THE HEAET OF THE SOUTHERN 

 CATSKILLS 



On looking at the Southern and more distant 

 Catskills from the Hudson River on the east, 

 or on looking at them from the west, from some 

 point of vantage in Delaware County, you see, 

 amid the group of mountains, one that looks 

 like the back and shoulders of a gigantic horse. 

 The horse has got his head down grazing; the 

 shoulders are high, and the descent from them 

 down his neck very steep ; if he were to lift up 

 his head, one sees that it would be carried far 

 above all other peaks, and that the noble beast 

 might gaze straight to his peers in the Adiron- 

 dacks or the Wliite Mountains. But the head 

 and neck never come up ; some spell or enchant- 

 ment keeps it down there amid the mighty 

 herd, and the high round shoulders and the 

 smooth strong back of the steed are alone visi- 

 ble. The peak to which I refer is Slide Moun- 

 tain, the highest of the Catskills by some two 

 hundred feet, and probably the most inaccessi- 

 ble; certainly the hardest to get a view of, it 

 is hedged about so completely by other peaks. 

 The greatest mountain of them all, and appar- 

 ently the least willing to be seen; only at a 

 distance of thirty or forty miles is it seen to 



