Dome of tbe laconics. 37 



Catskills were immersed in a blue haze whose tremu- 

 lous lights hid all but the faintest outlines of those 

 romantic peaks ; while faint and far, a mere hint of a 

 range in the distance, we could make out the Shaw- 

 angunk Mountains, flanked on the east with the 

 Highlands of the Hudson. 



The impression left upon my mind after many 

 trips to this delightful summit is a strong feeling of 

 its resemblance to the Lake Country in England. 

 One has the same sense of wildness which has been 

 treated and reduced by man's care. There is the 

 same mingling of mountainside and farm-meadow. 

 If the American scene is lacking in the lakes, the 

 water glimpses which make the English one so fair, 

 it is superior in the splendid sweep of the land- 

 scape lines, and in the ample forests on these great 

 hill ranges. Bryant puts the double charm of these 

 Berkshire views in his lines : 



" Thou shalt gaze at once 

 Here on white villages and tilth and herds, 

 And swarming roads, and there on solitudes 

 That only hear the torrent, and the wind, 

 And eagle's shriek." 



But the declining sun warned us that we must 

 turn valleyward again ; and with reluctant feet, as 

 every lover of the heights must leave them, we 

 plunged into the gathering shadows of the woods. 

 We made quick time back to the beginning of the 

 laurel path. But when we turned this woodland 

 corner, a new idea possessed us. We knew we were 



