CHAPTER LVI 



THE CARDIFF GIANT: A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF 

 HUMAN FOLLY 1869-1870 



THE traveler from New York to Niagara by the north 

 ern route is generally disappointed in the second 

 half of his journey. During the earlier hours of the day, 

 moving rapidly up the valleys, first of the Hudson and 

 next of the Mohawk, he passes through a succession of 

 landscapes striking or pleasing, and of places interesting 

 from their relations to the French and Revolutionary 

 wars. But, arriving at the middle point of his journey, 

 the head waters of the Mohawk, a disenchantment be 

 gins. Thenceforward he passes through a country tame, 

 monotonous, and with cities and villages as uninterest 

 ing in their appearance as in their names ; the latter be 

 ing taken, apparently without rhyme or reason, from the 

 classical dictionary or the school geography. 



And yet, during all that second half of his excursion, 

 he is passing almost within musket-shot of one of the 

 most beautiful regions of the Northern States, the lake 

 country of central and western New York. 



It is made up of a succession of valleys running from 

 south to north, and lying generally side by side, each 

 with a beauty of its own. Some, like the Oneida and the 

 Genesee, are broad expanses under thorough cultivation ; 

 others, like the Cayuga and Seneca, show sheets of water 

 long and wide, their shores sometimes indented with 

 glens and gorges, and sometimes rising with pleasant 

 slopes to the wooded hills; in others still, as the Caze- 

 novia, Skaneateles, Owasco, Keuka, and Canandaigua, 



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