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difficult than it is. At the foot of the mountain lies the hand- 

 some village of Sunderland, with its long and straight street, 

 its white houses, its steepled church, its cultivated fields, its 

 rich gardens, its regular orchards, and its ornamental trees 

 everywhere interspersed, with here and there a laborer, a herd 

 of cattle, a team, a wagon, a chaise, reduced in the distance to 

 so miniature a size that they seem like children's toys, the 

 whole presenting a picture of exquisite beauty. The river is 

 seen winding its quiet way, sometimes hiding and at other 

 times disclosing its mirrored surface, through fields of the rich- 

 est cultivation and of eminent fertility. At the sun-setting, 

 the whole picture is lighted up with dazzling brilliancy. 

 The village and college at Amherst, with its glittering win- 

 dows and tower, is a fine object, and occupies a commanding 

 position. The town of Northampton, with its splendid emi- 

 nences crowned with rural palaces, delights the eye. Here 

 and there you see the spires of the village churches lifting their 

 proud tops among the tree?, and their vanes sparkling in the 

 sunbeams, appearing like so many stars. On the left, rises 

 Mount Toby, reposing in its grarjdeur, with many smaller 

 prominences, as it were its oflspring huddling around it, covered 

 with its rich maple forests, so thick and so even that it seems 

 as though you might walk upon them as upon a carpet, and, 

 when clothed in the variegated mantle of the decaying year, 

 exhibiting an unsurpassed gorgeousness and splendor. At the 

 east and south are the fine ranges of Mount Holyoke and 

 Mount Tom, bounding in that direction this magnificent val- 

 ley, and opening between themselves a narrow and guarded 

 passage for the exit of the Connecticut in its silent but steady 

 movement to the ocean. On the west are seen distant ranges 

 of green hills, in some cases cultivated to their summits, and 

 in others covered with their original forests. Here and there 

 is a solitary dwelling or a cluster of dwellings, the abodes 

 of laborious but healthful toil, of humble, peaceful, and happy 

 life. When on such a scene the glittering sun goes down, bright- 

 ening every summit with his radiance, pouring his shower of 



