THE HEART OF THE SOUTHERN OATSKILLS 35 



Slide Mountain had been a summons and a chal- 

 lenge to me for many years. I had fished every 

 stream that it nourished, and had camped in the 

 ■wilderness on all sides of it, and whenever I had 

 caught a glimpse of its summit I had promised 

 myself to set foot there before another season had 

 passed. But the seasons came and went, and my 

 feet got no nimbler, and Slide Mountain no lower, 

 until finally, one July, seconded by an energetic 

 friend, we thought to bring Slide to terms by ap- 

 proaching him through the mountains on the east. 

 With a farmer's son for guide we struck in by way 

 of Weaver Hollow, and, after a long and desperate 

 climb, contented ourselves with the Wittenberg, in- 

 stead of Slide. The view from the Wittenberg is 

 in many respects more striking, as you are perched 

 immediately above a broader and more distant sweep 

 of country, and are only about two hundred feet 

 lower. You are here on the eastern brink of the 

 southern Catskills, and the earth falls away at your 

 feet and curves down through an immense stretch 

 of forest till it joins the plain of Shokan, and thence 

 sweeps away to the Hudson and beyond. Slide is 

 southwest of you, six or seven miles distant, but 

 is visible only when you climb into a treetop. I 

 climbed and saluted him, and promised to call next 

 time. 



We passed the night on the Wittenberg, sleeping 

 on the moss, between two decayed logs, with balsam 

 boughs thrust in^o the ground and meeting and form- 

 ing a canopy over us. In coming off the mountain 



