14 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



stage coachman would have stared aghast at the steep zigzags 

 up the hills, the awkward turns on the descents, the sudden 

 pitches, with now an unsafe bridge, and now a stony ford at the 

 bottom ; but through all this, the delicate quick finger, keen 

 eye, and cool head of Harry, assisted by the rare mouths of his 

 exquisitely bitted cattle, piloted us at the rate of full ten miles 

 the hour ; the scenery, through which the wild track ran, being 

 entirely of the most wild and savage character of woodland ; the 

 bottom filled with gigantic timber trees, cedar, and pine, and 

 hemlock, with a dense undergrowth of rhododendron, calmia, 

 and azalia, which, as my friend informed me, made the whole 

 mountains in the summer season one rich bed of bloom. About, 

 six miles from the point Where we had entered them we scaled 

 the highest ridge of the hills, by three almost precipitous zig- 

 zags, the topmost ledge paved by a stratum of broken shaley 

 limestone ; and, passing at once from the forest into well culti- 

 vated fields, came o a new and lovelier prospect a narrow 

 deep vale scarce a mile in breadth- scooped, as it were, out of 

 the mighty mountains which embosomed it on every side in 

 the highest state of culture, with rich orchards, and deep mead- 

 ows, and brown stubbles, whereon the shocks of maize stood 

 fair and frequent; and westward of the road, which, diving 

 down obliquely to the bottom, loses itself in the woods of the 

 opposite hill-side, and only becomes visible again when it 

 emerges to cross over the next summit the loveliest sheet of 

 water my eyes has ever seen, varying from half a mile to a mile 

 in breadth, and about five miles long, with shores indented 

 deeply with the capes and promontories of the wood-clothed 

 hills, which sink abruptl}' to its very margin. 



4i That is the Greenwood Lake, Frank, called by the monsters 

 here Long Pond ! 'the fiends receive their souls therefor/ as 

 Walter Scott says in my mind prettier than Lake George by 

 far, though known to few except chance sportsmen like myself! 

 Full of fish, perch of a pound in weight, and yellow bass in the 

 deep waters, and a good sprinkling of trout, towards this end 1 

 Ellis Ketchurn killed a five-pounder there this spring ! and 

 heaps of summer-duck, the loveliest in plumage of the genus, 

 and the best too, me judice, excepting only the inimitable can- 

 vass-back. There are a few deer, too, in the hills, though they 

 are getting scarce of late years, There, from that headland, I 

 killed one, three summers since ; I was placed at a stand by the 

 lake's edge, and the dogs drove him right down to me ; but I 



