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IGNORANCE OF WHAT IS NEAR BY.

"Can I tie my horse to your fence, Ma'am ?" I asked of a barefooted old dame who came out at the sound of the wheels.

"You know best whether you know haow!" she said, looking sideways at my mustache with an evident doubt whether it was a proper thing for a woman to see.

"How far is it to the Falls?" I asked again.

"Ten mile."

"What, to the Sawkill Falls?"

66 Oh, them-are? No. I thought you meant the Shoholy Falls. What you mean, I 'spose, is just over the hill yonder.”

Across ploughed fields and through wild thickets of brush and wood, I made rather a doubting traverse, for I could hear no sound of falling water. I was about concluding that I had come up the wrong mountain, when I stumbled on a cow track, and knowing the hydropathic habits of the ruminating sisterhood, I was sure that one end or the other of the track, if a stream were near by, ended at its brink. My ear, presently, caught the roll of a low, heavy, suppressed thunder, (a deep-down sound, like the basso's, whose voice was in his boots,) and I felt at once rewarded for my pains-an anthem with an under-tone like that, being, of course, well worth the coming to hear. An increasing spray-moisture in the air, like a messenger sent out to bring me in, led me up an ascent to the right, and, with but a little more opposition by the invidious and exclusive birches and hemlocks, I "stood in the presence."

If you can imagine a cathedral floor sunk suddenly to the earth's centre-its walls and organ-pipes elongated with it, and its roof laid open to the sky-the platform on which I stood might be the pulpit left hanging against one of the columns whose bases were lost sight of in the darkness below; and the fall might repre

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sent the organ, directly in face of the pulpit, whose notes had been deepened in proportion to its downward elongation. From above, the water issues apparently out of the cleft-open side of a deep well in the mountain top, and at the bottom it disappears into a subterraneous passage apparently unexplorable, the hollow roar of which sounds like a still heavier fall, in the un-plummeted abysses out of sight. With what you can see of the depth, and what you can conjecture of the profundity by the abyssmal roar, you might fancy the earth's axis had gone through here perpendicularly, on a tunnel laid open by lightning, and that the river, like Paul Pry, had "just dropped in." Indeed, anything more like a mile of a river galvanized to stand suddenly on end, I

never saw.

With the aid of roots, overhanging branches, and ledges of rock, I descended to the basin of the fall, and, truly, the look upwards was a sight to remember. The glittering curve at the top of the cascade was like the upper round of Jacob's ladder resting against the sky-(the ascending and descending angels, of course, draped in muslin for the summer, like statuary protected from the flies)—and, so dark were the high walls around, that it seemed night where I stood, with the light coming only from one bright spot radiating downwards. I endeavored to penetrate the dark chasm from which comes the subterranean music, but it looked to be rather a doubtful experiment, and having no friend there" to write my obituary notice," I deferred the attempt till I could make it in some sort of company.

Congregation of waterfalls as Trenton is, and with much more water than here, there is no one part of Trenton, I think, equal in strangeness and sublimity to the single chasm of the Sawkill. The accidental advantages of view are most remarkable; and, though,

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from twenty points, it is a scene of the most picturesque singularity, yet as a view downwards-into darkness, grandeur and mystery-the one glance from its summit cliff seems to me wholly unsurpassed. The dim and cavernous gorge below the fall affords a rocky standing-place-the nearest approach that can very easily be made to the resounding abyss out of sight-where a contemplative man, fond of the shadowy dimness of the sublime, might fancy himself in mid-earth, a-top of the thunder forge of Vulcan. It is a very pretty contrast to all this, by-the-way, that the pool above, before making the grand plunge of the fall, glides up, most tranquilly, to bathe the foot of a delicate aspen-tree rooted upon a moss-covered tablet of rock-the abyss opening beneath it as it turns away, like the trap-door in the Eastern story, which let through the worshippers of the enchantress as they knelt to pay homage to her beauty. Immediately beyond this, in the cleft of rock through which the stream first appears, is a curiously correct profile likeness of General Cass-the nose a little out of joint perhaps, but the open mouth, prosperous double chin and one-sided toupee, true to the life. A curious effect struck me as I climbed up the side—a view of the sheet of the cascade, through a very sparse fringe of foliage-resembling the most exquisite embroidery of sprigs of hemlock upon lace.

From a man whom I met after finding the road again with some difficulty, I learned that the Sawkill river is but about six miles in its entire length. It is the outlet of two small lakes, five miles above the Falls, and runs a very smooth and common-place course till it comes to the mountain side which lets it down into the valley of the Delaware. I had followed it up, for a few rods of its undistinguished flow, through the fields above, and it cer

NO OBJECTION TO MONEY.

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tainly looked to have very little anticipation of what circum-precipices and tight places were about to do for it.

I had breakfasted on a cup of tea and no appetite, at half-past six, and, as it was now close upon noon, and my admiration had been largely drawn upon, I was a little hungry. Stopping at the first farm-house, I found an old woman toasting her bare toes before a pine-wood fire, (July 3d), and she readily set before me a loaf of new bread and a tumbler of spring water, of which I made such a meal as natural thankfulness says grace over. The old dame said she had a son that ". was first rate" and two daughters, and I recommended to her the "speculation” of adding a room or two to her house, and accommodating people who might come to see the Falls. As you may get here in six hours from New York, and the spot is one of the most romantic in the world, it cannot be long before there is some such provision for travellers. I dare say the barefoot old lady herself might be induced to turn a penny in this way, (though she shook her head at the first proposition,) for, on my asking her if she would allow me to pay for my bread and water, she modestly fumbled with the tongs and said I might leave what I liked upon the table.

In momentary expectation of the arrival of the train which will take me to another beautiful place farther West, I say good morning, dear Morris, and remain,

Yours, &c.

LETTER FROM MONTROSE.

Port Jervis-Takes Two or Three Yankees to Start a New Town-Punctual Anaconda-Difference between Rail-roads in America and in England— Fall from a Mountain-top-Summit Level and the Storucco-Road in the Air, Passing over a Village-Great Bend-Cold Ride to MontroseEdith May's Ownership of Silver Lake-Her "Bays" and Bay Horses— Rose's Villa in Ruins-Pic-nic Dinner in the Summer-House-Negro Precedence-Complimentary Kindness of my Landlord-Celibacy of the Susquehannah's "Intended," etc.

HAVING "boned and potted" the Falls of the Sawkill for you, my dear Morris, I found myself at Port Jervis, with an hour upon my hands, and went out to bestow my powers of absorption upon any who might be disposed to communicate. I learned that there are one or two pretty lakes in the mountains near by, where pickerel fishing "will pay," and trout-streams in all directions. Seeing the livery-stable keeper, of whom I had hired my horse. and wagon, peddling bread from a baker's cart about the village, I hailed him to enquire in which of these conflicting vocations he was properly at home-for I had seen him curry his horses and

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