which gives, at least, room for suggestion. The first guest at this, his new hotel, was the great soldier who is now at the head of our army, General Scott: and his singularly gifted family are here, the guests for the summer. Besides the General's identification with all that belongs to the army, Mrs. Scott, as you know, is the admired and counselling Egeria of the youthful sword and epaulette-with the cadets of West Point, as with the officers of the army, a Queen elect of deference and devotion. In all tribute to her husband's glory, she is of course a sharer; but her influence at the Point, makes it fitter for her sharing, if offered to him here. There chances to be a fine bold word, which, notwithstanding General Scott's greater achievements since, is a synonyme for his name on his country's lip-Chippewa. To call this palace of a house, with its beautiful associations and surroundings, THE CHIPPEWA, Would therefore, it seems to me, express all which, by this last array of reasons at least, is demanded in a name.

I thought, when I began, that I should dispose of this part of my letter in a paragraph-but "what's in a name is sometimes a pregnant question. In discussing the word for my date, however, I have outlined, pretty fairly, the scenery which was to be the theme of my letter, and with a touch or two of the pencil upon slighted points, I shall give you a sufficiently completed picture.

The knowledge of comfort, which Mr. Cozzens has gained by long experience as "mine host," has been successfully brought into play in the structure of this hotel. It is full of conveniences and luxuries, and even the fastidious would be puzzled to name a want unprovided for. The show portion

of the house-a secondary consideration, of course—is only a little too splendid for my taste in the country. The costly carpets, rosewood and marble tables, satin furniture and profusion of the largest mirrors and elaborate gilding, make of it a palace that might be appropriate enough for Queen Victoria, but which was scarce needed here. Even if, (as is likely enough,) it was Mr. Cozzens's sagacious guess at what would attract republican custom, I should have liked to see a house which was sure to be the perfection of comfort, setting an example of simplicity in its ornament. Of the exterior no one could complain, the model of the building being most proportionate and imposing, and the portico, or covered

FANNY KEMBLE'S BATH.

75

ambulatory encircling the lower story, being singularly elegant. Thinking, of course, that Mr. Cozzens had been indebted to a very clever architect for his plan and the proportions of his rooms, I inquired, and found the designs to be his own.

The views, up and down the Hudson, from the terrace lawn and the bold bluff a few steps beyond, are the perfection of picturesque scenery; and, from this same bluff, within a stone's throw of the colonnade, you look down upon what is profaned by the name of Buttermilk Falls-a lace veil over the face of an else bare precipice of a hundred feet. The whole descent is broken into two cascades, by the way; and, from the bluff, they look like the backs of two river-gods, climbing up the mountain with their white hair streaming behind them.

With the three ladies who formed my party from New York, and an English friend and his companion, whom I met yesterday, to my most agreeable surprise, at the foot of the Falls, I paid a visit to the glen on the opposite side of the river, known now by the name of "Fanny Kemble's Bath." "Indian Falls," as it was formerly called, was a frequent resort of the energetic lecturess when residing at West Point and pulling about the river in a skiff; and, as those were days when it was comparatively unknown, she had its shaded rocks and waters uninterruptedly to herself. It is a spot from which the sky is almost shut out-three sides of rocks and leaves and one side of waterfall closing it in—and the prettiest place conceivable to pic-nic in, and pass the day. Mr. Cozzens took us over in his boat, and "posted us up,' with his never-failing vivacity and agreeableness, in its legends of the old time and love-stories of the new.

Bless me, what a delicious month June is! The world today seems quite new-no remembrances of last year's June having in the least anticipated or dulled its complete novelty of freshness. I am inclined to think, dear Morris, that the wheel of our weather, in the course of its annual revolution, dips into the climate of heaven, and that the intersection takes place in June. What warmer world it passes on and intersects later-say in mid-August-is slightly indicated, perhaps, by the expressions with which the profane accost each other in that season- but, either to find heaven in June, or escape the resemblance of New York to "the other place

in August, I should name this Hotel of many charms as the best possible resort. For his skill in the art of life, pleasant companionship included, its enterprising master is well entitled to a diploma.

My next excursion will be to a beautiful spot I hear of, but have not seen, upon the Erie Railroad, and, meantime, adieu.

LETTER FROM GREENWOOD LAKE.

A VAGUE rumor of a new place of summer resort, of which we could find no advertisement, nor get any definite description, tempted us to slip from our editorial harness, last week, and take a sniff of fresh air and discovery. That there was a "Greenwood Lake," somewhere between Orange and Rockland counties-somewhere between Goshen and Newburgthat a hotel had lately been opened on its shore for summer custom, and that it was to be reached by the milk-and-butter avenue of Chester Valley, was all that "general information" could furnish, as to its whereabout and accommodations. Just at this time, conversation runs mainly on these places of resort, and we presume, therefore, that some more definite description will be of interest to our readers.

To begin with what you might else skip to find :-Greenwood Lake is sixty-five miles distant from New York, and the cost of reaching Chester, ten miles from it, is one dollar and five cents, by the Erie Railroad. By the train, whose passengers leave New York in the "Thomas Powell," (foot of Duane-st.,) at five P. M., you arrive at Chester at nine in the evening. An open wagon takes you hence to the Lake in an hour and a half, or two hours, price one dollar-road rather rough and wagon-springs altogether unmerciful-and a large and showy hotel receives you on the edge of the water. Thus much for statistics, à la Guide Book.

The "Thomas Powell" did the twenty miles to Piermont, as usual, in an hour and a quarter, and-apropos-as she returns the same evening by half-past nine, and serves an admirable supper on board, what more delightful excursion could there be than this her daily trip? She remains at Piermont two hours, and, Irving's residence being on the opposite bank of the river, and a ferry across just established,

GREENWOOD LAKE.

77

a look at Sunny-side and Sleepy Hollow might be included in the evening's pleasure.

to

[Let us insert, here, a suggestion to omnibus proprietors. Considering the crowds of passengers landing continually from the ferries and steamers, why would it not "pay' run a line along the water-side, from the Battery to Canalstreet, and so up to Broadway? At present, the gauntlet of insolent drivers that one has to run, to get ashore, and the alternative, at your own door, between an imposition or a quarrel with hack drivers, are the disagreeable accompaniments of arrival; and vex strangers, while they deter many citizens from making excursions at all. Giving his ticket to a systemized company for delivering baggage, the passenger might then take the omnibus, and the mere possibility of this escape from their extortions, would make drivers both more civil and more honest.]

Of the rail-road track of unparalleled beauty of scenery, between Piermont and Chester, we shall have more to say, when we have rambled on foot, as we mean to do this summer, all over the miniature Switzerland threaded by the Ramapo river. Let the lover of the beautiful, (without contenting himself with a look from one window, and at one side, only,) place himself at the end of the last car, and, riding backwards, watch his path as he speeds along. It is a rapid succession of exquisite surprises for the eye, each one of the thousands of which would be a picture well worth preserving. The hint is enough, for those who have the taste to care for what is lovely.

Greenwood Lake Hotel has the usual mistakes of taste which such places invariably have, in our country-too much white paint, portico, parlor, piano, and pretension, and too little of what the needless excess in such ostentation would easily have bought. As the house and its appurtenances are at present arranged, there is a want of refinement which would alone prevent any delicate person from staying there at all. But the capabilities of the location are great. The Lake is nine miles in length, and spreads away in a vast oblong mirror to the West, the high hills which frame it are of fresh green forest, and the shape of the valley in which it lies, is such, that the Hotel lies in a tunnel for the wind, and there is always a breeze in summer. With singular dulness to taste and convenience, the proprietor has set his house at a long distance

from any shade, and the visitors who should go out when the sun were high, would be broiled before they could get to the woods. This makes the place uninhabitable for children. The one negro waiter, who had a ludicrous habit of concluding every sentence he uttered with "and so forth," betrayed the effect of this want of shade, in his account of the habits of the house, given to us at our solitary breakfast.

66

How do the people amuse themselves here?" we asked. "In the morning,' he said, " the ladies ride a-horseback, etc. In the evening, they walk, and go out sailing, etc." "And what do they do during the day?" we inquired, hoping to hear of some excursion to waterfall, or wood, or glen, or some other escape from paint and whitewash.

66

'Oh, in the day-time, Sir, the ladies don't do nothing, except lay pretty still, etc."

When will the builders of new summer resorts learn that good mattresses and linen sheets are more attractive than columns and porticoes, and that the close neighborhood of woods is indispensable? When will they civilize to decency in the construction of the house, and trust less exclusively to the showiness of the parlor furniture, for in-door attraction? With half what this hotel has cost, a house on Greenwood Lake might have been one of the most desirable places of resort in the country. As it is, we should suppose no person who had any idea of comfort would stay there a day. Yours, &c.

LETTER FROM RAMAPO.

Ramapo Valley, (Erie Railroad.) July 2.

DEAR MORRIS:-" Far enough away for a letter measurement essentially altered, of late, by railroad and telegraph. Though forty or fifty miles from you, it seems almost absurd to write, when I could go to you in an hour and a half. "Away from home" is a comparative thing, after all -since a tortoise would measure it at twenty feet, and a bird at twenty miles. An advertisement, in a New York paper, of a country seat in this vicinity," formerly meant a place within five miles. As about one hour distant was thus implied, and you may now go thirty miles in the same hour, "this vicinity" is a phrase of six times as much meaning.

66

The