56 HEART OF THE SOUTHERN CATSKILLS 



clinging to the edge of it as if reaching out to 

 their fellows to save them. We hesitated on 

 the brink, but finally cautiously began the 

 descent. The rock was quite naked and slip- 

 pery, and only on the margin of the slide were 

 there any bowlders to stay the foot or bushy 

 growths to aid the hand. As we paused, after 

 some minutes, to select our course, one of the 

 finest surprises of the trip awaited us: the fog 

 in our front was swiftly whirled up by the 

 breeze, like the drop-curtain at the theatre, only 

 much more rapidly, and in a twinkling the vast 

 gulf opened before us. It was so sudden as to 

 be almost bewildering. The world opened like 

 a book and there were the pictures; the spaces 

 were without a film, the forests and mountains 

 looked surprisingly near; in the heart of the 

 Northern Catskills a wild valley was seen 

 flooded with sunlight. Then the curtain ran 

 down again, and nothing was left but the gray 

 strip of rock to which we clung, plunging down 

 into the obscurity. Down and down we made 

 our way. Then the fog lifted again. It was 

 Jack and his bean-stalk renewed; new won- 

 ders, new views, awaited us every few moments, 

 till at last the whole valley below us stood in 

 the clear sunshine. We passed down a preci- 

 pice and there was a rill of water, the begin- 

 ning of the creek that wound through the val- 

 ley below; farther on, in a deep depression, 

 lay the remains of an old snow-bank ; winter 

 had made his last stand here, and April flowers 

 were springing up almost amid his very bones. 



