and, truly, the look upwards was a sight to remember. The glittering curve at the top of the cascade was like the upper round of Jacob's ladder resting against the sky-(the ascending and descending angels, of course, draped in muslin for the summer, like statuary protected from the flies)—and, so dark were the high walls around, that it seemed night where I stood, with the

SUDDENNESS OF DESCENT.

57

light coming only from one bright spot radiating downwards. I endeavoured to penetrate the dark chasm from which comes the subterranean music, but it looked to be rather a doubtful experiment, and having no friend there "to write my obituary notice," I deferred the attempt till I could make it in some sort of company.

Congregation of waterfalls as Trenton is, and with much more water than here, there is no one part of Trenton, I think, equal in strangeness and sublimity to the single chasm of the Sawkill. The accidental advantages of view are most remarkable; and though, from twenty points, it is a scene of the most picturesque singularity, yet as a view downwards— into darkness, grandeur, and mystery-the one glance from its summit cliff seems to me wholly unsurpassed. The dim and cavernous gorge below the fall affords a rocky standingplace the nearest approach that can very easily be made to the resounding abyss out of sight-where a contemplative man, fond of the shadowy dimness of the sublime, might fancy himself in mid-earth, a-top of the thunder forge of Vulcan. It is a very pretty contrast to all this, by-the-way, that the pool above, before making the grand plunge of the fall, glides up, most tranquilly, to bathe the foot of a delicate aspen-tree rooted upon a moss-covered tablet of rock-the abyss opening beneath it as it turns away, like the trap-door in the Eastern story, which let through the worshippers of the enchantress as they knelt to pay homage to her beauty. Immediately beyond this, in the cleft of rock through which the stream first appears, is a curiously correct profile likeness of General Cass-the nose a little out of joint perhaps, but the open mouth, prosperous double chin and one-sided toupee, true to the life. A curious effect struck me as I climbed up the side-a view of the sheet of the cascade, through a very sparse fringe of foliage-resembling the most exquisite embroidery of sprigs of hemlock upon lace.

From a man whom I met after finding the road again with some difficulty, I learned that the Sawkill river is but about six miles in its entire length. It is the outlet of two small lakes, five miles above the Falls, and runs a very smooth and common-place course till it comes to the mountain side which lets it down into the valley of the Delaware. I had followed it up, for a few rods of its undistinguished flow, through the fields above, and it certainly looked to have very little antici

pation of what circum-precipices and tight places were about to do for it.

I had breakfasted on a cup of tea and no appetite, at halfpast six, and, as it was now close upon noon, and my admiration had been largely drawn upon, I was a little hungry. Stopping at the first farm-house, I found an old woman toasting her bare toes before a pine-wood fire, (July 3d), and she readily set before me a loaf of new bread and a tumbler of spring water, of which I made such a meal as natural thankfulness says grace over. The old dame said she had a son that ". was first rate" and two daughters, and I recommended to her the "speculation" of adding a room or two to her house, and accommodating people who might come to see the Falls. you may get here in six hours from New York, and the spot is one of the most romantic in the world, it cannot be long before there is some such provision for travellers. I dare say the barefoot old lady herself might be induced to turn a penny in this way, (though she shook her head at the first proposition,) for, on my asking her if she would allow me to pay for my bread and water, she modestly fumbled with the tongs and said I might leave what I liked upon the table.

As

In momentary expectation of the arrival of the train which will take me to another beautiful place farther West, I say good morning, dear Morris, and remain, Yours, &c.

LETTER FROM MONTROSE.

Port Jervis Takes Two or Three Yankees to Start a New TownPunctual Anaconda-Difference between Railroads in America and in England-Fall from a Mountain-top-Summit Level and the Storucoo-Road in the Air, Passing over a Village-Great BendCold Ride to Montrose-Edith May's Ownership of Silver Lake— Her " Bays" and Bay Horses- Rose's Villa in Ruins-Pic-nic Dinner in the Summer-house-Negro Precedence-Complimentary Kindness of my Landlord- Celibacy of the Susquehannah's "Intended," etc.

HAVING "boned and potted" the Falls of the Sawkill for you, my dear Morris, I found myself at Port Jervis, with an hour upon my hands, and went out to bestow my powers of absorption upon any who might be disposed to communicate. I learned that there are one or two pretty lakes in the moun