VI 



THE HEART 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 Adirondacks or the White Mountains. But 

 the lowered head never comes up ; some spell or 

 enchantment keeps it down there amid the mighty 

 herd; and the high round shoulders and the smooth 

 strong back of the steed are alone visible. The 

 peak to which I refer is Slide Mountain, the high- 

 est of the Catskills by some two hundred feet, and 

 probably the most inaccessible; certainly the hard- 

 est to get a view of, it is hedged about so completely 

 by other peaks, the greatest mountain of them 

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