FROM PHILADELPHIA 161 



lows, of which the best was at Bushkill. But the road 

 was for the most part good, and the grades gently 

 sloping. However, these hills and foothills are very 

 broken, cut irregularly by valleys in divers directions. 



Our quarters for the night were at Heller's, a lone- 

 some tavern at the foot of the Blue or Kittatinny 

 Mountain. Already a good many settlers, especially 

 Germans, have come to live here, in a narrow but 

 pleasant valley, and scattered as they are in the bush 

 one hardly knows they are there. It was a Sunday 

 and .we found assembled at the tap-house, (according 

 to the traditional German custom), a numerous com- 

 pany of German farmers of the neighborhood, who 

 were making good cheer with their cyder and cyder- 

 oil. Cyder-oil is a pretty strong drink ; it consists of 

 the combustible spirits of cyder, mixed again, in divers 

 proportions, with cyder of the best grade. 



The farmers were not very well content with their 

 lands. The nearness of the mountains brings them in 

 winter unpleasant visits from wolves and now and 

 then bears. And there is no lack of other sorts of 

 game ; deer and foxes are numerous ; elks * wander 

 hither at times. The turkey-cock is seen more fre- 

 quently here than nearer towards the coast. The 

 passage-dove (Columba migratoria) which appears 

 along the coast only in the spring and autumn, moving 



*From several descriptions furnished by people hereabouts, 

 it seems that they give the name Elk to the Moose as well as 

 to the Canadian Stag, + and so give rise to errors. Both ani- 

 mals come down from the North where the one is known as 

 Moose, Black Moose, or Original, and the other (the Cana- 

 dian stag) as Grey Moose, to distinguish it from the first. 



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